US farms made $200m via human smuggling and labor trafficking operation

In June 2021, a farm worker from Mexico who requested to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation, was transported through a trafficking network from Monterey, Mexico to work on farms in the southern US state of Georgia.

They paid 20,000 pesos, around $950 to the traffickers that they were loaned from their mother, taking frequent trips to Monterrey, Mexico, back and forth, before being told it was safe to leave and they were finally transported across the border.

Initially, the worker was told they would be working on a blueberry farm, but was sent to a corn farming operation instead.

The worker started work daily at 3 or 4am and worked until 3 or 4pm with just one 15-minute lunch break, making just $225 for 15 days of work. They heard rumors that the contractor had several workers die under them due to exploitation and the worker claimed that Haitian immigrants were also brought into the same network.

The contractor the worker said he worked under, JC Longoria Castro, was one of two dozen defendants indicted on federal conspiracy charges in October 2021 based on findings from a multi-year long investigation into a massive human smuggling and labor trafficking operation based in southern Georgia that extended to Florida and Texas.

The investigation, Operation Blooming Onion, found the conspirators forced workers to pay fees for transportation to the US, food, and housing through the H2-A work visa program, while withholding their travel and identification documents and forcing them to work for little to no pay in inhumane living conditions.

The two dozen conspirators made $200m from their operation, laundering the money through land, homes, over a dozen vehicles, the purchase of a restaurant and nightclub, and through a casino. Over 100 workers were freed from the operation.

The H2-A visa program is an often used avenue for exploitation of migrant workers in the US, as it ties immigration status to employment on a temporary basis with no pathways to permanent citizenship. Many of these workers are forced to take on debt to recruiters to enter the H2-A visa program, with several cases of debt peonage, forced labor, and human trafficking reported through the program.

He cited a severe lack of labor law enforcement in the agricultural industry as a driving factor in widespread abuses of workers and the lack of regulating recruiters outside of the US who connect migrant workers with temporary jobs in the US. Inspections conducted by the wage and hour division of the US Department of Labor declined significantly over the past few decades due to underfunding and the low number of inspectors responsible for overseeing a vast number of employers,

Some of the workers were promised up to $12 an hour in pay, but instead were ordered by armed overseers to dig up onions by hand for $0.20 per bucket.

A grand jury indicted the 24 conspirators in a federal court in Waycross, Georgia on counts including forced labor, mail fraud, witness tampering and conspiracy to commit money laundering. Arraignments in the case were scheduled for 21 December and 6 January at the Southern District of Georgia federal courthouse in Waycross, Georgia.