In the summertime of 2019, a crew chief tasked with overseeing farm laborers despatched them to reap corn in a area the place they weren’t licensed to work — and the place there wasn’t enough safety from the sweltering solar. One in all them died of signs of heatstroke.
5 months later, a crew chief for one more Georgia farm kidnapped and brutally assaulted one in every of his employees who had escaped.
Two years after that, a 3rd crew chief confined employees to housing surrounded by an electrical fence in order that they couldn’t attempt to flee.
These and different lately documented abuses have been carried out by third-party middlemen, or farm labor contractors, who have been employed by farm homeowners to recruit and supervise international employees. These contractors had discovered methods to wield energy with close to impunity over lots of of employees at a time. Federal prosecutors spent years revealing the scope of the issue in Georgia, in a large labor-trafficking case that launched in 2016 and is now nearing its conclusion.
The proof in that case led prosecutors to liken the abuse to a type of modern-day slavery.
However regardless of prosecutors’ efforts to crack down on the exploitation of employees by labor contractors, there was little to no motion on the state or federal stage to make the adjustments that may cease it. There are legal guidelines and rules that might curb exploitation, however stories from farmworker advocates and labor specialists have proven that enforcement has lengthy been lax. Quite a lot of elected officers have pushed for years for the federal government to do extra to make sure employees obtain these protections. Some advocates now say the one answer is for the federal government to require that farm homeowners reduce out the intermediary and assume final accountability for his or her employees.
Consultants advised ProPublica there aren’t sufficient state and federal inspectors to adequately vet whether or not the contractors are following the principles. Neither is there broad political assist to speculate extra assets to guard international employees, who themselves have little incentive for reporting abuse given the concern of retribution.
“Whatever the administration — even ones which might be sympathetic to labor — regulators are handicapped,” mentioned Cesar Escalante, a College of Georgia professor of agricultural and utilized economics. “They know what’s taking place, however they’re incapable of implementing the rules.”
As American farmers proceed to depend on the decades-old H-2A visa program to fill the seasonal farmworker jobs, they’ve grown extra reliant on contractors to search out and oversee these employees. Contractors typically are fluent within the languages spoken by employees, aware of the Mexican cities the place they’re plentiful and well-versed within the means of securing their non permanent work visas. Many farmers additionally find yourself hiring contractors to handle the laborers’ work, pay and housing.
Federal regulators have lengthy recognized about contractors abusing and exploiting these employees — together with stealing their wages, charging them unlawful charges, forcing them to stay in substandard housing, and even bodily and sexually abusing them. Authorities watchdogs have revealed stories about these regulators’ failures to do extra to stop abuses within the fields — inaction that, in response to the U.S. Labor Division’s inspector normal’s workplace, has elevated the chances of employers getting away with critical H-2A violations.
The variety of H-2A seasonal employee visas requested by contractors has almost tripled over the previous decade, with roughly 2 out of each 5 H-2A employees now immediately overseen by a labor contractor. The Authorities Accountability Workplace discovered that greater than half of the employers banned from the H-2A visa program between 2020 and 2023 have been labor contractors, although they submitted simply 15% of the visa functions throughout that very same interval.
One of many key methods to uncover abuses by labor contractors is for regulators to examine the farms the place their employees choose crops. Daniel Costa, an legal professional and director of immigration with the assume tank the Financial Coverage Institute, mentioned federal regulators have develop into so strapped for assets that they’re solely inspecting a tiny fraction of farms annually.
“When lower than 1% of farm employers are investigated yearly, they’ll act with impunity, realizing that there’s a very low chance that they may ever be investigated,” Costa mentioned.
Yearly, lots of of hundreds of international laborers are drawn to America by the promise of regular, seasonal farmwork by the H-2A program. One in all them, Agustin Chavez Santiago, traveled greater than 1,500 miles from Oaxaca, Mexico, for his likelihood to choose crops on a Georgia farm. As soon as he arrived within the spring of 2019, one of many labor contractors he’d labored with didn’t pay him the $11 an hour his contract had promised. Quickly after, Chavez was despatched to work on a farm the place he wasn’t licensed to take action.
As Chavez harvested corn one sweltering afternoon, his physique temperature spiked to over 105 levels. He walked off the sector to sip water and relaxation. Earlier than he cooled down, Chavez collapsed. He was taken to a close-by hospital and died from signs of heatstroke. He was 34 years previous.
Federal prosecutors charged two contractors concerned in recruiting and overseeing Chavez on trafficking prices. These contractors every pleaded responsible to a lesser crime; one admitted to cash laundering and the opposite admitted to concealing information of a felony. Legal professionals for these contractors declined ProPublica’s requests for remark.
As well as, office security inspectors decided that Chavez died due to the negligence of one other labor contractor who oversaw his work within the fields. The Occupational Security and Well being Administration concluded that the labor contractor didn’t present a worksite free from “hazards that have been inflicting or more likely to trigger demise or critical bodily hurt.” The contractor’s firm paid OSHA a tremendous of $16,433. He was capable of maintain supervising employees.
“The truth that OSHA fined him $16,000 is a slap within the face to the victims,” mentioned Teresa Romero, the president of the United Farm Staff, one of many nation’s largest farmworker advocacy organizations. “This particular person ought to have been behind bars.”
The contractor didn’t reply to ProPublica’s requests for remark. He advised OSHA in 2019 that he offered water to his workers and allowed them to take breaks within the shade as wanted.
The U.S. Labor Division can tremendous or droop contractors for violating the principles of the H-2A program. But it surely’s doing fewer agricultural investigations than at any level because the flip of the millennium. Within the newest yr of accessible information, together with elements of 2024 and 2025, the division accomplished 649 of these investigations, fining farm employers $8.3 million throughout the nation. That’s lower than half of the investigations performed only a decade earlier, although the H-2A program greater than doubled in dimension throughout that point.
Consultants say the decline in investigations displays the restricted capability of federal regulators, not that situations have improved for H-2A employees. Alexis Guild, vp of technique and applications with the advocacy group Farmworker Justice, advised ProPublica that regulators now depend on employees to report potential violations in opposition to themselves. However she mentioned many employees are too scared to talk out as a result of it could result in retribution and the lack of future work. “It creates an setting that’s ripe for abuse,” she mentioned.
The U.S. Labor Division is chargeable for vetting H-2A visa functions that the contractors undergo get international employees cleared to return to America. These regulators routinely audit the contractors’ functions to confirm details about the variety of employees wanted and the phrases of their employment. If contractors submit false info, they could be criminally charged, as occurred within the federal case in Georgia.
However a surge in these requests has meant that giant piles of functions haven’t been vetted as carefully for pink flags. Regulators went from conducting over 500 audits within the fiscal yr ending in 2018 to doing lower than 50 5 years later. The U.S. Labor Division’s Workplace of Inspector Normal has warned that the best way that its regulators audit “will increase the chance of fraud and noncompliance going undetected.” That warning adopted one other OIG report that mentioned the best way that the division had performed these audits created an “unnecessarily elevated threat of international labor program abuse.”
Federal labor regulators have acknowledged to the Authorities Accountability Workplace that they’ve had “widespread concern” about farmworkers being exploited by contractors. They’ve additionally advised the GAO that the division has “restricted assets” to hold out a few of its work, together with the audits.
Lately, the U.S. Labor Division has been pressed to take larger motion to repair these issues. After the Georgia case was publicly unveiled in 2021, U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff of Georgia known as for extra “rigorous oversight” of the contractors. United Farm Staff has additionally pushed for employees to have “stronger and simpler” protections from their contractors.
In response, the Biden administration finalized a rule in 2024 that sought to extend protections for H-2A employees and maintain their employers extra accountable. However after quite a few states filed lawsuits difficult the rule, the Trump administration determined to droop all enforcement of these strengthened protections till the litigation is resolved.
The U.S. Labor Division didn’t reply to ProPublica’s requests for remark.
With fewer federal investigations of farmworker abuses, some states that closely rely upon H-2A employees have tried to handle rampant contractor abuses.
Florida regulators require labor contractors to get a state license — a transfer supposed to assist guarantee larger compliance with the principles of the H-2A program. Washington posts all of its housing inspection and enforcement data in an internet database, permitting employees to take a look at these data earlier than they settle for a job. California lawmakers final yr handed a brand new legislation that can give larger energy to its regulators to crack down on the abuses of international farmworkers by labor contractors.
However even amid a interval of additional scrutiny, Georgia hasn’t made these or another main adjustments that might forestall the sort of abuses uncovered within the huge federal probe.
Labor specialists say that some of the necessary actions that states can take to guard H-2A employees is to commit adequate assets to the inspection of their housing situations. Within the final full yr of accessible information, Georgia had one H-2A housing inspector for roughly each 7,100 H-2A employees. Different states with excessive numbers of H-2A employees had employed extra inspectors relative to the variety of employees. Lately, Michigan has had one housing inspector for each 2,000 or so H-2A employees; North Carolina has had one inspector for roughly each 4,000 employees. (Different states, together with California, have had worse inspector-to-worker ratios.)
On the identical time that Georgia’s Labor Division didn’t increase its oversight of farmworker housing, one in every of its high officers known as for an inside investigation into alleged issues throughout the division.
In 2018, as federal investigators have been constructing their case, Georgia’s Labor Division obtained a criticism alleging that one in every of its regulators had been approving inspections of H-2A employee housing in trade for money. 4 years later, a federal agent testified in courtroom that workers of Georgia’s Labor Division had accepted bribes to approve inspections of H-2A employee housing. The worker accused within the 2018 criticism, who was not indicted and retired three months after that agent testified, advised ProPublica that he denied any wrongdoing.
Across the time of his retirement, labor advocates revealed a report that known as for the “rebuilding” of the state’s Labor Division. They demanded extra stringent inspections of H-2A employee housing, higher monitoring for potential violations and elevated funding so regulators may extra successfully do their jobs.
As a substitute of getting Georgia’s Labor Division undertake these suggestions, Gov. Brian Kemp signed an government order that stripped the beleaguered division of its oversight powers.
Georgia’s Labor Division didn’t reply to ProPublica’s requests for remark. A spokesperson for Kemp mentioned the choice was made to “enhance alignment with workforce coaching applications.”
Kemp transferred H-2A oversight to the Technical Faculty System of Georgia. A Technical Faculty System spokesperson mentioned its officers have “strengthened its monitoring processes to make sure thorough oversight of potential H-2A violations.”
She additionally famous that the company has elevated the variety of workers who conduct housing inspections from three to 6 — with plans so as to add a seventh quickly. In a press release, the spokesperson wrote that the Technical Faculty System has taken steps that “have enhanced our means to watch, doc, and reply to points extra successfully than earlier than.”
But, even after doubling the variety of inspectors, Georgia nonetheless has fewer inspectors per H-2A employee than a few of the different states that closely depend on the visa program.
States like Georgia which have too few inspectors for H-2A employees all however assure that violations of this system’s guidelines will improve, in response to Diane Charlton, an affiliate professor of agricultural economics at Montana State College. “We have to make investments extra in really monitoring labor situations,” Charlton mentioned. “This needs to be a serious precedence.”
