"""And, of course, there are the various insurance issues. If you are dealing with a company that is hiring employees illegally, you can bet your bottom dollar (in fact, you are!) that those employees are not covered by his liablity insurance or workman's compensation insurance. So when a worker cleaning the gutters takes a header off the ladder and will require lifelong medical care, it falls to the homeowner to duke it out with his homeowner's insurance company over whether or not this man is covered. And unless you carry excess liability umbrella coverage, the limits are so low that the money will be exhausted quickly, anyway. """"
Have a neighbor that got burned when an undocumented 'off the books'illegal alien took a header off his roof, who was employed by by a home improvement contractor.
I bet your neighbor quickly found out that the illegal alien was not, in fact, employed by the home improvement contractor, but was employed by himself, directly.
In cases where the contractor does not maintain a formal employer/employee relationship with the worker, as is obviously the case with illegal aliens, the law looks to the one who is paying the money, i.e. the homeowner, as the actual employer. The payment of money establishes the relationship.