My boyfriend works at a "punk rock" company gone corporate. Recently
they have been hiring a lot of Latinos most of which are illegal.
Currently half the company is Latino, but the production department is
85% are Latino. Today an American colleague was fired. He told my boyfriend
that it was nice working with him. My boyfriend replied to his
colleague, "what they fired you to give your job to another Mexican?"
My boyfriend was fired for unlawful harassment. I would like to ask: Does
this constitutes unlawful harassment?

His comments was inappropriate.  He created a hostile environment
unwelcoming to those of Mexican descent.  He got what he deserved.

Maybe not. His question was a question not a comment. His question was
also in the third person context, not directed at the person in
conversation with him, but obviously overheard. His comment is
separate to the argument of illegal employment. He might wish to take
the obvious avenue for retribution, but he won't want to get his job
back there anyway. His question was relative to his perception of the
high percentage of a given group in employ. His question was not
racially discriminative, simply descriptive, as his logic was formed
based on the high pecentage of the group employed as you profess to be
true. His question was one of description, not harassment as far as I
can see. If "illegal" (not used in his question) Mexicans were
replaced in his question by "welders", "musicians" or "tall people",
how much might the harassment argument then hold?

I don't believe his comment was not rude, but he was friends with all
of his Latino co-workers (the ones that spoke English), and he worked
at factory that was very loud and not even the person that worked
right next to him heard him say this. I don't think he should have
said Mexican since most of his co-workers are in fact Nicaraguan.
Never the less none of his Latino co-workers complained. My boyfriend
just one a workmen?s compensation claim with the company, and I
believe they have been trying to fire him for a while. (The company
sent him to physical therapy without filing workmen?s compensation.
Immediately after his psychical therapy was over they gave him a
warning saying he missed too much work without mention of his work
related injury.) It was the brother of the owner of the company (who
is a white American that complained.) Does this change anything?

I meant won not one in refrence to my boyfriends workmen's comp case

It's all smoke and mirrors. The company wants to get rid of your
boyfriend. He is a cost to them. If they can't do so legally, he will
leave of his own accord when working conditions become inane. Move on.

He is happy that he got fired, and so am I. He thought he was going to
get fired everyday for the past half year. One could even say that he
was working in hostile environment against him. What we are afraid of
is whether or not he will get unemployment because he "unlawfully
harassed" someone or something. There are not that many employment
opportunities for someone with his skills (t-shirt printer).
Therefore, I wanted to know if the definition of harassment would
apply to his case, since I am sure the company will contest his
request for unemployment (they have done so for the other 30 punk rock
employees that have been let go since the company has changed their
employee recruitment standards.). Thank you Silver. The comment about
replacing the word Mexican with tall person really helped.

We don't want to do anything like call immigration because a lot of
the illegals are actually my boyfriend friends. It is sad though that
a company posing as "punk rock" has become so capitalistic that it
fired all the punk rockers and hired illegals in order to get even
more money (they have already made at least 34 mil. and are the
fastest growing t-shirt company) and that a lot of their clients
refuse to have their shirts printed on anything could have been made
in a sweatshop, while the printers are all Latinos whose rights have
been trampled on and are told for instance that they have no other
options then to work overtime.

I don't know about the legalities of if this is 'illegal', but the
company could interpret his actions as being a disruptive force in the
workplace.  Most companies are what is called 'at-will' employers,
which means that they don't need a good reason for letting you go.  If
they are simply not happy with you or your work, they can terminate
the employment arrangement without any legal consequences (in many
cases).

They 'cannot' fire you, however, for reasons like being pregnant, have
filed a workers compensation claim, because you're black, etc.  There
'are' laws protecting an employee against things like that.  However,
if he went around saying "I hate Latino's all day long (I'm
exaggerating, of course), I think they would be well within their
rights to terminate the employment arrangement.

Of course, if what you say is true (that they're hiring illegal
immigrants), your boyfriend could easily get back at them (if he is
the vengeful type).  There are huge penalties for employers that break
the law in this regard.
http://www.visalaw.com/97sep/18sep97.html

Are you worried that he may not receive his employment benefits?

If you know for a FACT that the company has hired illegal Mexicans and
are paying them under the table - and NOT paying the taxes due - then
you have a pretty big hammer against the company.  I doubt that a
company with 34 million in revenue would put their company at risk by
not covering there big fat corporate sell out asses.

My suggestion, start your own t-sheet company. Someone just asked
about Ebay on Google Answers.

http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=478637