Every year, American companies import as many as 150,000 low-skilled temporary workers from countries like Mexico, Central America, and the Philippines. They come in on something called an H-2 visa to work in our fields, hotels, and factories. They’re gardeners and sheep-herders; they work in amusement parks and in US National Parks. An in-depth investigation by Buzzfeed has also found that thousands of them are exploited and mistreated. They are being cheated out of wages and, in some rare, extreme cases, are being beaten, raped, and held prisoner. Buzzfeed reported that the Department of Labor, the government agency that runs the H-2 program, does little to protect these workers. And despite the fact that the law says none of these guest workers should deny jobs to Americans, Buzzfeed reports that’s exactly what’s happening.
KCRW
