A Georgia landscaper's workplace injury has become an unexpected test of Republican gubernatorial nominee Rick Jackson's most forceful campaign promise: a crackdown on undocumented immigrants.
Jackson, the billionaire health care executive who won Georgia's Republican nomination for governor in June, made immigration a defining issue in his campaign. He said he wanted Georgia to lead the country in deporting immigrants living in the U.S. illegally who commit crimes and released a provocative ad warning that "criminal illegals" would be "deported or departed."
But court filings and deposition testimony tied to a workers' compensation case at Jackson's Cumming estate have raised a different question: whether the candidate adequately checked the work authorization of people employed on his own property.
The case centers on Facundo Ortega, a landscaper who says he slipped and injured his back while working at Jackson's Forsyth County property in March 2023. Ortega filed a workers' compensation claim. The insurer for one of Jackson's companies initially accepted the claim and agreed to pay, then withdrew, according to reporting by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
The central legal fight is over whether Ortega qualifies for benefits. Jackson's side has argued that Ortega was a domestic servant, a category generally excluded from mandatory workers' compensation coverage under Georgia law. Ortega's lawyers argue that payroll records, insurance coverage, and the company's initial handling of the claim point to a conventional employment relationship.
Immigration status is not the legal basis of Ortega's claim. His lawyer, Rocky Babson, declined to comment publicly on his client's own status. Still, the case became politically potent because court filings alleged that some workers at Jackson's estate were undocumented, while depositions indicated that I-9 forms were not used to verify the eligibility of personal workers.
I-9 forms are required by federal law for employers to verify the identity and employment authorization of each employee hired in the United States.
In deposition testimony cited by the AJC and Fox News, Jackson said he did not personally manage the hiring of the estate's maintenance and landscaping workers. He said he worked through a supervisor and did not know the workers' immigration status. He also acknowledged that I-9 forms were not being used for the new hires at issue.
The issue erupted during an April Republican debate, when then-Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, Jackson's runoff opponent, pressed him on whether undocumented immigrants were working for him. Jackson answered: "I don't know," then said his companies obeyed the law.
That response became one of the defining clashes of the primary. Jones and his allies argued Jackson's debate answer conflicted with the deposition record. Jackson's campaign called the attack political and said the workers in question had been hired by a landscaper rather than directly by Jackson.
"Rick would never knowingly hire someone in the country illegally," a Jackson campaign spokesperson told Fox News at the time. The campaign also said Jackson Healthcare, his staffing company, has used E-Verify since 2012.
Jackson's attorney in the workers' compensation dispute, Mike Bagley, has rejected claims of misconduct. "The suggestion that Richard Jackson was up to something nefarious in this matter is completely inappropriate, improper and untrue," Bagley told the AJC.
A Forsyth County Superior Court judge later gave Ortega another opportunity to pursue his claim, returning the case for further consideration rather than resolving it in Jackson's favor. The court action does not establish that Jackson knowingly employed undocumented workers, nor does it amount to a criminal finding.
Still, it leaves a serious political vulnerability as Jackson heads into the November election against Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms.
Jackson defeated Jones, who had been backed by President Donald Trump and Gov. Brian Kemp, with 52.64% of the June 16 runoff vote, according to Georgia's official election results.
For Jackson, the landscape dispute is no longer just a court case over an injured worker. It is a ready-made contrast between a campaign built on immigration enforcement and questions over how immigration rules were handled much closer to home.
