Nearly a dozen Mexican and Indian workers who say they were tricked by predatory employers into coming to the Gulf Coast held a protest in Lafayette Park in Downtown New Orleans in front of Federal Department of Labor offices, demanding that federal officials conduct an immediate investigation into potential civil and criminal violations.
Protester Tino Hernandez told The Louisiana Weekly through a translator, "This is a modern form of slavery where we are the slaves."
The workers were brought to the United States under the H-2B visa program. The Department of Labor is responsible for approving the labor certification petitions submitted by employers who are interested in importing H-2B workers. They demanded that the agency take immediate action and monitor and investigate these and other H-2B visa employers engaged in criminal activity.
The Mexican visa holders work for Louisiana Labor, LLC. 130 Mexican workers were brought to the United States to work for the company, owned by small-time real estate mogul Matt Redd, who is based in Sulphur, La. Redd recruited the workers in Mexico, charged them airfare, then packed them into vans and trafficked them to Westlake, La.
Redd allegedly stole their passports in order to prohibit their movement - a federal crime. He then reportedly leased them for a profit to area businesses, including car washes, garbage companies, casinos, and promised many of them work with the prominent fabrication company, The Shaw Group.
"Why is the DOL complicit with a criminal," asked Nestor, a worker. "We ask the DOL to decertify Redd so that he can no longer bring others on H2B visas."
Attempts to reach Redd for comment were unsuccessful.
The Indian visa holders work for Signal International, the prominent marine and fabrication company with shipyards in Mississippi and Texas. More than 500 Indian workers were recruited over three years. Workers reportedly paid company recruiters between $14,000 and $20,000 to come to the United States.
Workers plunged their families into debt to buy the visa. "We thought we were paying for green cards and permanent residency - but we got six month visas," said Jacob Joseph, a welder from India. "We drowned our families into debt," said worker Kuldeep Singh, whose father sold his farm to send his son to the U.S. "How can I go back empty handed?"
When Signal workers started to organize, the company pulled four workers out of bed in in a pre-dawn raid and imprisoned them on company property. In the presence of senior company officials, the migrants claimed, these Signal employees were held captive for hours. Workers went on strike, so they said, forcing the company to relent and release them. Calls to Signal Inc. were not returned.
"These stories reveal the reality of the H2B visa," said Daniel Castellanos, a guest worker from Peru and a member of the Alliance of Guest workers for Dignity. "We pay thousands for American dreams, but all we get is debt and nightmares."
Saket Soni of the New Orleans Workers' Center said, "This guest worker program is corporate driven, state-sponsored exploitation. Companies profit from it. And the Department of Labor signs off on it."
Bill Chandler, director of the Mississippi Immigrant Rights Alliance, added: "These courageous workers are exposing guest worker programs as an opportunity for predatory employers to seek out and exploit cheap labor."
As guest worker programs are increasingly seen as the answer to future migration, workers and advocates cautioned against expansion of a historically flawed system.
"The solution is for all workers to be afforded decent work opportunities with a living wage in the just reconstruction of the Gulf South," concluded local civil rights attorney Tracie Washington.