A group of labor and civil rights’ organizations are petitioning the Biden administration to reform a visa program that U.S. businesses use to recruit and employ foreign seasonal farmworkers.
The groups, which include United Farm Workers, Farmworker Justice, the Southern Poverty Law Center and others, said reforms are needed to stop labor abuse in a letter addressed to Vice President Kamala Harris and the heads of three federal agencies.
The groups say a recent federal indictment that accuses 24 defendants of human trafficking and other related crimes illustrates the program’s failures.
Operation Blooming Onion:Federal indictment reveals 'modern-day-slavery' in Georgia
Prosecutors in that case said defendants required guest farmworkers to pay illegal fees, withheld their IDs, subjected them to work for little or no pay, housed them in crowded and unsanitary conditions and threatened them with deportation and violence. At least two workers died, the indictment said.
All defendants who entered pleas in the case have pleaded not guilty.
The groups' letter asks authorities to launch an investigation into how the abuse described in the indictment occurred and why violations went undetected for years....
ANKARA — US President Donald Trump made a series of “false” and “uncorroborated” claims about the Iran conflict and his foreign policy record during a recent press conference, according to a fact ...