Contractors who use illegal-immigrant labor take both legal and financial risks, experts say.

Besides federal immigration laws, the contractors are breaking state labor laws, says Jeffrey Zimskind, a business immigration attorney with Stevens & Lee.

Undocumented workers are subject to the same regulations that govern legal residents concerning minimum wage, overtime and breaks, he says.

"If someone ... hires someone they know to be unauthorized, pays them less than minimum wage, in cash, without reporting it, they're like a little bacteria culture of potential liability," Zimskind says. From Lancaster Online.com.