Source: Change.org
In the largest labor trafficking case to ever come under indictment in the United States, 400 Thai farm workers were freed from their bondage recently in a major bust. Shutting down a second trafficking ring resulted in the not insignificant release of 44 human trafficking victims. How many more of the agricultural workers who put food on our table live in modern-day slavery? There's no telling, but these massive operations don't bode well for the security of farm workers in America. The Thai trafficking wing, for instance, had been in operation since 2004 and was only just shut down.
Given these less-than-reassuring signs, agriculture is looking at a major crackdown on illegal labor practices, Amanda Kloer reports on the End Human Trafficking blog. This seems like a good thing, right? Slavery equals bad, stopping slavery equals good. But since farms rely so heavily on foreign labor to keep everything running smoothly, new federal regulations restricting H-2A visas could be a serious hindrance to business as usual, even for those who weren't breaking any labor laws.
Immoral employers in all industries have always been drawn to hire foreign labor in order to assert exorbitant control over their employees, whether they're outright trafficking and enslaving workers or engaging in a slightly subtler form of labor exploitation. Since an immigrant on a work visa has to immediately leave the country if they lose their job, these employers quash dissent over unfair labor practices by waving the deportation card around. A worker facing the threat of not just losing their job, but losing their very right to remain living in the country, has a huge incentive to sit down and shut up no matter what conditions they suffer. And, of course, if they're exploiting undocumented workers, they can threaten one call to immigration authorities to set off instant removal proceedings.
While the Obama administration's new regulation to the H-2A visa, like mandating decent wages and housing, are useful to those workers whose employers follow the letter of the law, it does nothing for those who are already victims of labor trafficking and exploitation. The restrictions make it harder for farms that want to obey the law to bring sufficient labor to their farms (and, no, unemployed Americans cannot simply fill those slots: they've asked), while failing to protect migrant laborers within our borders, even if they followed legal pathways to their jobs.
Addressing the "deportation card" and the vulnerability of temporary workers by doing away with automatic removal proceedings, giving them time to find a new job or levy charges of unjust labor practices, would provide much better sanctuary for potential trafficking victims than more regulations that will just be ignored, or require major expenses to monitor. And protecting immigrants serves the dual purpose of making certain that Americans aren't also faced with shoddy conditions and pay, because if their foreign coworkers cannot speak up they too lose much of their ability to demand labor rights and to bargain.
Photo credit: tlindenbaum
Alex DiBranco is a Change.org Editor who has worked for the Nation, Political Research Associates, and the Center for American Progress. She is now based in New York City.
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