Three recent immigrants who worked at the popular San Leandro restaurant Joe’s Pho say they toiled for long days in “appalling” conditions and were wrongfully evicted by their boss after quitting their jobs.
Moises Sanchez-Cordero, Jose Lopez-Munoz, and Jorge Luis Arellano are now suing restaurant owner Tram Nguyen, who was also their landlord, accusing her of wrongfully evicting them and failing to pay minimum wage and overtime.
The men say they were renting a shared room in a San Leandro home owned by Nguyen, splitting the $1,200-a-month rent. But in September, video they captured on their cell phones shows Nguyen and another man stuffing their belongings into trash bags and piling them up on the curb despite protests from the men.
“The law in California says that we have the right to stay because we paid this month,” one of the men tells Nguyen in the video. “We paid, I already paid her.”
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Nguyen can be heard in the video calling the men “illegal” several times, an apparent reference to their immigration status, the men say.
Before the eviction, the men allege in their lawsuit that Nguyen put cameras in the house so she could keep tabs on them, and that she and her husband would sometimes yell at them through the camera’s speaker.
The men are undocumented, coming here from Nicaragua and Mexico to escape violence and provide for their families, they say.
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But instead, they told NBC Bay Area they found themselves being taken advantage of at every turn.
“I would wake up at 8 a.m., get to work at 9 a.m., and leave work around 10:30 p.m.,” Lopez-Munoz said.
The men say Nguyen deducted the rent from their paychecks each month, until things went south at the restaurant and Sanchez and Lopez quit their jobs.
“My body couldn’t resist it anymore,” Sanchez-Cordero said. “I got to a point where my body collapsed, and I told her I wasn’t feeling well, and I left. The next day, she told me I couldn’t get sick anymore.”
They also accuse Nguyen in the lawsuit of wage theft.
“I would work 13 hours and [my paycheck] would only reflect eight hours,” Lopez-Munoz said.
They allege she still hasn’t paid them for dozens of hours they worked at the restaurant.
“I told her I needed the money because my family needed to eat,” Arellano said. “I was tired of telling my kids to wait until tomorrow, wait until tomorrow.”
If true, California Deputy Labor Commissioner Yeimi Michael said the allegations amount to wage theft.
“We would urge every worker that’s in that situation to file a wage claim,” said Michael, who couldn’t comment on the specifics of the case.
So far, the men say they haven’t filed such a claim. Michael said immigration status should never be a deterrent for anyone to report potential abuse to authorities.
“It doesn’t matter where you were born or whether you have paperwork,” Michael said. “The labor commissioner’s office will never ask you about your immigration status or report your immigration status to other government agencies.”
NBC Bay Area has been attempting to contact Nguyen for weeks, but so far, she’s declined to comment on her former employees’ accusations. She hung up when NBC Area reached her by phone and never responded to a message left in person with a manager at her restaurant.
In a recent court filing, however, Nguyen denied any wrongdoing.
As of earlier this week, the men were still living in the home.
The men called San Leandro police as Nguyen attempted evicting them back in September and the responding officer told her she couldn’t kick the men out without a court order
“She was advised it was illegal to evict her tenants without proper documentation,” the responding officer wrote in his report, and the men were allowed back inside the house.
According to California Attorney General Rob Bonta, these types of “lockout” or “self-help” evictions have been on the rise.
“It raised our concern that this was an issue that was happening not just in isolation or in a single incident, but unfortunately more regularly and consistently throughout the state,” Bonta said. “We will get involved whenever necessary to ensure that tenants are being treated lawfully and that their rights are not being violated.”
The trend prompted his office to send guidance this summer to law enforcement agencies across the state, telling them they have a duty to prevent illegal evictions.
“A landlord can never just go into where you’re staying and take your stuff and throw it on the street,” said Leah Simon-Weisberg, legal director at the ACCE Institute, a non-profit advocating for the rights of California’s underserved communities.
She said undocumented immigrants have a heightened risk of being taken advantage of by landlords and in the workplace.
“Landlords and employers whose business model is based on basically taking advantage of people’s fear are going to focus on people who are undocumented,” Simon-Weisberg said.
The men say the experience has been traumatizing, especially being alone in a new country.
“It just feels that my dignity, my human integrity has been trampled on,” Sanchez-Cordero said.
They’ve been working odd jobs, they say, but so far, nothing steady.
“If I can’t bring my kids, I’ll try to give them the best life in Mexico while I’m here,” Arellano said. “I want to build them a home and pay for their education.”
