Legal Immigrants Suffer Abuse and Exploitation, Too

The first person we see is the boss, running at us.

He's an old white man who hops off his tractor shouting, "Problemo? Problemo?" Wiping the sweat off his bald head, he sticks his chest out, trying to intimidate us.

We've driven several hours through rural towns and swampland to an isolated island near the Chesapeake Bay to visit women working in the Maryland crab industry — but at this processing plant, bosses frown on visitors. The women who travel from Mexico to labor in the Maryland crab industry are keep under tight watch, both on the job and off.

This month, I accompanied two former crab workers to the Washington D.C. area, where they spoke at the release of a report titled "Picked Apart: The Hidden Struggles of Migrant Worker Women in the Maryland Crab Industry." Released by the Centro de los Derechos del Migrante* and the Washington College of Law, the report tells the story of exploitation and abuse that is common to thousands of workers that are awarded H-2 visas to legally migrate each year to work for American companies.

The H-2 guestworker program allows American companies to hire cheap foreign workers to do difficult work. H-2A visas are given to mostly Mexican workers who pick vegetables and other crops. H-2B visas are for non-agricultural jobs like operating carnival rides, landscaping or construction.

In Mexico, these workers are promised the ultimate dream: a good job working legally in the United States. When they get here, however, it quickly becomes clear that the reality is much harsher.

Women in the Maryland crab industry report taking out high-interest loans to pay exorbitant fees to corrupt recruiters in Mexico. After a three-day bus journey and racking up thousands of dollars in debt, they arrive at isolated crab processing factories in Maryland, only to be paid around $1.50 per pound to scrape crab meat from its shell in a work environment that is basically a giant freezer.

The fees they pay to get to Maryland leave them so indebted they are often afraid to complain about poor working conditions. Bosses demand that the women pick almost 30 pounds of crab a day, or risk being sent back to Mexico with empty pockets. In such a high-stress environment, some reported cuts from the crab knife that developed into infected hands and arms. And bosses often neglect to given any medical attention to injuries.

Such conditions are why American businesses love guestworkers. They're cheap, they arrive indebted and as a result, they're easy to control.

It's telling that two states known for mistreating immigrants, Utah and Arizona, both want their own state-level guestworker programs. Recently, Glenn Hamer — CEO of the Arizona Chamber of Commerce — proposed giving immigrants permanent guestworker status this is "something short of citizenship" so they can work, but be denied the rights of a citizen.

This idea of permitting worker exploitation by denying fundamental rights is unfortunately an inherent part of the guestworker program in all industries, as revealed in the 2007 Southern Poverty Law Center critique of the H-2 program, "Close to Slavery."

Last year, H-2B carnival ride operators won a $325,000 settlement with Dreamland Amusements, a traveling fair company. H-2B guestworkers had complained that Dreamland forced them to work up to 20 hour shifts operating carnival rides for sometimes less than $2.00 an hour. It was a victory — but unfortunately, such victories are all too infrequent.

Right-wing groups are currently pushing for the expansion of the H-2 guestworker program as a potential solution to unauthorized immigration from Mexico. However, before we even consider expansion, we must tackle the egregious abuses that exist in the current program. When we hire people who come here legally to work some of our country's most difficult jobs, it's our nation's responsibility to protect them, too.

Photo Credit: Sedap

*The opinions expressed on this blog are my own and not of any of my employers.