Yes they can….this is courtisy of the Northwest Labor Press…look it up for all of you doubters. In a case that has brought immigration controversy to the heart of a local union, a Portland-area labor organizer is facing prison and deportation, stemming from the fact that he was in the United States illegally. José Alfredo Cobián, 36, known to local union members as Jose Luis Mendoza, or simply Luis, spent the last five years working for the Pacific Northwest Regional Council of Carpenters. As an organizer, Cobián visited non-union construction sites to tout the benefits of joining the union — and fight for the rights of non-union workers when their employers broke labor and safety laws or failed to pay wages. Many of the workers on whose behalf he advocated were illegal immigrants.