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Forced labor is a well-known phenomenon in agriculture in the United States; and labor brokers are key actors in
the system, both for documented and undocumented workers.
The primary mechanism for entrapping workers in situations of forced labor in US agriculture is the facilitation of
grave indebtedness prior to arrival in the United States. As this report will elaborate, labor experts and workers
interviewed by Verité have reported brokerage fees ranging from USD 3,000-27,000 among workers coming in
legally on H-2A and H-2B guestworker visas. Interest rates can be usurious, reaching up to 20 percent monthly.
Brokers or moneylenders affiliated with brokers sometimes hold workers’ titles to land or other valuables as
collateral. Once in the United States, workers can be threatened with deportation, blacklisting, confiscation of
land, and violence against themselves and their families if they complain.
The brokers themselves can be large or small; and workers on temporary guestworker visas seem more vulnerable
to falling prey to forced labor schemes than undocumented workers.
The legal route into the United States for temporary work is the H-2 program. This report focuses explicitly on H-
2A visas, under which workers labor specifically in agriculture; and H-2B visas, under which workers may work
in a wide range of “nonagricultural” professions, including some very much akin to agriculture, such as forestry,
and produce, meat, and fish packing. The H-2 program is widely criticized by worker advocates for lacking
adequate protections for work, health, and housing; legalizing the payment of subminimum wages; and – because
workers are, for practical purposes, bound to work for one or more employers – entrapping workers at specified
worksites for the duration of their stay in the United States.
H-2B visas are subject to significantly less oversight and protections than H-2A visas. In fact, the US Department
of Labor has stated that it has no authority to enforce labor law among H-2B visa holders.1
Many H-2B visa
holders face especially egregious violations, including in some cases, huge salary deductions (in one documented
case, a worker’s salary was reduced to 13 cents per hour). This in turn makes it virtually impossible to pay back
loans, thereby perpetuating the cycle of debt bondage.2
Verité has found evidence of workers being brought in on
these more lenient H-2B visas and then illegally trafficked into work in agriculture. In some cases workers on H-
2B visas are actually “sold” to agricultural employers – a system reminiscent of chattel slavery.3
Undocumented workers are also vulnerable to forced labor in US agriculture. These workers, the vast majority of
whom are from Latin America, are typically smuggled or trafficked over the border with Mexico by coyotes, who
are in some cases also their labor brokers or employers. Because of their undocumented status, these workers are
by nature vulnerable to abusive labor practices and forced labor. In some egregious cases, coyotes hold workers
hostage either until their families pay additional money or until they provide a certain amount of labor.
This report offers findings from research on the US agricultural sector as a whole, as well as four in-depth case
studies. The four cases were selected to capture the primary broker mechanisms present in US agriculture; while
at the same time providing diversity of geographic location, type of good produced, visa status, and origin of
workers. These case studies include: