Feds crack down on labor exploitation amid national worry over fair treatment

A traveling carnival business owner in Texas is the latest to be accused of labor exploitation amid a surge in calls for worker protection reforms and child labor violations across the nation.

Angel Reyes Isidro, 41, allegedly operated a carnival business in Houston with unauthorized workers, according to an indictment. In 2019, Reyes falsified temporary employment applications to obtain H-2B visas for 24 unnamed foreign seasonal workers, the indictment alleges.

The H-2B program allows employers to temporarily hire foreign nationals to work temporary nonagricultural jobs in the United States, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. Under the program, the department said employers are required to prove that they will offer wages that "equals or exceeds the highest of the prevailing wage" or is applicable to minimum wage standards.

But after the 24 workers entered the United States between June and August 2019, the indictment alleges Reyes charged them illegal visa fees, paid them below the minimum pay required, and made threats of deportation and loss of future employment opportunities. Reyes profited from the scheme and was paid to illegally transfer four workers to another employer.

The case underscores how employers across the country have benefited from the labor of exploited workers.

"Recent immigrants, both documented and undocumented, are among the most exploited workers in the country, enduring wage theft, dangerous working conditions, discrimination, and even physical assaults," according to the non-profit organization Green America.

Federal authorities have also increasingly called attention to labor violations after the Labor Department reported last year that child labor violations have risen 69% since 2018. The rise in child labor cases in the United States coincides with the arrival of hundreds of thousands of unaccompanied minors in recent years.

Immigration and child advocates have noted that migrant children are vulnerable to labor exploitation and human trafficking in the country. Many migrant children have been found working in dangerous industries, such as meatpacking and poultry, construction, and major label food factories, according to the American Immigration Council’s Immigration Impact project.

Carnival business workers put in poor working, living conditions

The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Texas said Reyes continued operating his carnival business with unauthorized workers from 2022 to the time of his arrest on April 28.

Reyes "placed the workers in cramped and crowded conditions where workers had to take turns sleeping on the floor because there was not enough bed space," the indictment states. Testimony during a federal court hearing further alleged that Reyes threatened workers with a firearm and sexually harassed female workers, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.

Prosecutors also said Reyes, who is a Mexican national living in the United States, "poses a serious flight risk, risk of obstructing justice and is a danger to the community." He has been charged with fraud in foreign labor contracting, false statements, and mail fraud, among other crimes, according to the indictment. 

Reyes faces up to 20 years in federal prison for mail fraud and a maximum of 10 years for visa fraud, the U.S. Attorney's Office said in a news release. The other counts carry a five-year maximum term of imprisonment.

'Jobs they should never have been near':Tennessee company fined nearly $650K for illegally hiring minors to clean slaughterhouses

Federal authorities take steps to strengthen labor protections

In 2023, the Labor Department announced new actions to protect workers against employer exploitation, including migrants and children. The new efforts to strengthen protections for workers were part of the Biden administration’s "approach to ensuring our most vulnerable workers know their rights, are protected from abuse at the hands of their employers and can advocate for themselves at work," the department said.

The H-2B program is one of many temporary work visa programs in the United States, according to an Economic Policy Institute report in 2022. The program is commonly used for jobs in landscaping, construction, forestry, seafood and meat processing, traveling carnivals, restaurants, and hospitality. 

The report noted that as the H-2B program continues to grow, migrants with H-2B visas are being “employed in industries in which there is extensive wage theft and lawbreaking by employers.” 

Citing data from the Labor Department, the report said nearly $1.8 billion in wages were stolen from workers between 2000 and 2021. During those years, more than 225,000 cases across seven major H-2B industries were investigated by the Labor Department with violations discovered in over 180,000 cases, according to the report.

"The H-2B program has been plagued by worker exploitation for too long," Acting Secretary of Labor Julie Su said in a statement last October. "The Biden-Harris administration is committed to protecting H2-B workers from abuse and with this report, we’re taking a whole-of-government approach to protecting these vulnerable workers, which will also help ensure they are not used to undercut labor standards for domestic workers."

Uptick in child labor across the U.S.

Last year, the Labor Department denounced the uptick in child labor nationwide. Since then, federal authorities have issued penalties to numerous employers in violation of child labor laws, many including meat and poultry processing facilities.

During the fiscal year of 2023, the department said its investigators found that more than 5,800 children had been employed in violation of federal child labor laws — an 88% increase since 2019. In total, 955 federal investigations found child labor violations, which resulted in more than $8 million in penalties, according to the department.

The largest case of that year revealed at least 102 children, between the ages of 13 to 17, worked overnight shifts at 13 meat processing facilities in eight states. 

A federal investigation found that Packers Sanitation Services Inc. LTD (PSSI), which is based in Wisconsin and one of the nation’s largest food safety sanitation services providers, employed children in hazardous jobs to clean dangerous powered equipment, including brisket saws and "head splitters" used to kill animals.

The Labor Department said in its lawsuit that most of the children who worked at some of the facilities were not fluent English speakers and had to be interviewed in Spanish. NBC News reported in March 2023 that the Department of Homeland Security and Justice Department were investigating whether a human smuggling scheme brought migrant children to work at the facilities.

“Our investigation found Packers Sanitation Services’ systems flagged some young workers as minors, but the company ignored the flags. When the Wage and Hour Division arrived with warrants, the adults – who had recruited, hired and supervised these children – tried to derail our efforts to investigate their employment practices,” Labor Department Wage and Hour Regional Administrator Michael Lazzeri said in a statement last February.