The Pomona City Council is hoping to find extra resources to help prosecute wage theft cases after a local workers' rights group said day laborers have been threatened with deportation after finishing a job. 

"Pay people what you owe them," Councilwoman Nora Garcia said. "It's quite that simple."

Alexis Teodoro, the worker rights director at the Pomona Day Labor Center, said wage theft cases have skyrocketed in recent weeks. Since the immigration operation outside a Pomona Home Depot on April 22, the center has identified 30 instances where day laborers are owed money for their work, more than double the typical number seen during the same time period, according to Teodoro.

"They finish their shift, and at the end, they don't pay them," Teodoro said. "When they exert their rights to get paid, which is their right under the California Labor Code, employers threaten them with calling immigration."

In California, day laborers fall under the category of "casual labor," which typically classifies "workers hired for an hour, a day, a week or part time" as an employee, according to the California Employment Development Department. They could be paid "cash, check, meals, lodging, products or services, and the reasonable cash value of all pay in any form other than cash," according to the EDD.

"You have rights," Teodoro said. "No matter your skin color, where you were born, what language you speak. In this country, especially in California, if you work an hour, it must be paid."