However, several cases of fraud and abuse of the program leading to the human rights violations have been reported in the last few years. According to the Managing Labor Migration: Temporary Worker Programmes for the 21^st Century report by Philip Martin, many H2A workers are suing their employers for not following through with the terms of the employment. One such case involves workers brought in to harvest lemons in 2002 and SAMCO, a custom harvester in California. The litigations include “failing to pay overtime wages to the H-2A workers, not providing rest periods and lunch breaks, and not reimbursing them fully for expenses incurred traveling to and from Mexico.” Martin also writes that in Maine in 2002, fourteen H2B workers from Honduras and Guatemala died “when the van driven by their crew foreman went off a bridge on a private road. Their workplace was 2.5 hours each way from their housing, and they paid $84 a week to ride in the van.” Another case involves 30 H2B workers from Mexico, brought in to work for Southwest Shipyards, a Texas shipyard, in 2007. According to their testimony, they were deceived about their living and working conditions. They were working in unsafe environment, and some of them received life-threatening injuries, including being electrocuted. When they asked for better conditions, they received threats from the employer. In fear of retribution, all the workers traveled to Alabama in search of another job. There they met with a recruitment agency, Black Hawk, which promised them a job, but instead “packed all 30 of us in two trailers in rural Alabama – and abandoned us. We stayed in the trailers for 6 days without food or transportation.” Once again, the workers escaped and travelled to Mississippi in search of a job. They ended up being arrested, told that Black Hawk was their “owner,” threatened with prison and deportation, and handed over to the recruitment agency. Out of fear, the workers escaped again and hid in New Orleans with no work or money. Another company, Signal International, from Mississippi brought in 500 H2B workers from India to work on the oilrigs damaged by the hurricane Katrina. Signal International worked with a recruitment agency that falsely promised the workers green cards and further opportunities to work in the United States. When the workers realized that it was not going to happen, they complained. The company decided that the best way of dealing with the issue would be to ship the workers back to India without any advance notice. The ill-conceived plan caused the conflict between the workers and the company employees “at the shipyard, where the Indian natives were living in a labor camp,” according to Guest Worker Woes by Michael O’Brien.

Daniel Castellanos from the Alliance of Guest Workers for Dignity, and who is a H2B worker himself, says the following of the realities of the H2B visa program: “We are brought here on false promises. Our members report being sold, being kidnapped, being told that they are owned.” One of the biggest problems of this program is discussed by David Seminara in the Dirty Work: In-Sourcing American Jobs with H-2B Guestworkers report for the Center for Immigration Studies. Seminara writes about H2B workers having very few rights when they commit to work for a U.S. employer. The workers come to the United States in hopes of earning enough money to support their families and to “pay back the large sums of money they pay headhunters in their home countries to arrange H-2B jobs for them,” Seminara reports. These obligations provide a strong reason to endure harsh working and living conditions. Additionally, fulfilling the employment obligation is the condition of their stay in the country. The workers do not have the right to change jobs; they do not get sick or vacation days, no benefits package, no worker’s comp. Seminara explains it simply: “if they do not work, then they lose their legal status in this country.” Since an employer is required to inform the Department of Homeland Security if the H2A/H2B workers do not report to work, it gives them too much power over the guest workers.

Another problems lies with the recruitment agencies that the companies use to recruit and bring in workers. False promises of opportunities such as promotions, further employment, and so on are made on behalf of the employer. Most people that are targeted by these recruitment agencies do not speak English and barely have any education, therefore incapable of learning about the limitations of H2A/H2B visa status and complying with its regulations. Sarah Hawk with the Global Immigration Practice Group, says that the key “is having strong oversight of labor-and-employment and immigration rules to prevent violations, as well as a strong selection process that requires recruiting companies to maintain humane and ethical treatment of foreign workers…the H2V program… could be strengthened by more oversight from the government, especially regarding the recruiting companies and the agreements companies make with the foreign national workers,” O’Brien writes. Overall, something needs to be changed in the system. These matters are also affected by the illegal immigration, which brings a whole other set of issues of abuse of human rights and human trafficking. Please contact you federal government officials and encourage them work on comprehensive illegal immigration reform and the protection of human rights inside this country.

Sources:

http://www.cis.org/h-2b-guestworkers

http://www.hreonline.com/HRE/printstory.jsp?storyId=341227646

http://www.southernstudies.org/2007/08/modern-day-slavery-on-gulf-coast.html