{"id":1376872,"date":"2022-03-14T23:21:11","date_gmt":"2022-03-15T03:21:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1376872"},"modified":"2022-03-14T23:21:14","modified_gmt":"2022-03-15T03:21:14","slug":"feds-missouri-farm-imported-foreign-workers-to-cut-labor-costs-housed-them-in-former-jail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/feds-missouri-farm-imported-foreign-workers-to-cut-labor-costs-housed-them-in-former-jail\/","title":{"rendered":"Feds: Missouri Farm Imported Foreign Workers to Cut Labor Costs, Housed Them in Former Jail"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">30<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Ffeds-missouri-farm-imported-foreign-workers-to-cut-labor-costs-housed-them-in-former-jail%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1376872&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><\/div>\n<p class=\"subheading\">A Florida-based company operating a Missouri farm imported foreign H-2A visa workers to cut labor costs, deny them pay, and housed them in an old jail, federal investigators say.<\/p>\n<p>This month, the Department of Labor <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dol.gov\/newsroom\/releases\/whd\/whd20220304-0\">announced<\/a> a settlement with Marin J. Corp, which operates a watermelon farm in southeast Missouri that includes paying nearly $166,000 in back wages to 85 foreign H-2A visa workers and a $75,000 fine for violating the Immigration and Naturalization Act.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"D-ROS-B1\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B1\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"gmxrevmore\" class=\"H\"><\/figure>\n<p>In July 2018, Marin J. Corp was hit with a preliminary injunction for violating labor standards via the H-2A visa program that allows United States farms to import an endless number of foreign farmworkers.<\/p>\n<p>As Breitbart News <a href=\"https:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/politics\/2021\/11\/12\/black-americans-sue-u-s-farms-for-replacing-them-with-foreign-workers-its-like-being-robbed-of-your-heritage\/\">has reported<\/a>, Americans are often replaced by imported, foreign H-2A visa workers. Black Americans in Mississippi are currently suing after their employers fired and replaced them with foreign H-2A visa workers from South Africa.<\/p>\n<p>Federal investigators <a href=\"https:\/\/www.insurancejournal.com\/news\/midwest\/2018\/08\/13\/497828.htm\">accused<\/a> Marin J. Corp of housing foreign H-2A visa workers in an old jail that did not have a kitchen, had no access to water aside from bathroom sinks, and barely had any windows for light.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B2\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<p>Other foreign H-2A visa workers employed by Marin J. Corp were put up in a motel and two homes, each of which had limited beds, leaking toilets, and broken refrigerators.<\/p>\n<p>Likewise, investigators found that foreign H-2A visa workers were being deprived of wages and were subjected to intense working conditions where employees were forced to share a bottle of water, and many passed out under the extreme heat.<\/p>\n<p>Some of the foreign H-2A visa workers said they only got two checks, one for $340 and another for $120, after working nearly a month for Marin J. Corp. In one case, the workers said they were made to cash the $120 check and return the money to the company.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cInvestigators found Marin J. Corp provided these workers with living quarters that were woefully inadequate and violated basic human decency, and violated specific guidelines of the H-2A program, including charging workers to obtain employment,\u201d Labor Department official Michael Lazzeri said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p>In a recent case, a federal indictment\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/politics\/2021\/11\/26\/doj-modern-day-slavery-scheme-run-by-illegal-aliens-trafficked-foreign-visa-workers-to-georgia-farms\/\">detailed allegations<\/a>\u00a0that accused a transnational criminal network of operating a \u201cmodern-day slavery\u201d scheme that used the H-2A visa program to traffic foreign nationals into U.S. farm jobs \u2014 raping, kidnapping, and threatening them in the process.<\/p>\n<p>In 1997, a little more than 16,000 foreign H-2A visa workers were imported to take American agriculture jobs. By 2021, that number had exploded to more than\u00a0<a class=\"x5l\" href=\"https:\/\/www.wilsoncenter.org\/article\/look-h-2a-growth-and-reform-2021-and-2022\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener external\">258,000<\/a>. About 93 percent of all H-2A visas are awarded to Mexican nationals.<\/p>\n<p>At the same time, as Breitbart News <a href=\"https:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/politics\/2022\/02\/18\/exclusive-congressmen-to-lobby-joe-biden-for-cheaper-foreign-farmworkers\/\">exclusively reported<\/a> last month,\u00a0Reps. Scott Franklin (R-FL) and Salud Carbajal (D-CA) have sought to garner Republican and Democrat support for making foreign H-2A visa workers even cheaper for U.S. farms to hire.<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at\u00a0jbinder@breitbart.com.\u00a0Follow him on Twitter\u00a0<a class=\"x5l\" title=\"This external link will open in a new window\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/JxhnBxnder\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">here<\/a>.\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Florida-based company operating a Missouri farm imported foreign H-2A visa workers to cut labor costs, deny them pay, and housed them in an old jail, federal investigators say. This<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1376872","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1376872","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1376872"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1376872\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1376872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1376872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1376872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}