A senior Department of Labor staffer a few weeks ago claimed the H-2A migrant worker program “literally is the purchase of humans to perform difficult work under terrible conditions, sometimes including subhuman living conditions.”
The staffer also claimed wages are stolen from workers, that job recruiters in Mexico (mostly) defraud and “traffic” them, and that the program has “systemic” problems baked into it.
Mike Rios is the staffer and he is the southeast Regional Enforcement Coordinator at the Wage and Hour Division of the Department of Labor – in other words, he helps monitor/run the program – and his boss is Julie Su, the acting Labor Secretary who – if she gets 50 votes in the Senate – is poised to become the new Secretary of Labor.
The explosive claims, made here, have troubled some of the senators who hold Su’s fate in their hands, saying they show the department’s bias against American farmers.
“If the officials tasked with enforcing the H-2A program believe the system amounts to ‘wage theft’ and ‘the purchase of humans to perform difficult work under terrible conditions,’ then either DOL is currently unable to competently enforce the law or these statements reflect a startling bias against American farmers who use the program,” wrote Senators Bill Cassidy, M.D. (R-LA), ranking member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, and Ted Budd (R-NC) in a letter to Su. “As Acting Secretary, it is your responsibility to ensure that...
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