An investigation into wage and hour practices of a Massachusetts cleaning company that employs a “primarily-immigrant workforce” remains ongoing two years later, and officials feared “hundreds” of victims wouldn’t be able to testify due to their legal status.

That fear is no longer.

Noncitizens who find themselves in the middle of a workplace violation will have four years of protection against deportation instead of two, an increase that Attorney General Andrea Campbell spearheaded through advocacy.

The updated time limit is an extension of the Department of Homeland Security’s so-called “Deferred Action Program,” which the feds rolled out  in January 2023.

Noncitizen workers, Campbell said in her Wednesday release, are often taken advantage of with employers “routinely” violating their workplace rights due to the “fear of deportation.”

“All workers, regardless of their immigration status, deserve protection from workplace violations and exploitation,” Campbell said. “This is a victory for vulnerable workers nationwide, who will now feel more secure and empowered to assert their rights and seek justice in the face of unjust workplace violations.”

Then Attorney General Maura Healey and her office, in June 2022, started investigating the wage and hour practices of a large cleaning company after receiving multiple alleged workplace violations. Those included workers not being paid for all hours worked and correct rates of pay and often being required to pay fees to managers in order to obtain jobs or more hours.

The case is outlined in a letter to the feds that Campbell co-wrote with Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul and the City of Seattle’s Office of Labor Standards in early July. Roughly 27 other state and local enforcement agencies signed onto the request to expand deferred action.

Investigators have found that the undisclosed Massachusetts cleaning company, which held contracts with state and local agencies, “attempted to shield itself from liability by forming another company in the name of its Operation Manager’s wife,” according to Campbell’s office.

The business also didn’t keep track of the hours employees worked and wage payments made.

“The investigation has taken several years to conduct,” the letter to the feds states, “and relies in great part on the testimony of the primarily-immigrant workforce in order to prove the underlying violations and calculate restitution owed for prevailing wage work, kickback payments, unpaid hours worked, and overtime.”

“There are hundreds of workers involved, without whom the OAG could not have conducted the investigation,” it adds.