The Hawaii Longline Association may join the court battle over foreign fishermen and whether they should be licensed to fish in Hawaii waters despite being barred from stepping on U.S. soil.

Such foreign workers often make less than $1 an hour and lack the most basic labor protections, a 2016 Pulitzer Prize-winning Associated Press investigation found. But they are also needed to keep the local association’s 142 or so active fishing vessels operational, said HLA President Sean Martin.

“There really isn’t the ability to hire (local) crew. They just don’t exist,” Martin said Tuesday. “It would be a devastating thing to the industry if we couldn’t get crew. A lot of boats wouldn’t be able to go fishing.”

However, the AP story found that Hawaii authorities may have been breaking their own laws for years by issuing permits to thousands of fishermen who were also denied U.S. entry.

Malama Chun, a Native Hawaiian fisherman, is challenging that practice by the Department of Land and Natural Resources in Maui Environmental Court. The HLA now looks to intervene in that suit and to maintain the licensing practice, according to Martin.

Lance Collins, Chun’s attorney, said he has moved to block HLA from intervening in his client’s suit on grounds that the industry group has no standing.

“From our position, the longline association is three steps removed from having a personal stake in this controversy,” Collins said Tuesday. “Our position is they shouldn’t be allowed to be in this lawsuit.”

The legal developments come several weeks after a fishing vessel that’s part of the association, the Pacific Paradise, ran aground at night off Waikiki while transporting foreign fishermen to Honolulu Harbor.

The 79-foot boat carried 19 foreign men and a captain who officials say was the only U.S. citizen aboard. The vessel remains stranded on the reef off Kaimana Beach.

State Rep. Kaniela Ing has said he was concerned that only five of the fishermen onboard were registered with the state. The 15 other workers “are completely unaccounted for, and we don’t know where they are and what they’re doing here,” he said.

Added Collins: “We don’t know because they didn’t contact the authorities and the crew disappeared. We haven’t been able to locate them.”

Ing previously introduced legislation that would require DLNR to record the employers’ individual contracts with their foreign fishermen, but the measure died. On Tuesday he said he might introduce similar legislation next year.

“We just want the records … so if there’s a suspicion of wrongdoing, then we have something to cross-check,” Ing said Tuesday. “We understand the industry is rough. We just want to make sure no one’s being exploited.”

Martin said the Pacific Paradise likely ran aground as its captain waited for morning to enter the harbor as required by local authorities.

“How he ended up on the beach, someone wasn’t paying attention as close as they should have,” Martin said. “If he would have gotten here in the daylight hours,” there likely wouldn’t have been a stranding.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.