When the Law Fails Farmworkers: J-1 Visa Exploitation, Labor Trafficking, and the Hidden Cost of Cheap Meat

I'm not sure exactly who that includes, but it's probably a lot of people. And, uh, those are the people that feed us, and, um, and she's exploring new ways to create a humane, fair, and accessible food system, which we all are in favor of. Amal has all these unbelievably fascinating things in her bio, including work as a journalist in Beirut, working for the Brennan Center, but the one I'm going to mention in particular is she earned her JD from Fordham University School of Law, because so did I.

Amal Bouhabib: Yay.

Mariann Sullivan: Go Fordham.

Amal Bouhabib: Yeah.

Mariann Sullivan: Welcome, Amal

Amal Bouhabib: Thank you. I'm so glad to be here

Mariann Sullivan: Yeah, I'm excited to have you. I, I mentioned this before we started recording, but I'll, I'll say it again. We're not gonna know much of anything about the... You know, usually I interview people about the Animal Welfare Act or cruelty laws or whatever, and people have a little background. We know nothing, or at least I do. Uh, I know nothing.

So we'll have to, uh, keep it, keep it relatively basic. and before we get into that, just let m- let me give you all a quick reminder about the Our Hen House podcasts. Rising Anxieties comes out on Tuesdays, The Hen Report on Thursdays, the long-form interview, including this one, on Fridays. Bonus comes out on Mondays, and we're a podcast and we're on YouTube, so subscribe, hit like wherever you listen. Okay, that's done. Uh, all right. So, you know, as I mentioned, we don't do a lot of cases on farm workers. It's not, it's not really our beat, but it's certainly extremely tangential to our beat. Uh, and so I would... And it's something that we really need to know more about. And I'd like to mention a few cases that are going on, but I thought we would really focus on this J-1 visa case. uh, when I first read about this case in the news, I, I was, which was a while ago, I was truly shocked and, you know, not that much shocks us all anymore but s- and it actually since then, given the events that have happened, I'm not sure is it, it's as shocking. It's still as horrible as it was then, but it's not quite as shocking 'cause things have gotten really out of hand. Can you just start by giving us the story? I like to start, you know, with just... Every lawsuit is a story.

Uh, the basic story of what happened to these three young men from Guatemala, and then we'll get into details.

Amal Bouhabib: Yes. Uh, so yes, there's three young men from Guatemala who had just completed their studies in agronomy, uh, when they were offered what they thought was the opportunity of a lifetime, which was to get to come to the US, uh, on a visa, you know, legally, and get an internship, a one-year-long internship at a farm, a US farm.

That's what they believed, um, in Nebraska, it turned out, and they would be getting, uh, it was a paid internship. They'd be getting a stipend. They'd have housing. And the real lure was that the, the visa they were gonna be on, which is called a J-1 visa, was a cultural exchange visa that actually came out of the Fulbright, um, era, uh, that was intended to really teach foreign students how to run a business, you know, from the American perspective.

So really to get the nuts and bolts of how the work was done on the farm, but also the business side of it and the marketing side of it. Um, and then the idea was that these foreign students would take that back to their countries and kind of implement the American model. So, you know, a lot of lofty ambitions.

But they, they signed up. You know, they were told they had to pay some recruitment fees, uh, travel fees, paperwork fees, et cetera. That amounted to upwards of three thousand dollars for each of them, which was a significant amount for Guatemalan students. Uh, and when they got to Nebraska, it was not as promised.

It was a swine production farm called Livingston Enterprises, so relatively

Mariann Sullivan: They knew it was a, a pig farm, right? I mean,

Amal Bouhabib: They did. I, I--

Mariann Sullivan: That's what they

Amal Bouhabib: No, that part was not a surprise.

Mariann Sullivan: Yeah

Amal Bouhabib: I think there was perhaps an idea that it wasn't gonna be as industrial as it was.

Um, yeah. You know, because the websites, everything they could learn about it, the websites make it look like, you know, this family farm that started with one pig, et cetera. Uh, so you're right.

They did know that it was going to be pigs. Um, they, uh, but they were told, you know, they had a very specific training program that gets approved by the State Department. You know, it's written out, everybody signs it, the employer signs it, their recruiter, who's the, who acts as the broker between them and the employer, um, signs it under oath.

Um, and one of the things they attest to is that they will not be-- they, these students will not be used as general labor workers. They're there for this internship. But when they got there, that's exactly what happened. They were treated as general labor. The training was not training. They didn't have any training, in fact, or they were told to follow people and learn things, which resulted in a lot of harm to them, but harm to the animals, as we'll talk about, um, foreseeable harm to both of them.

And, uh, and when they inquired about the training program and safety, they were retaliated against and eventually fired, um, which left them in a big bind because they had gone into debt to come here. So, uh, to, yeah, as a, as a farm worker lawyer, that type of bait and switch is not necessarily new to me, but I'm excited to talk about it for people for whom it is new.

Mariann Sullivan: Yeah. Well, I mean, I think probably everybody listening knows it's bad, but we don't have all that many details about exactly in what ways it's bad. So that's what we want. And let's get a few more details out of the way. Let's talk about who the players are, because the way this visa program works, you know, I read the complaint, but there's only so much you can glean from reading the complaint.

There's this Worldwide Farmers Exchange, which is one of the entities, and then LEI Enterprises is actually the pig farm. So, so, um, how do they relate to each other and to the J-1 program?

Amal Bouhabib: Right. So actually this is baked into the J-1 program as a way, uh, I think to facilitate recruitment of foreign students, that there is a, what they call a s- uh, a sponsor, which is basically like a recruitment agency, and that's Worldwide Farmers Exchange. So they're US-based. In this case, they happen to have a Guatemalan recruiter who finds the students, recruits them, relays all the promises of the program, gets them to sign the papers, explains everything that's gonna happen.

Meanwhile, the US part of Worldwide Farmers is actually helping draft and get the, the paperwork for the State Department ready. So in this case, I'm sure they helped draft a training, a phased training program that I was talking about before, that the, uh, host, that's the LEI Enterprises in this, in this case, will sign and attest to.

And you know, they, they, those two are working together to create the training program, but then, uh, Worldwide Farmers would kind of submit that to the State Department for approval. So they're really this kind of broker in the middle of the foreign students and the host. And earlier I called them employer.

They're not technically, technically an employer because they're not supposed to be employing these interns. So they are the host, and they will be

Mariann Sullivan: facto.

Amal Bouhabib: The training. Yeah, the de facto employer, yes.

Mariann Sullivan: Yeah. All right, so, um, and this woman in, I mean, this woman in Guatemala who works with Worldwide, she's, she's one of the defendants as well, right?

Amal Bouhabib: That's right, yeah.

Mariann Sullivan: And there's a, there's another woman who's a, who's a defendant? Just to sort everybody out.

Amal Bouhabib: Oh, sure. Yeah. So the Guatemalan defendant was the, was the Guatemalan recruiter, so she was in Guatemala. Her name is, her last name is Cifuentes. Um, and then Ashley, she is the president of Worldwide Farmers, so she's in charge of the, the recruitment agency

Mariann Sullivan: How big is this program? And is it just animal agriculture? Is it the whole gamut? Like, like is this a big deal? It's so interesting that it's run by the State Department and not the Ag Department.

Amal Bouhabib: Absolutely. Although that might be changing under Trump. But yes, it, it is really interesting, and I think it's run by the State Department because it was an exchange program. So the J-1 program itself is pretty vast because it also includes, um, au pairs, things like that, and camp counselors.

Yeah, so it's-- And those are different types of J-1, but yeah. Yes, exactly. Yes, and then, then within that, these plaintiffs were on the internship/trainee J-1 visa, which is pretty specific. And in that category, I think animal ag takes up a big chunk of it, and then I know they also have like vineyards and things like that.

So there, there is an ag aspect to it. I don't think they're being brought though to do like vegetables, I think because we already have a system to fill those needs. Yeah.

Mariann Sullivan: We-- maybe we can get a little to, uh, you know, some of the other programs as well to get immigrants in, um, le-legally, but not permanently,

Amal Bouhabib: Right

Mariann Sullivan: which seems to be always the goal. Uh,

Amal Bouhabib: Yep

Mariann Sullivan: Can you go a little bit, a, a little bit more into what the offer was? Like what kind of-- what the offer was re-regarding pay, regarding conditions, um, and, and maybe worldwide standards, uh, you know, that this offer was supposed to fit into so that the kind of things that they heard about that reassured them that this was gonna be a good deal.

Amal Bouhabib: Yeah. Um, so Worldwide Farmers promised them through, through this Guatemalan, uh, agent, uh, number one, that it would be a Monday through Friday job at 45 hours a week, which sounds pretty reasonable. And it, not a job, I said job, but I mean a training program. So Monday through Friday, 45 hours. If they wanted to work more than that, they'd have the opportunity.

They would get what they thought w- it's called a stipend in the program because this is not supposed to be a job, but they thought a $2,500 stipend per month with the opportunity to get a little more if they wanted to spend a little more time. Um, they would have weekends off. They would have housing provided to them.

They thought their commutes to and from the farm would be provided to them. Um, they expected to be able to partake in American cultural opportunities, which is also part of the program. That is a J-1 visa requirement. Um, and that probably could mean anything, but the idea is to kind of get exposed to American, American culture.

Mariann Sullivan: Like, like the parts of the country that contain huge pig farms, like probably don't have that many things to... Probably doesn't have a lot of Broadway shows, or whatever we think of as American culture.

Amal Bouhabib: Yeah.

Mariann Sullivan: Um,

Amal Bouhabib: True. I wonder what the, the, original thought was.

Mariann Sullivan: Sure Nebraska has good theater. I'm not saying it doesn't, but you know, the part of Nebraska where the pig farms are. Uh,

Amal Bouhabib: Yeah

Mariann Sullivan: And you mentioned, um, they had to spend a lot of money to take part in the program. You already told us that. And they had, they, they ended up borrowing a lot of that money 'cause these are not well-off people. And there was a, there was l- like a literal bait and switch right before they left, right?

Amal Bouhabib: Oh, right. Yeah. I didn't even talk about that. Right. So they were expecting housing to be free, as I said. Um, the night before they flew out to Nebraska, the Worldwide Farmers agent had them sign a document that said they would be charged for housing, um, and a commute. And basically they were told, if they didn't sign it, they couldn't fly out.

So not a lot of choice there. They'd already spent the money. Yeah. And suddenly they were signing off on, you know, hundreds of dollars a month for housing

Mariann Sullivan: Yeah. Which, uh, given their s- their stipend was not enormous, but, but they did end up earning even less than their stipend, right?

Amal Bouhabib: Right. Correct

Mariann Sullivan: Um, all Right. so, so as to the work itself, what kind of training did they receive? I know this is kind of a long detailed story, but give us the picture. Yeah. And the kind of work they did and the kind of training they received.

Amal Bouhabib: Yeah. I mean, and this, I'll tell you, this was a learning process for me too, because coming from a farm, like field farm worker background, I didn't know a lot about what happens in the, uh, animal production world, and it, and it opened my eyes a lot. So it's bad.

Um, okay, so one of their first jobs was what they call processing newborn piglets. You know, um, what was I gonna say? Trigger warning, I guess. But, uh, yeah, they, where they apply a tattoo gun to the piglet's ears to give them identifying marks, and they cut off their tails with scissors, which I'm told is so that they don't, um, bite each other's tails, I think is the idea.

Mariann Sullivan: Right.

Amal Bouhabib: Right. Um,

Mariann Sullivan: Docking it's called

Amal Bouhabib: Yeah. Ugh. And I mean, obviously those are, um, dangerous, you know, kind of serious processes, I think especially cutting off the tails, but they were not trained in that. You know, they were supposed to be trained in how to do this. Um, so when one of the plaintiffs was tattooing, one of the piglets began bleeding profusely.

They didn't get any instruction from anyone about whether he was doing it correctly, and sometimes, um, the pigs did bleed out and die. And, uh, even then they didn't like retrain or help the plaintiffs learn how to do this correctly. I mean, they were most of the time being told to just follow whoever was already doing it, which often was another J-1 worker,

Mariann Sullivan: Okay.

Amal Bouhabib: Intern, J-1 intern.

Mariann Sullivan: So w- th- this facility didn't just have a few workers from Guatemala. They had...

J-1 was an important source of their workforce.

Amal Bouhabib: Yes, you- you're, you're right. We should say that. And they came from a- all, all over the world. There were some from Africa, some from Eastern Europe, uh, some from South America. Um, I don't know if it was in the hundreds, but I think it might have been close. It was a, it was a large program.

And then on top of that, they had other M- Mexican immigrant workers who were on a different visa. But

Mariann Sullivan: Alright. I would love to go into that, but there's a limit to how many programs we can,

Amal Bouhabib: It is true. Yes

Mariann Sullivan: tear apart.

Amal Bouhabib: There was also-- they-- one of them was helping with the sows birthing, which you might know already, um, involved administering oxytocin to induce labor, and they also had to extract the piglets from the sows. Um, no, not given any instruction on how to do that besides looking at another intern. Um, and one of our plaintiffs accidentally administered two doses of oxytocin instead of one and resulting in the sow suffering a prolapsed uterus and dying.

So these are just some of the most extreme examples, I think, but this is, you know, they're doing this every day not knowing what they're doing, it's bound to lead to some terrible results

Mariann Sullivan: I know we had mentioned that we wanted to talk about some of the ways in which the mistreatment of the workers intersects with the mistreatment of the animals, and certainly the complete lack of training in, uh, in these processes is one. But the, the, the actual-- In reading the complaint, it's clear that the, the, the task that they were assigned that was the most horrifying, and it does not sound like a big deal at all when you talk about it, not vis-a-vis the animals, but vis-a-vis-- It was called power washing.

Amal Bouhabib: Yeah

Mariann Sullivan: You know, I've power washed the side of a wall. It was fine. But until you read it, you j- like, it's unbelievable. And when you think about it, I mean, they're doing is using power washers to clean all of this shit out of these barns after months.

Amal Bouhabib: Yeah

Mariann Sullivan: can you talk a little bit about how hard it is, their trai- you know, the whole power washing story?

Amal Bouhabib: Yeah, I'm glad that came across 'cause it was new to me too. You know, I thought the same thing. Power washing, okay, it's hard. But yeah, you're right. So they, they were tasked with spraying a barn that had been emptied of the pigs with a high-pressure hose. But you know what they're cleaning is, um, shit, like literal shit, feces, blood, other waste left behind after weeks of, weeks of confinement, right?

They're in there. Um, so the water's very hot, you know, dangerously hot. It can cause serious wounds. The pressure by itself can cause serious wounds. And while they're, they're spraying this very intense high-pressure water, all of that, all of that filth is blowing up in-- all around them, you know, in, in the air, in their faces, in their, uh, ears, you know, everywhere.

So it did, uh... Yeah. Yeah. Um, so not only was it putting immense strain on their bodies 'cause they're doing this sometimes three or four hours a day, um, but it's making them physically sick. I mean, they were breaking out in hives. Their, you know, their noses were bleeding. It, it was, uh, making them physically sick.

Mariann Sullivan: There was sickness. There, there were actual injuries as well, right?

Amal Bouhabib: Yeah. Yeah. Um, I mean, there were injuries from a few of the, the different tasks. Um, so yeah, I mean, and, and I think maybe all three of them actually experienced injuries by being kicked or charged by one of the, the sows because they were, you know, they had to try to move them from place to place without, again, any training.

Mariann Sullivan: These are very, very traumatized animals. And I don't know whether you've ever been around, um, been around pigs raised for food.

Amal Bouhabib: No.

Mariann Sullivan: I'm sure everyone listening has been to sanctuaries. But they are enormous. I mean,

Amal Bouhabib: Yeah

Mariann Sullivan: are enormous animals

Amal Bouhabib: That's what I hear. Yeah, maybe 300 pounds, right? This is what we were told, yeah.

Um

Mariann Sullivan: The, Um the mothers because they're full-grown. I mean, the,

Amal Bouhabib: Yeah

Mariann Sullivan: the ones that are sent to slaughter are only sent to slaughter at four to six months, so they're not as big, but the mothers are huge.

Amal Bouhabib: Yeah, so there were, there were several, several injuries, and one of them did have a, a power hose kinda snap up against him and burn him. Um, I think that's right. I think it's burning. Um, but yeah, he didn't feel like he could report it, um, due to the atmosphere of the work.

Mariann Sullivan: So we've kind of covered it, and people are getting the idea that this is really, really bad conditions. the, the pay was inadequate. Can you just talk a little, before we finish this, this discussion, can you talk a little bit about the housing 'cause it was so bad, and also what happened when they complained or talked about leaving?

Amal Bouhabib: So the housing, yeah, I think, you know, and, you know, all of us when we talk about thinking we're gonna be provided housing in another country in an internship program probably envision something relatively nice, you know, a dorm, something like that.

Mariann Sullivan: Yeah.

Amal Bouhabib: Um, they were put in this, um, this, uh, refurbished Walmart which had, um, uh, had been, you know, reconstructed to have small rooms.

So they were put in a room with maybe three other people, so four to a room, no windows, um, barely space for their belongings. Uh, you know, they had to share bathrooms that were never cleaned, and they had a common area, but that's really all the privacy. I mean, the privacy they had was in their room with four people, so no real privacy.

Um, I-- they complained about it being pretty filthy just because how many people were put into this one spot. There was really only one outdoor access which was fenced in. I mean, obviously, you could leave the compound, you know, if you, if you had, uh, transportation, which none of them do 'cause they're all coming from foreign countries.

But yeah, the one outdoor space linked to the housing was a small, uh, concrete area with fencing or, um, wire around it. Um, so that was, uh, that was adding to their feeling of kind of o-oppression and isolation, um, especially because they were paying hundreds of dollars for that housing. And all of them were, so, uh, probably making-- Livingston's probably making a profit off of that.

Mariann Sullivan: Clearly

Amal Bouhabib: Yeah. Okay, so that's the housing, and what was your other question?

Mariann Sullivan: The threats regarding what would happen if they left.

Amal Bouhabib: Yeah. So two of the, of the plaintiffs especially, uh, I would say, I mean, complaining sounds like a bad thing, but, you know, brought up the discrepancies between the training program they were promised and what they were doing and, and the kind of unsafety and the dangerousness of what they were doing.

Um, so often they were just-- they were separated from each other 'cause they didn't want them to be together kind of talking about things. But yeah, then there were supervisors who you know, made threats or comments suggesting they could go back to Guatemala if they didn't like it or they should go back to Guatemala if they don't like it.

Um, and, and basically shutting them down. I mean, uh, operating as threats to make them feel like they, they had to stay and do this stuff, like shut up and do the work or you're being sent home with all this debt.

Mariann Sullivan: And one of them actually left, right?

Amal Bouhabib: That's right. Yeah. There were the, the third one, um, who didn't complain just because, you know, he was so scared, actually left kind of in the middle of the night, um, couldn't take it anymore.

Mariann Sullivan: Right. So I think that unless I've left anything out, I think that kind of outlines the horrific, uh, conditions that these, these young men were in.

Amal Bouhabib: Right

Mariann Sullivan: You know, I, I'm just-- the, the thing that they always say, this is a very general question, but-- and I'll get back to details. But they always say, "Well, the reason we need immigrants in these special programs is because Americans won't do this work." Um, I, I always say, "Well, you pay anybody enough money, they'll do the work," you know? What? If it's a million dollars a day? You'd have plenty of people to do the work. It's all-- You know, that's basically a financial argument.

This is a really a financial necessity for the industry, isn't it? Uh, and that's

what we're talking about. It's making meat cheaper

Amal Bouhabib: Oh, absolutely. Yeah. And it's, you know, I think, you know it's not just in, um, the production side. Uh, the slaughterhouses work the same way. I mean, it is part of the system to pay the least amount that you can for labor in the, the, the easiest condition, the conditions that cost the least, right? Um, in order to make the, the meat cheaper and the profits higher, right?

So that's the system. And who are the best, I guess, marks for that? It's not Americans who know their rights or who could make more money driving an Uber, right? It's foreigners who come here feeling like they don't have another choice, like they can't leave, um, you know, that they'll be retaliated against in some kind of, uh, uh, immigration way if they complain.

And I mean, and often people who don't know their rights at all. Like, that was part of my job as a farm worker lawyer is even telling people what their rights are. So they really are kind of a perfect exploitative group, is, is immigrants who are coming here on the temporary visas.

Mariann Sullivan: You know, I mean, it's true of every industry that you pay people the least amount you can, but agriculture is exceptional, and they get all these special rules, uh, 'cause they're feeding the world, um, as they like to say. How did it happen that they managed to get representation? I mean, you mentioned this is a big program um, and there's people from all over the world. How, why are these three young men in court?

Amal Bouhabib: I think by virtue of their tenacity, you know, these two, there was two of them especially who really the ones who were complaining a lot and, and kind of pointing out the discrepancies and trying to assert their rights.

Mariann Sullivan: I think we should use their names, even though they each have, like, several names, but, uh, just so I'm not ignoring who they are.

Amal Bouhabib: So Freddy Alvarado Contreras is the first one. Sergio Escobar Gonzalez and Dennis Najera Barillas. Dennis is the one who left early,

Mariann Sullivan: Okay

Amal Bouhabib: Sergio and Freddy are the ones who kept trying to enforce their rights. Um, they were, um, eventually fired because they wouldn't stop talking

And they reached out, I think first to their consulate, um, the Guatemalan Consulate. And then... Oh, they did try to reach out to the State Department several times because part of the program the program suggests that you do that if you're being abused or if, you know, something's going wrong with the program.

They weren't getting responses. I think ultimately they were put in touch with the Nebraska Farm Workers Unit of the legal services and, and they-- the, the legal services got in touch with FarmSTAND, and that's how we came to this. But yeah, they were just reaching out to everybody they could reach out to.

Mariann Sullivan: You know? It is an embarrassment. I mean, one gets tired of the embarrassments of being an American these days, but that the State Department was involved in this, it's just, I mean, apparently in a big way.

Amal Bouhabib: Yeah

Mariann Sullivan: Humiliating. okay. So, uh, they found you. You decided to bring-- W- so you went to court.

What court are you in?

Amal Bouhabib: Um, District of Nebraska.

Mariann Sullivan: Okay.

Amal Bouhabib: The US District Court, District of Nebraska. Yeah, federal court

Mariann Sullivan: And we're gonna go through causes of action here as we always do, but you know, as I mentioned, these are different from the causes of action we usually discuss, and we're not that familiar with them. Um, uh, and maybe before we go into the details of them, can you explain your feelings about why animal lawyers should know about this type of case?

Like, what are the-- I mean, I think it's really important that there be intersections, even though there are obviously, uh, some strange bedfellow, uh, aspects that animal lawyers would frequently, not all of them, but frequently would like to see the whole industry go away, and farm workers would like to see the conditions improve. They're not totally aligned, but they're aligned in so many different ways. Do you agree?

Amal Bouhabib: Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, so for me, when coming to FarmSTAND, I had not worked in animal ag very much except for slaughterhouse, you know, workers who'd been in slaughterhouses. Um, and so for me, I also wanted to explore that tension, you know, this idea that, oh, if you're helping the workers, aren't you, aren't you keeping the system, right?

Aren't you keeping-- upholding the system? But I actually think it's the opposite. So obviously there's alignment between both of them are being mistreated, but really it's talking about a system that runs on exploitation of the animals, of the workers, of the environment. And I think what FarmSTAND tries to do and what we're, we're trying to do well is, is get at all those angles, like the-- to get at the system itself.

And so part of uplifting workers is that it, it should uplift... It should change everything, right? If you have to pay workers more, if you have to treat them better, you're gonna have to slow down and treat the animals better. So I mean, putting aside that maybe it's not going to immediately get rid of, uh, industrial animal ag, I mean, hopefully it gets rid of industrial animal ag.

It-- maybe it's not gonna get rid of the entire animal ag world. Yeah, uplifting workers should be a way of also up-uplifting the treatment of the animals. Um, I think another aspect of it, which, you know, is just, I don't know, extra, is that we don't often get a glimpse into these industries par-partially because they have so many, uh, laws shielding them from us getting inside, right?

And I think the workers' stories are a really great way of exposing that. Um, and often those workers are the whistleblowers for animal abuses, and they get fired for them, you know? So there's not-- there is kind of a correlation between how the workers are, are, are being kind of made to hide the abuses of the animals, et cetera.

So I do think those things can go hand in hand.

Mariann Sullivan: Yeah, I, I totally agree. I mean, it's certainly not perfectly aligned. Sometimes, uh, it's not. Sometimes there are workers who are problems, and people in the animal world hate them, but no you know, political alignments are never perfect.

I mean, that's where the whole expression strange bedfellows came from.

So, uh, there is so much alignment here, and, um, especially what we were just talking about a little bit before, that all of this is about money. And, um, and, and raising the price of, of doing what you're doing to animals is all good as far as we're concerned, especially now that people are much more familiar with the idea that we don't actually have to eat this stuff.

Right, I'll get off my soapbox and, um, let's talk about causes of action.

There are a lot of causes of action here, and most of our listeners are not going to be familiar with many of the laws involved, a lot of them are statutory. Um, but this is a, I think, a good opportunity to familiarize people with what the industry is supposed to be doing, at least as to these J-1 workers. And so I thought maybe you could give us an overview of the different causes of action available, but then for the deeper dive, we'll focus on the first two, which are trafficking and RICO. Does that work?

Amal Bouhabib: I'm always surprised that peop-- you know, I mean, obviously people are not familiar with workers' rights most of the time. But, um, I often get the question, you know, "Why didn't you just bring labor law violations?" And my answer is because we don't have a lot of labor laws, you may be surprised to know.

So a lot of the causes of action we have to use are statutory, as you said, and kind of creative. Um, in this case, actually, I think the violations were pretty straightforward. So we did bring a RICO claim, um, which maybe your listeners would be familiar as this kind of a mafia, maybe from like the, you know, the criminal law shows, um, racketeering.

And the-- what, what do we say? The TVPRA, which is the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, that is a federal statute that was unanimously, you know, I mean, I think was very strongly approved by Congress a few decades ago. Um, and that I have used a lot in these types of cases, especially for migrant workers, because one of the parts of the trafficking statute, maybe when people hear trafficking, they think of sex trafficking, but labor trafficking is actually a much more common form of trafficking.

Um, it-- so part of that is something that we call forced labor, which would probably look a little bit like what you, what it sounds like, you know, being forced to work, being compelled to work against your will. And the way that the statute is written, it really gets at, um, being compelled to work against your will, but not for any kind of physical restraint reason.

Really, it's, it's inducement by serious threats. Um, um, and abuse of the law is one of the theories, which just means you're misusing an aspect of the law to keep people working for you. So if you can put that in this context, right? They're promised all these things. They've gone into debt. They're here.

They're not doing at all what they're supposed to be doing. They don't want to keep doing it, and they're told, you know, "You can go home and be in debt." Or, and I don't think I mentioned this before, that, uh, some of the w-- some of the employees at Livingston did kind of threaten them with being sent home, you know, implying in some ways deportation.

Um, but the Guatemalan recruiter really, uh, laid into them and threatened that they could be barred from returning to the US. They could be deported, detained, you know, really instilling the fear that probably every migrant worker has is that, you know, you're either gonna be deported or you'll never be able to come back for work.

And both of those things are pretty, um, typical ways of instilling like a threat of serious harm on migrant workers. So that's the trafficking claim. And I don't know if you have any questions on that or...

Mariann Sullivan: Well, why don't we go through the whole thing? And then, uh, then maybe I'll have a few f- follow-up questions.

Amal Bouhabib: Okay. The other claims include, uh, there's another statute called the, uh, the Fair Labor Standards Act, which was part of-- passed with the New Deal. That act, you know, in terms of what it covers for ag workers is, um, it is very interesting because it's supposed to regulate, um, work hours and overtime. Um, I don't know if your listeners know, but ag workers are exempt.

Ag workers in the field are exempt from overtime. Ag workers in animal industry and kind of production should be getting overtime. Um, but that's just, you know, part of the legacy of exclusions, exceptions for the ag industry, right? Um, in this case, it's a little bit nuanced, but if you have to pay fees that are required by your employer related to the job, and those fees bring down your wages below minimum wage, that is considered a deduction that you are owed, um, reimbursement for.

So yeah, complicated. That's one of the issues relating to the recruitment fees. Um, then I mentioned RICO. Um, that's really on a broad level a conspiracy claim between Worldwide Farmers, so the sponsoring agency, and LEI, the host agency, and how they collaborated together to commit fraud to bring these workers in as general laborers and underpay them.

Mariann Sullivan: As long as we're at RICO, maybe I will ask a question because did seem like, uh, th- this is exactly the kind of thing that, well, maybe not why RICO was invented 'cause it was invented for organized crime, and this is similar but not the same as organized crime. But, Um- it, it's like splitting up the roles.

Like, um, WFE Worldwide is not the employer, they're just a sponsor. the pig farm is just following the program that was set forth by, by Worldwide. Like, is one of the reasons that RICO is useful here because these entities, um, are able to point the finger at each other and, and avoid, avoid liability?

Is that, is that one of the purposes of bringing RICO causes of action?

Which for the few people who probably aren't that familiar, you know, involves enhancing, Um, enhancing crimes because they are the result of a conspiracy.

Amal Bouhabib: I don't know if we thought about it exactly like that, although I like the framing. Um, I think we genuinely thought there was-- there is a conspiracy between them to do this together because they both benefit from the fraud. So Worldwide Farmers Exchange, I didn't mention this before, but not only makes, we believe, a profit from the recruitment fees that the workers are paying, but Livingston pays them per, um, trainee that they recruit.

So there is this symbiotic financial incentive, right, to do this, to bring these workers, and then deliver them where Livingston can both underpay them and pay uh, Worldwide Farmers, um, money in exchange. So there, there is this kind of circular profit.

Mariann Sullivan: Yeah

Amal Bouhabib: Um, so I think that's, that's where we got to that point.

But I do, I, you know, I think it makes sense to also say they can't blame each other 'cause we think they're both in on it. Um, and the, the training program really helps to, to solidify that. The, the paper they signed. Yeah.

Mariann Sullivan: Yeah. I, I know also there were bun- there were a number of different, which we won't go into, complications of which RICO enterprise like, uh... but one of them named the US State Department as an unwitting participant. Are they really an unwitting participant?

Amal Bouhabib: Good question. Uh, you know, that's always such a funny-- I love that part of RICO that you can include a government agency as an unwitting participant. We've done it-- I've done it before in other cases where really probably they were unwitting, like they're just signing off on the paperwork. Um, here, you're right.

I mean, there's a little more evidence that they at least ignored what was happening and probably ignored previous complaints about this. Um, we did do a FOIA on the State Department, and we did get at least some evidence that they, they were aware specifically of Livingston misusing the program in years prior to this. Yeah.

Mariann Sullivan: It seems surprising that they wouldn't be. Alright, have we covered the, the, the essential-- I know there're also a few Nebraska claims that, um, but, uh, we covered the essential, uh, causes of action.

I said I'd go back to the trafficking victims because the, uh, Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act. Um, I think that the, the theory is that the J-1 visa is what made the arrangement coercive, and they, they used a legal process to kind of bind the workers. Um, is, is that Right Th-that they were actually using the law in order to, um, to coerce these people into working at basically slave wages?

Amal Bouhabib: Yes, I think, I think they were abusing the law to make them work against their will. Yeah. Um, I think that's important because you could use the J-1 program lawfully, right? And everybody would be fine. In this case, they were purposefully using it for purposes it was not intended for, and they knew that, um, and they've been doing it for years.

And the reason they're doing that is because they know that if they get people here in this kind of in-debt situation, vulnerable, they don't know people here, they don't have transportation, they don't have other-- they can't get other jobs. It's, uh, uh, maybe that's not obvious, but, you know, when you come on a visa, a temporary visa of any kind, it's very hard, and I think in the J-1 case, maybe not possible to get another visa for a job, right?

It's just very difficult. And, um, employers know that. So I think the point is, yeah, they were misusing this program in order to make sure that most people won't leave, uh, or, you know, will, will put up with the work and the conditions and the bait-and-switch aspect of it because they don't feel like they have a choice. Yeah.

Mariann Sullivan: I mean, I don't know what I think about J1 visas, but my impression is, maybe it's with H2A visas, I'm not sure, but they really can't get in another. I mean, they're not legally authorized to get in it. I mean, they're come, they come here to do this.

Amal Bouhabib: Yeah.

Mariann Sullivan: Uh,

Amal Bouhabib: And it's not even a work visa , so yeah, it would be very hard. I think theoretically the agency, so like Worldwide Farmers, if the, if Worldwide Farmers thought a host company was doing something wrong, theoretically I think they could place them somewhere else. But obviously,

Mariann Sullivan: That makes sense.

Amal Bouhabib: In this case, the agency was in on it, so it was never gonna happen

Mariann Sullivan: As far as, I mean, I could tell, there have been the, I think, pre-answer 12B6 motions to dismiss, but they were a really long time ago. What's the story?

Amal Bouhabib: Yes. Glad you noticed. Oh my God. Uh, interestingly, actually, so both Worldwide Farmers and Livingston and the individual defendants filed motions to dismiss, but they were only partial motions to dismiss, so there are claims that should be going forward. In this case, the Nebraska, uh, district judge did not allow us to move forward with discovery.

Some judges will, you know, on a partial motion to dismiss or even a full motion to dismiss, right? Yeah, I know, but sh- she did not, she did not think it was efficient for us to move forward while those motions are pending, and they have been pending for over a year, about a year and two months, I think. Um, and I don't have a lot of insight.

I mean, the insight we've received is just that this judge has a lot on her plate. We are trying to brainstorm if there's any way for us to move this forward, so if you have any ideas, but yeah, it's been frustrating, and that is one of the frustrating parts of trying to get workers to sign up for this is because it can be years.

I mean, I've had cases go on for almost a decade, right? With appeals and everything, so it is a frustrating aspect of our justice system. Yeah.

Mariann Sullivan: Alright, I didn't have time, I admit it, to go through all the arguments for dismissal and your responses, and we don't really have time to go into them here. Is there anything notable?

Amal Bouhabib: No, I mean, I would say they're pretty procedural. You know, I don't think, I don't think-- I think the main thing was that they're, they weren't, um, moving to dismiss the trafficking claims. I mean, there was an aspect of it, but in general they weren't. So yeah, that to me was an interesting choice, but.

Mariann Sullivan: What kind of relief are you seeking? What possible recourse is there?

Amal Bouhabib: Yeah. Um, monetary primarily. Um, you know, for us it's also about there are punitive damages, um, available for some of these. So it really is also about kind of exposing this abuse, hopefully drawing attention to it from many angles so that it doesn't happen to other people and that, you know, there's some-- I don't know if, this is rude, but I don't know if they can feel shame, but there is some shame to, you know, being

Mariann Sullivan: Maybe

Amal Bouhabib: found, um, yes, embarrassment.

Yeah, there you go. Embarrassment. And you hope, I mean, we all hope that it, it will put other employers on alert or other agencies on alert to kind of prevent these things from happening.

Mariann Sullivan: But money would be nice too. I mean, are all three of them back in Guatemala, um, pursuing their... hopefully not pig farming?

Amal Bouhabib: Yeah, no. But they're not pig farming. I think I should probably just stay quiet about where they are. They're all fine and they're all in legal status, but yeah, maybe just, yeah.

Mariann Sullivan: Alright. I, I mean, unless, um, unless I missed something on that case, I would like to also mention, not go into as deeply, but, um, another case you're handling. Um, and this one involves temporary protected status, which, you know, I hear about on the news these days. Um, but, uh, apparently another... this is the Haitian workers. And, um, can you just give us the short version of what happened to these immigrants, plus, plus kind of how this temporary protected status, uh, relates to animal ag?

Amal Bouhabib: Um, oh gosh, that's fascinating, that part. I'll try to be brief about the story, but i- in, in, in Colorado, so Greeley, Colorado has a JBS meat plant. I think-- I hope your listeners know about J- JBS, but one of the worst... They're all bad. One of the worst,

Mariann Sullivan: Most people have heard of JBS.

Amal Bouhabib: Okay.

Mariann Sullivan: the biggest meat company in the world

Amal Bouhabib: Right. Right. Um, so starting in 2023, there was a, there was a Haitian US citizen living in Greeley who started recruiting... who found out there were jobs at JBS and started recruiting fellow Haitians to work there with, again, you know, promises of housing, good pay. Uh, I think the main lure was that you didn't have to speak English to take these jobs. And there, uh, so I think up to 2,000 Haitians probably took these jobs, right?

Came flooding into Greeley. Um, and so they are now, I believe, the majority of workers in that Greeley plant. Um And there was-- what, what happened was because there were so many of them, and again, they don't know their rights, they don't speak English, that was part of the, the whole condition.

Mariann Sullivan: It was probably a plus.

Amal Bouhabib: Yeah, I mean, I think it was intentional, as we'll get to with the TPS status.

But, um, you know, they, so they weren't trained in a language they understood, again. Um, they didn't know their rights. They don't even know how to talk to anyone about their rights 'cause no one spoke their language. They're put on a line where JBS speeds up the line. You know, these lines move fast already in kind of cruel, cruel ways, but th-this was-- I don't think lines have ever been recorded to go as high as they were putting them, um, on the lines where there were a majority of Haitians.

Um, so obviously that's terrible for the animals, terrible for the workers. I mean, just the amount of injuries and the musculoskeletal injuries, but also just, you know, you're working with sharp knives. So many things can happen. Um, and that is one of the main reasons the Haitians ended up seeking legal, um, services is just because they were getting so injured on these incredibly fast lines.

Um, and they ultimately did have an ally in the union who was a fellow Haitian.

So TPS is, I think as you said, temporary protected status, and maybe people have been hearing it about it in the news because the Trump administration is trying to cancel it.

It is-- it's a form of status that's, I think the easiest way to say it, it's like asylum. It's just much faster to get. If you, if you're seeking asylum, it's gonna take years before you're interviewed and approved. Many, many delays in the system. TPS is a way to really, you know, um, get people that status quickly so they can have... they, they're here, they can work legally. Um, and it is reserved for countries that the administration has determined are too dangerous for people to go back to for, for a vari- you know, whether it's war, famine. I mean, in Haiti it was all of those things. There's conflict, there's famine, there's natural disasters.

I mean, it's very dangerous. Um, and, uh, Haiti had been-- had T- had TPS renewed for a number of years, most recently under Biden. Um, so one of the reasons people on TPS are so attractive to places like JBS is, as we discussed, you know, they're here kind of precariously. They often don't know the language. They don't have a lot of choices.

They don't know their rights. They're afraid of exerting their rights because of being fired and being out of work. Um, and this is something that actually JBS, I think, helped pioneer, which is the reliance on refugees. You know, you can include TPS in the refugee population, um, in the early two... You know, maybe the 2010s, so after 2006, because under George W. Bush, they did a number of raids on the meatpacking plants, and that was, like, a huge, uh, effort to, to raid the meatpacking plants to get rid of undocumented workers, and it successfully did, and so many of those meatpacking plants had to shut down. Smith was the meatpacking plant in Greeley that went bankrupt partially because of these raids.

JBS bought it, and they thought, "Well, how do we prevent raids from, like, ruining our company? Oh, we'll find refugees who have legal status." Yeah, the refugee pipeline.

Mariann Sullivan: hire Americans and, uh, pay them." It

Amal Bouhabib: No, no. For sure not. No. And in fact, many of them have relationships with refugee resettlement programs to directly-- it's like a pipeline, right?

To get these refugees in, and they'll cycle through them. Before the Haitians, it was Somalis. The Somalis had sued them for discrimination, religious discrimination. Once they settled that, they were happy to get rid of them and bring in new refugees. So yeah, it's part of the exploitative process, right?

Mariann Sullivan: It would be nice if, if it, it's because they care about, uh, care about people who have been downtrodden, but let's face it, not what's going on here.

They... Cheap, labor. Cheap, desperate labor. Who doesn't want that? Alright. Like I said, we don't have time to go-- I, I just wanted to get a taste of that, and that was more than enough.

Cause the other thing, uh, there's, uh, the, the thing I'm really obsessed about actually is H-2A visas, which might sound, um, odd because they don't really include a lot of animal ag because they're for temporary, um, uh, you know, people, seasonal workers, seasonal workers, you know, pick- people who pick vegetables mostly. Um, but I know the industry, the animal ag industry, I think I know especially dairy, and I live in an area where there's loads and loads of dairy, and they wanna change this so much. They want H-2A visas to apply to animal ag, especially dairy, even though it's year... The whole reason for H-2A, if I understand it, is that it's seasonal. They come and they go. So can you kind of explain what an H-2A visa is and what it would mean to expand them to animal ag? Because I think that's gonna happen.

Amal Bouhabib: Oh, me too. I think this is the time for it to happen. They've been... As you said, dairy and hog farmers or producers have been begging for this for decades. I mean, for so long. Um, okay, so H-2A is what we call the agricultural visa. It's a, it's a temporary visa that allows employers, the farmers, to bring in foreign workers because they can't find US workers.

So that's a key part of the H-2A program. You have to, you have to prove in a way to, um, USCIS, so that's the immigration services, that you, um, cannot find American workers to do these jobs. It's a-- It was always intended to be like a band-aid, right? We need people to work the fields because we're feeding America, so we, we temporarily are allowed to bring them in to fill these shortages.

Mariann Sullivan: And we don't want to pay them enough to, um, employ.

Amal Bouhabib: You can't find Americans 'cause you're not paying better wages and, and the conditions are terrible. Now, I will say when Congress created the H-2A program, it did put in a number of regulations that, that are supposed to be both protective of the H-2A worker and a way to prevent farmers from purposefully undermining, um, undercutting US wages, right?

So there is... I don't wanna be too granular, but part of the, the H-2A program is that the federal government will set the wages for, uh, H-2A workers in every state based on what they think is what, you know, a prevailing wage. And traditionally, that goes up every year. You know, obviously the farmers don't like that.

But it's, you know, it's a relatively low wage 'cause it's field work, so it's probably hovering between at this point maybe around $11 in most, you know, if I'm averaging out the states. You know, the West Coast is higher. So the employer has to pay for their travel. The employer has to pay for their housing.

Really, like, a lot of the onus is on the employer, and the reason that it's worth it is because they can kind of pay these lower wages and because, you know, they can have significant control over these workers who can only work for the employer on their visa. So that's part of the real exploitative process is, like, they get hired by an employer, it's on their visa, they cannot work for another employer.

Um, so when I was a farmworker lawyer, you know, we saw a lot of cases where the promised wage was eleven dollars, and they would pay them six and say, "What are you gonna do about it?" Right?

Mariann Sullivan: And we have the same sort of housing issues that we had in, in today's case,

Amal Bouhabib: Oh, yes.

Mariann Sullivan: Substandard

Amal Bouhabib: Oh, extremely. Yeah. And often on the property of the farmer, so people can't get to them, you know. There, uh, there's a lot going on there, but, um, but you're absolutely right. It does not apply to dairy and hog farms because it's supposed to be temporary and seasonal. In fact, I don't think you can get it approved-- You can't get it approved for longer than 11 months.

11 months already seems too long for seasonal work, but there's that. So for years, they've been trying to do that because they could, they could benefit from the lower wages and the temporary work. And I mean, there's so many benefits, too. Like, if you don't like someone, you don't have to bring them back.

You can discriminate on the base of gender and age. That's-- uh, I think the Fifth Circuit has found that's totally permissible because you're recruiting in a different country. Yeah. So there's lots of benefits to it. Um, and that's why these-- the animal ag wants to get in on it. Was there some other aspect of that you wanted me to discuss?

Mariann Sullivan: No, I just wanted your point of view. I mean, I don't-- I mean, there're probably many other aspects, but I don't know enough to ask. But I really just wanted your point of view on, uh, that I have that this is happening and it's going to be disastrous for, um

Amal Bouhabib: Oh, yeah. I mean, I think it'll create a... It already has, but it will create kind of a permanent, a permanent temporary underclass.

Mariann Sullivan: No, it really is like indentured servitude. I, you know, like we have this underclass working in this country that is feeding us and everybody just acts like it's okay,

Amal Bouhabib: And this administration is currently reducing the wages, right? Like they, they recently cut by dollars an hour, several dollars an hour, the federal wages that the ag workers are supposed to get. So imagine that though,

Mariann Sullivan: yeah.

Amal Bouhabib: oh, yeah, it's terrible.

Mariann Sullivan: Im not remotely surprised.

Amal Bouhabib: Yeah, exactly.

Mariann Sullivan: But it's not just this administration. I mean, we expect nothing, but uh, but it's been in place for years.

Amal Bouhabib: Yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah

Mariann Sullivan: it's... You know, and I'm just gonna add one- I'm gonna let you go, I promise, uh, 'cause I've kept you l- too long.

But I, you know what? I was just r- I was, I'm writing this thing about ag-gag laws, and it just occurred to me that that's another advantage of having farmer work- foreign workers. I mean, they're, you know, the financial advantages are obviously the big one, and the, the ability to totally control people who are so vulnerable. But the other thing is that they were getting pretty head up about the fact that undercover operatives from animal rights organizations really ripped a lid off of factory farming. I mean, people,

when I started doing this, people did not know anything, and now pretty much everybody knows that it's bad.

Amal Bouhabib: Yeah

Mariann Sullivan: They, they don't know exactly maybe what's going on, but they know that the way we treat animals is bad. So that's just another advantage of not having to hire Americans. And I shouldn't say just Americans, but people who are not e-enslaved, basically.

Which is maybe a little extreme, but not that extreme.

That's the last point I had to make. But is there anything you want to add, um, to this whole story of why animal lawyers should care about-- I mean, animal lawyers and animal rights advocates do care about people. That's a rap we get all the time that isn't true. We sometimes have trouble getting anybody who wants to work with us, like who sees our, uh, our participation as being a plus. But, uh, I think it, you know, animal agriculture is a nightmare that we're all living through and, and you gotta come at it from many different angles.

Amal Bouhabib: Yes, absolutely. And I, and I-- Yeah, I guess I just wanna say I'm so glad you invited me because I do think that there's lots of room for collaboration here. And, you know, the more we can expose what's happening to both animals and humans who are being exploited in order to be abusive to the animals is, is a positive thing, that if we can work together

Mariann Sullivan: It's what I love about FarmSTAND is that it brings all the issues together. Really a great organization. Um, so thank you so much for joining us today, for, for trying to make clear what was very, um, confusing to all of us. Thanks also so much to Vicki Beechler and Akber Khan for their help in producing the podcast.

Thanks for tuning in. Please remember to subscribe on your favorite podcatcher or on YouTube, and see you next time.