New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice

Rep. Ellison, rights groups show support for jailed Indian workers

by Dan Gunderson, Minnesota Public Radio
December 17, 2008

Twenty-three men from India jailed in Fargo are getting support from human rights advocates and members of Congress.

St. Paul, Minn. - The workers are charged with having false documents and they say they are victims of human trafficking.

Seven of the men entered guilty pleas Wednesday in federal court in Fargo. They will be turned over to Immigration officials who will decide if they should be deported.

Minnesota Congressman Keith Ellison and other supporters started a 24-hour fast this afternoon to show support for the jailed workers.

The men came to the U.S. on worker visas as welders and pipefitters in the wake of hurricane Katrina. The workers say they promised to pay $20,000 each and in turn were told they would get permanent U.S. citizenship.

Saket Soni, with the New Orleans Workers Center for Racial Justice, said dozens of workers came from India only to discover their visa expired in 10 months.

“It was impossible to recover $20,000 in earnings in 10 months, so these workers essentially were held in forced labor,” Soni said. “They were held in involuntary servitude in the labor camps of Mississippi and Texas.”

Earlier this year, the men walked away from their jobs and filed a complaint with the U.S. Justice Department.

Signal Corporation, the company the workers allege held them against their will, issued a press release calling the claims baseless and unfounded.

The workers asked for something called continued presence. That would keep them from being deported while their claims were investigated.

In October, U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement arrested 23 of the Indian workers at an ethanol plant under construction near Fargo.

Their worker visas were expired and ICE said they were using false documents. The Fargo company that hired them is not under investigation.

The jailed workers case has attracted the attention of human rights advocates and members of Congress including Minnesota Congressman Keith Ellison.

Ellison joined labor and religious leaders Wednesday in Minneapolis for a 24-hour fast to show support for the jailed workers.

“You know, we should go after the main movers who are the traffickers,” Ellison said.

In this particular case, the U.S. Attorney made the point these workers broke the law.

“Well the trafficker broke the law too,” Ellison said. “And if we don’t deal with the trafficker aren’t we just going to get more trafficked individuals? I think the emphasis may not be in the right place.”

Ellison said Congress passed laws to protect immigrant workers who claim they are victims of trafficking. He questions whether those protections are being adequately honored by the U.S. Justice Department.

The U.S. Attorney’s office and the federal Public Defenders office declined comment on the case.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman Tim Counts also declined to comment on the case of the 23 Indian workers jailed in Fargo.

But he did agree to talk about the issue of human trafficking. Counts said last year 156 people were arrested in the U.S. on charges of human trafficking.

He said workers brought to the U.S. on temporary visas are vulnerable. Counts added that sometimes their passports are taken away, they’re forced to work long hours and told their families will be harmed if they don’t stay on the job.

Counts said human trafficking is not just a big city problem.

“One of our most significant cases happened in a small town in South Dakota where a couple had brought people in from the Philippines on temporary visas, but when they got here they were held as virtual slaves,” Counts said.

He also said that investigation can be difficult because workers often don’t understand their rights or don’t know where to go for help.

Soket Soni of the New Orleans Workers Center for Racial Justice said that’s one reason the case of workers jailed in Fargo is important. He said if the workers are sent to prison or deported, it will have a chilling effect on other human trafficking investigations.

“If this group of workers does not get continued presence then we believe many more workers will never come forward,” Soni said. “Because, what is the basis for trusting that the protections that congress turned into law will actually be enforced?”

Soni says the immigrant workers are only asking for enforcement of those worker protection laws already in place.

Broadcast Dates
* All Things Considered, 12/17/2008, 4:50 p.m.

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CONTACT - SAKET SONI, 504 881 6610, saketsoni@hotmail.com

New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice

GUESTWORKERS SUE MAJOR LOUSIANA GROWER FOR LABOR TRAFFICKING, SLAVE-LIKE CONDITIONS

H-2A farmworkers who escaped involuntary servitude return to take employer to court for violations of federal law

Mexican guestworkers who were subjected to involuntary servitude in the strawberry fields of Louisiana from 2006 to 2008 today brought major civil litigation against their former employer, Bimbo’s Best Produce and Charles “Bimbo” Relan.

In Israel Antonio-Morales et al.  v. Bimbo’s Best Produce, the guestworkers claim that  Charles “Bimbo” Relan violated federal laws inluding those prohibiting  forced Labor; trafficking with respect to peonage, slavery, involuntary servitude, or forced labor; and subminimum wages.

The workers were recruited in Mexico to work in Louisiana on temporary H-2A visas  as strawberry pickers for Charles “Bimbo” Relan and his company, Bimbo’s Best Produce.  Upon their arrival in Amite, Louisiana, Relan illegally confiscated their passports in order to prohibit them from escaping from his fields.  He held the workers in forced labor, subjecting them to humiliation and degrading treatment.  “He treated us like animals. We were not human beings to him,” said Guestworker Plaintiff J. Jesus Martinez-Hernandez.  “We worked hunched over for hours doing backbreaking work.  If we tried to rest, he would threaten to call immigration and deport us.  And he had our passports - so we could not escape.”   Workers are members of the Alliance of Guestworkers for Dignity, a membership organization of guestworkers in the Gulf Coast and a project of the New  Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice.

The complaint, filed in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana, details how Relan “subjected [the workers] to a scheme of psychological coercion, threats of serious harm, and threatened abuse of the legal process to maintain control over them and force them to continue laboring in his strawberry fields,” and asserted that he “exploited his physical power and control and took advantage of the workers’ geographic, linguistic, and cultural isolation,” and “took advantage of the rules of the structure of the H-2A guestworker program - which renders guestworkers are completely dependent on the sponsoring employer for legal status, employment, and housing - to further coerce and threaten the guestworkers.”

“These kinds of abuses are unconscionable, but not uncommon,” said Saket Soni, Director of the New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice. “Employers have consistently manipulated the U.S. guestworker program to subject workers to involuntary servitude in Louisiana and across the South.”

As detailed in the complaint, Relan made brutal and theatrical demonstrations of his power over the guestworkers, firing his shotgun over their heads, spraying them with pesticides, and physically assaulting at least one worker.  The complaint also details how Relan threatened the workers with unlawful arrest, eviction, and deportation and paid below the federal minimum wage.

“The workers wanted to escape, but felt they had no choice but to work for Relan,” said Daniel Castellanos, organizer with the Alliance of Guestworkers for Dignity.  When  members of the African American and immigrant communities of New Orleans came forward to offer workers their protection, workers escaped involuntary servitude.

Relan is also the subject of an FBI criminal investigation into human trafficking crimes, opened earlier this year after workers brought his crimes to the attention of federal authorities.  Some of the guestworkers were granted “continued presence” in the United States as cooperating witnesses to the FBI’s investigation, basic protection and legal status granted to victims of trafficking who cooperate with US federal authorities to bring their traffickers to justice.

“These guestworkers have come forward to file litigation at a time when a new administration needs to hear their message,” said Soni.  “Workers need U.S. laws enforced for their protection - and federal authorities need to go after employers like Bimbo Relan.  If change is really coming in Washington, it needs to include these workers.”

The New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice brought the litigation on behalf of the workers.  Workers’ claims also include violations of the minimum wage (FLSA); breach of contract; and battery.  Community members who assisted workers in escaping involuntary servitude included New Orleans residents Ted Quant (a longtime labor organizer and professor), Damien Ramos, and Gerald Lenoir, Director of the Black Alliance for Just Immigration.

For further information about the civil litigation please contact:

Jennifer Rosenbaum, Counsel, New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice - (615) 423-0152, jjrosenbaum@gmail.com