ATLANTA – A year-long human trafficking operation has detained migrant workers in “modern slavery” on farms in South Georgia, according to a federal indictment unsealed last week.
Among the victims are over 100 workers who were smuggled into “brutal” and “inhuman” working conditions from Mexico and Central America. Under threat of gun violence, some were reportedly forced to dig for onions with their bare hands, earning just 20 cents for every bucket harvested. At least two people died on the job. Another is said to have been raped repeatedly.
When not in the fields, the workers were held in labor camps surrounded by electric fences or in cramped living quarters, including dirty trailers with leaking sewers. There was little or no access to food or safe drinking water.
According to a press release from the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Georgia, 24 accused members and employees of the criminal company that continued the exploitation are now facing a number of criminal offenses. The inter-agency collaboration that led to the indictment – dubbed “Operation Blooming Onion” – could be one of the largest human trafficking and visa fraud investigations of all time in the country, VICE News reported.
Only two of the defendants are named in the indictment as business owners in South Georgia; most were contractors or recruiters. Her alleged criminal mistreatment of workers took many forms.
According to the indictment, workers were charged illegal transportation, food and housing charges. And although they were allegedly hired for farm work, some migrants were illegally used in lawn maintenance, construction and repair work. To prevent escape, relatives of the accused criminals ring the bell for illegally confiscated workers’ passports and documents. Conspirators also sold and traded workers among themselves, according to the indictment.
“The American Dream is a strong draw for destitute and desperate people around the world, and where necessary there is greed from those who will try to exploit these willing workers for their own obscene profits,” said David Estes, incumbent US – Attorney for the Southern District of Georgia said in a statement.
“Thanks to the excellent work of our law enforcement partners, Operation Blooming Onion is freeing more than 100 people from the shackles of modern slavery and will hold those who chain them to account.”
The crimes listed in the indictment allegedly occurred in the southern Georgian counties of Atkinson, Bacon, Coffee, Tattnall, Toombs and Ware, where local farmers paid the defendants to provide contract labor.
The criminal ring that orchestrated the human trafficking operation raised over $ 200 million from the illegal scheme. Conspirators are charged, including postal fraud and postal fraud conspiracy, forced labor and slave labor conspiracy, money laundering conspiracy, and witness manipulation.
Solimar Mercado-Spencer is a senior executive with the Farmworker Rights Division of the Georgia Legal Services Program, a not-for-profit law firm that represents low-income Georgia farm workers with questions about their wages or working conditions. Current clients of the department include victims of the criminal company uncovered by Operation Blooming Onion.
Mercado-Spencer said the federal indictment revelations came as no surprise.
“That has been happening in Georgia for a long time. … And these people who have been arrested are not the only ones doing these things, “she said. “I hope law enforcement continues to thwart these operations because this is not the only one in Georgia.”
Since it happens in rural areas, nobody sees the victims, Mercado-Spencer said.
“All you see is your onions at Kroger. You can go buy them. They don’t know where they came from. But that happens and nobody notices. And these are important workers who fed us during the pandemic. “
According to the indictment, the exploited foreign workers were admitted to the US through fraudulent use of the H-2A guest worker visa program, which is booming in Georgia as farmers struggle to find local workers. According to the Federal Office of Foreign Labor Certification, Georgia had 27,614 certified H-2A positions in fiscal 2020, up from approximately 5,500 in fiscal 2010. Georgia ranks second after Florida for the most H-2A workers in the country.
Under the H-2A program, the employee’s legal status in the United States is conditional on their continued employment with the party who sponsored their visa. Mercado-Spencer said the structure can discriminate against workers, overlooking the limited worker protection included in the program.
“It’s not that you can just go and work for another employer because the visa is tied to that one employer. So that’s the problem with the H-2A visa program that it gives the employer too much control over the employee. And once the workers are here, they’re kind of stuck. “
Sometimes, added Mercado-Spencer, “employers want to cut corners and make as much profit as possible … and so they do it by exploiting these workers”.
Federal agencies involved in exposing the human trafficking ring in South Georgia included Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), which is part of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). In a statement released Monday, ICE said Operation Blooming Onion was the first investigation to be completed under the agency’s new “labor exploitation model”.
In October, Homeland Security Minister Alejandro Mayorkas announced a shift in priorities for enforcement by the immigration service. Instead of attacking unauthorized workers with mass raids on workplaces – as was the practice in previous administrations – the authorities are now targeting “exploitative employers” and companies that violate labor laws.
“We will not tolerate unscrupulous employers who exploit unauthorized workers, engage in illegal activities or impose unsafe working conditions,” Mayorkas said in a memo.
Mercado-Spencer said she welcomed the change in policy mandated by Mayorkas’ guidelines with reservations.
“It’s not permanent. It is not an applicable law. With another president, things could turn in the opposite direction again. What immigrants need are laws to protect them. “
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