"Exploitation of the workers included being required to dig onions with their bare hands, paid 20 cents for each bucket harvested, and threatened with guns and violence to keep them in line. The workers were held in cramped, unsanitary quarters and fenced work camps with little or no food, limited plumbing and without safe water. The conspirators are accused of raping, kidnapping and threatening or attempting to kill some of the workers or their families, and in many cases sold or traded the workers to other conspirators. At least two of the workers died as a result of workplace conditions.
These activities took place within Georgia, Florida, Texas, Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, and elsewhere. The indictment alleges that the conspirators and their associates 'engaged in mail fraud, international forced labor trafficking, and money laundering, among other crimes,' fraudulently using the H-2A work visa program to smuggle foreign nationals from Mexico, Guatemala, and Honduras into the United States under the pretext of serving as agricultural workers.'"
"Archived: Human trafficking, forced labor charges are first under ICE’s new labor exploitation program focusing on abusive employers" | ICE
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