Christopher V. Ho

Ho focuses on employment practices that disproportionately affect undocumented workers, language minorities and new immigrants. As a senior staff attorney, he is director of the center's immigration and national origin program.

For Mexican immigrant Victor Guerrero, Ho won a ruling from a federal judge last year that the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation violates Latinos' civil rights in its hiring policies. U.S. District Judge William H. Alsup concluded the department discriminated against Guerrero when it disqualified him from obtaining a corrections officer job because Guerrero acknowledged he had previously used a fake Social Security number. Guerrero v. California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, 13-cv-5671 (N.D. Cal., filed Dec. 9, 2013)

Alsup found the department was disqualifying applicants who answered yes to a question about former Social Security numbers disproportionately impacts Latinos. Since the department began asking the question in 2009, all nine disqualified applicants were Latino. Guerrero moved to the U.S. when he was 11 and got a fake Social Security number at age 15 at his parents' request, so he could work in a restaurant. He later became a permanent resident, got a valid Social Security number and obtained U.S. citizenship in 2011.

Alsup's ruling wasn't the final word. "Then the state appealed," Ho said. "But Judge Alsup declined to suspend his judgment pending the appeal. He said that Guerrero had waited long enough - send him to the [correction officer] academy."

And that wasn't the end of it. "The opposition filed an emergency motion," Ho said. "They said we can't let him have a gun and a badge. The 9th Circuit turned them down. We filed a motion for contempt, for the state's flouting the judge's ruling. We said, 'Let him work.'" Alsup stayed on the sidelines, Ho added, but then issued another order telling the state to comply with his ruling. "Mr. Guerrero went through the academy in January," Ho said. "They finally let him start work, and everything has gone fine for him."

Ho remains critical of the state's tactics in the case. "They're in scorched-earth territory," he said. "I think they're grasping for issues. They're seeking judicial notice at the state Supreme Court that federal court was the wrong forum. The U.S. Supreme Court denied cert."

There has already been fallout. "Guerrero is beginning to be cited elsewhere," Ho said. "Courts are taking notice of the Legislature's intent in this area. It is one of the reasons we bring these cases — to have some impact on the law."

— John Roemer