Federal prosecutors have charged five people in Georgia with exploiting seasonal farmworkers brought from Mexico under the H-2A visa programme, alleging shakedown tactics similar to those in two cases already before the courts in Washington state.

According to the Justice Department, the five are accused of charging workers thousands of dollars to come to the United States and thousands more after they arrived, lying about where they would work and live, encouraging some to overstay their visas and creating a climate of fear to keep them in line. One woman allegedly paid $2,000 before travelling and $2,000 on arrival, then had her visa confiscated and was told she could have it back and go home for another $2,000. Two other victims allegedly paid $3,500 and then $4,000. Four of the five defendants are related; the indictment was unsealed on 15 September.

"The H-2A (program) is specifically designed to help farmers fill temporary or seasonal jobs when there is a shortage of domestic labor," said Assistant Attorney General A. Tysen Duva of the department's criminal division, who accused the defendants of manipulating the programme to enrich themselves.

In Washington, prosecutors charged six people earlier this year in two separate schemes. A Yakima-area couple, Francisco Rodriguez Martel and Esmeralda Rodriguez, have pleaded innocent to forced labour, victim tampering and other charges and are accused of recruiting more than 500 Mexican farmworkers and illegally charging them for visas, transport, housing and food; two co-defendants have pleaded guilty and are due to be sentenced in January. In the second case a Yakima couple are accused of posing as farm owners to obtain 103 workers through a labour contractor; one has pleaded innocent and the other appears to have fled to Mexico.

Enrique Gastelum, chief executive of the Worker and Farmer Labor Association, which helps farms use the H-2A programme, said growers can help prevent abuse by checking who supplies their workers, and named one-man labour contractors, and contractors where one person both recruits and processes visas, as red flags. None of the allegations has been proved in court. The report was written by Don Jenkins.

Photo: Bjoertvedt / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Source: Capital Press