Prism, Futuro Investigates, Latino USA

H-2A Visa Worker Exploitation

Tina Vásquez, Patricia Sulbarán, Roxana Aguirre, Fernanda Echavarri, Andrea López-Cruzado, Penily Ramírez, Lara Witt, Kimberly Rooney 高小荣

This collaboration between three news organizations examined predatory practices and inhumane conditions within the H-2A visa program, which brings farmworkers to the U.S. The team interviewed workers in North Carolina, their families in Mexico, and used Freedom of Information Act requests to learn H-2A workers were owed millions in back wages because the government said it could not locate them. The two-year reporting effort, published in English and Spanish, prompted the U.S. Department of Labor to launch an initiative alongside the Mexican government that will return millions in back wages owed to Mexican H-2A workers with cases spanning 2011-2021.