Among the belongings Luis packed for his trip from Mexico to Atlanta was a business suit.
A mechanical engineer by training, Luis had spent the bulk of his career since his 2012 college graduation working in the auto industry in his native Aguascalientes. He had just accepted a quality engineering role based in West Point, Georgia, and was hopeful the international work experience could unlock even better opportunities down the line.
But things began falling apart almost as soon as he landed at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, on a cold night in December 2020. A man sent by Luis’ new employer greeted him with a strange revelation: the engineering job he had been hired to do – and which he uprooted his life in Mexico to take – did not exist.
For the next 11 months, Luis would put in 12-hour shifts on the factory floor of a Georgia auto parts manufacturer, where he carried heavy loads to keep the assembly line fed. The nature of the work — which involved lugging parts such as bumpers or transmissions weighing over 100 pounds — put strain on his back, his hands, his feet.
Luis is one of six Mexican nationals who told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution they were brought to the U.S. under false pretenses, with engineering job offers from a staffing agency proving to be smoke screens for low paid assembly-line work. The men provided documents showing a little-known visa program that immigrant watchdogs say is ripe for abuse paved the way for the agency to bring them to...
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