Well-intentioned legislation and regulation often yield unintended consequences that hurt the people they are meant to help.

That’s the case with legislation in Washington that would provide illegal immigrants with unemployment benefits.

Rep. Amy Walen, D-Kirkland, is the main sponsor of legislation that would set up a new state program to pay undocumented workers unemployment benefits. She says denying jobless payments based on immigration status is “fundamentally unfair.”

As unfair as it might be, people in the country illegally aren’t allowed to collect unemployment benefits because they are barred by federal law from holding jobs.

Obviously, millions of people here illegally are gainfully employed, many of them in agriculture.

By most estimates, between 70% and 80% of farmworkers lack legal status. It is inaccurate to say that many of these workers are “undocumented.” Most come to work armed with fake documents that are taken at face value by legitimate employers who don’t want the legal and public relations blowback they would receive if they inadvertently questioned the documents of a legal immigrant.

Because there is no requirement agriculture employers participate in the federal E-Verify program that would weed out applicants with phony or appropriated documents, employers are legally in the clear as long as they have no credible reason to question the status of an employee.

It’s a version of “don’t ask, don’t tell” that serves employees and employers well.

Walen’s bill would lift the veil on any worker who signed up for the benefit.

Before awarding unemployment benefits, the Employment Security Department checks through the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services whether the worker was eligible to be employed. The fake documents presented to employers would not pass that review.

In applying, workers would expose themselves to federal officials.

Under House Bill 1095, workers denied unemployment benefits because of their immigration status could reapply for benefits under the new state program.

Workers would have to show they left their jobs involuntarily and weren’t fired for misconduct. The bill proposes that the Employment Security Department contract with a “third-party, community-based organization” to help workers collect information from former employers.

There’s the rub. Once employers learn a former employee lacks legal status, they would face federal fines and possible imprisonment if they put that person back on the payroll next season.

And just like workers in the mainstream unemployment program, those without legal status filing for benefits through the state program would be required to look for work. That puts the state in the position of sending people who it knows are ineligible to work in the United States into the job market and drawing unwitting employers into what on its face amounts to a conspiracy to break immigration and labor laws.

A good day’s work, even by government standards.

We can make the case that the illegal immigrants working seasonal jobs should be eligible for the benefits. Even under appropriated identities and fake documentation they and their employers pay the taxes that fund the program.

But without legal status, they cannot collect or even dare to apply.