Discover“This has been happening for a long time”: Modern slavery exposed in South Georgia
The workers were “fortunate enough to have a meal a day,” said Alia El-Sawi, an Atlanta-based victim assistance specialist for Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), the Department of Homeland Security that oversaw the longstanding investigation into South Georgia Schmugglerring, which was also in charge of building the Douglas facility. “Lots of people wouldn’t let their pets live like that.”
At the victim center, workers had access to COVID-19 tests, food, toiletries and clothing. They could call families and friends to let them know they were safe. Georgia Legal Services Program personnel were also on hand to review the legal remedies available to workers. Representatives from Tapestri, a non-profit organization in Georgia that, among other things, helps with finding accommodation and counseling for victims of human trafficking, were also on site.
The authorities are still investigating the criminal enterprise that allegedly exploited the farm workers. As first-hand witnesses, many of the people rescued on November 17 will likely be asked to cooperate with investigators. But El-Sawi said extensive interviews with workers were being kept for later to avoid “retraumatizing” victims so soon after being rescued.
At the Douglas facility, HSI began filing an application for “continuous presence,” a two-year immigration status for victims of human trafficking.
“We try to take a restorative, holistic approach and ensure that all of their needs are met,” said El-Sawi.
Laura Germino is a co-founder of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers. The Florida-based non-profit organization’s anti-slavery program has helped track down multiple farm slavery operations in the southeastern United States since the 1990s and helped liberate over 1,200 workers.
Farm workers “assume that in one of these situations they will lose control until they regain control after they are liberated, but that doesn’t just happen,” she said. “It’s not right now because of what people have been through.”
Germino recalls what a man who was caught doing an abusive job in Florida said, “He said it was like coming out of the dark and into light. He said it was like being born again. “
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‘Permanent Damage’
Experts say that one of the immediate goals of exempt farm workers is not to waste time getting back to work. This is because they are short of cash and wage theft is a common crime against trafficking victims, including allegedly in the case of “modern slavery” in South Georgia.
“One of the first things workers want badly is a job when they quit because they aren’t making the money they wanted to make to support their families,” said Germino.
To add to the urgency, many migrant agricultural workers are taking out loans to pay for travel expenses to enter the United States. Returning to their homes without repaying the lenders could put workers at risk.
“You are [stuck] between a rock and a tough place, ”said Solimar Mercado-Spencer, executive with the farm labor rights division of the Georgia Legal Services Program.
The constant presence, the temporary parole status that law enforcement agencies can apply for for foreign-born victims of human trafficking, allows the recipients to obtain a work permit. “We want” [victims] to get back to work as quickly as possible, ”said El-Sawi of Homeland Security Investigations.
This also applies to a T-Visa, a more permanent type of immigration allowance.
T-Visas give victims of a “severe form” of human trafficking legal status, a designation that Mercado-Spencer says includes forced labor. Migrants who successfully apply for T visa status with US citizenship and immigration authorities can apply for relatives to join their home country in the US.
But immigration assistance to victims of human trafficking is not immediate. The processing time for T visa applications can take more than a year. El-Sawi said it could take up to two months for continued attendance status to be approved. These waiting times could put victims at risk of losing their legal status in the US, especially those who came into the country, as did victims from South Georgia through the H-2A program, a temporary seasonal agricultural worker visa. H-2A visas are only valid for months at a time and are tied to the employer who sponsored the workers. This means that in the time it takes to continue to reside or obtain a T-Visa, some victims will lose their papers and may have to be deported.
“Often they are just left waiting there,” said Mesa-Estrada. “It’s a very problematic system.”
Instead of trying to use the services available in the US, some victims may choose to return to their home countries, which local nonprofits and consular agencies can help coordinate.
Regardless of the choices they make, Mercado-Spencer says workers who were once trapped in conditions like those described by the authorities in South Georgia are likely to be shaped by the experience for a long time.
“There is permanent damage. There is trauma, ”she said. “Some of them have been exposed to really terrible things.”
Lautaro Grinspan is a member of the Report for America Corps, which covers the immigrant communities in the Atlanta metropolitan area.
