LOS ANGELES

Frustrated by lax enforcement of immigration laws, businesses are taking their fight against illegal immigration to court, accusing competitors of achieving an unfair advantage by hiring illegal workers.

Businesses and anti-illegal immigration groups say the legal action was an attempt to create an economic deterrent against hiring illegal employees.

“We see the legal profession bringing to this issue the kind of effect it’s had on consumer product safety,” says Mike Hethmon of the Immigration Reform Law Institute, a Washington D.C.-based group backing the efforts.

In the first of a series of lawsuits, a temporary employment agency in California that supplies farm workers sued a grower and two competing companies on Monday.

Similar cases claiming violations of federal anti-racketeering laws have yielded mixed results. The California lawsuit is believed to be the first based on a state’s unfair-competition laws, legal experts say.

Santa Monica-based Global Horizons claimed in the lawsuit that Munger Brothers, a grower, hired illegal immigrant workers from Ayala Agricultural Services and J&A Contractors. All the defendants are based in California’s farm-rich Central Valley.

The suit alleges that Munger Brothers had a contract with Global Horizons to provide more than 600 blueberry pickers this spring, but nixed the agreement so it could hire illegal immigrants.

“Competitors hiring illegal immigrants is hurting our business badly,” says Global Horizons President Mordechai Orian. “It’s to the point that doing business legally isn’t worth it.”

Ayala Agricultural Services manager Javier Rodriguez says the company does not hire undocumented immigrants.

“If somebody doesn’t have a green card or work documents, we don’t hire them,” he says.

Messages left with Munger Brothers and J&A Contractors were not immediately returned.

With an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in the United States, undocumented workers are a significant part of the nation’s work force.