A Basque sheepherder worked for close to a decade at a ranch near Mountain Home, under conditions he described in a lawsuit as close to imprisonment: forbidden from obtaining a driver’s license, unable to get to town to receive medical care or buy food, which his boss, John Anchustegui, did not provide him enough of. For nearly a decade, he was owed hundreds of thousands of dollars in the minimum wage paychecks he earned working as a sheepherder and farm hand, according to the complaint.
Near the Snake River at the northern edge of Owyhee County, Anchustegui ran his sheep ranch for over 40 years. He imported most of his migrant farm laborers through the federal H-2A visa program, which allows foreigners to temporarily work in the U.S. Since the early 2000s, the Idaho Department of Labor knew about the complaints from Anchustegui’s workers, two of whom escaped to a neighbor’s house hungry and asking for help, according to complaints filed with the department.
Labor officials also knew about Anchustegui’s treatment of state employees who inspected his workers’ housing, with years of documented tales of threats and intimidation that resulted in a standing warning that inspectors never go to his property alone.
But despite the years of persistent, documented mistreatment, the Idaho Department of Labor — which is tasked with protecting the vulnerable workers by federal law — continued to help Anchustegui procure more migrant agricultural workers.
Anchustegui was one of...
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