It may be a misreading, but not an intentional misrepresentation. I suppose it depends on how you interpret the term "exploitation". Most frequently this is us

It may be a misreading, but not an intentional misrepresentation. I suppose it depends on how you interpret the term "exploitation". Most frequently this is used implying some harm is being done to the exploited party. My comment is to argue this is not the case here, as they would be strictly worse off without this employment. The employer is certainly exploiting an opportunity to employ the undocumented worker, but (arguing about words here) that does not constitute them "being exploited". Arguably, both honest tax-paying employers and employees are "being exploited" by the government by way of it collecting income tax. Depending on your point of view, the greatest harm here is either self-inflicted by the worker, by coming to the country and putting them self in this situation, or by the government, by inventing rules dictating that a person is not legally allowed to work, punitively disincentiving their becoming "documented" with the threat of deportation versus the convoluted immigration process, etc. Giving it some thought, I can relate that there is some potential for exploitation in the sense that someone working under the table does not receive the same protections that a legal worker would under law, but it seems moot when the same government promising those protections says you're not entitled to work at all. Considering this, rather than outright condemning the employer, I defer to asking whether the employee is better or worse off in the end.