The H‑2A visa program exists to provide U.S. farmers with legal foreign workers when they cannot find U.S. workers as an alternative to illegal immigration and illegal employment. The government requires H‑2A employers provide —among other benefits—high wages, free housing, free transportation, and three meals or a kitchen. Despite these requirements, a lengthy NBC News report released this week details a story of horrific abuse of a group of H‑2A workers and concludes that “as the H‑2A program has expanded, it has left more guest workers vulnerable to abuse.”
Unfortunately, while highlighting important issues and one person’s dramatic criminal behavior, the report has several flaws and inaccuracies that incorrectly create the impression of widespread, systematic abuse of H‑2A workers. In general, nearly all H‑2A workers benefit greatly from working in the United States.
Problems with NBC’s reporting
This post will criticize the use of certain data in this reporting, but I want to be clear at the outset that the narrative component of the story has journalistic merit that does illustrate real issues that can arise with the H‑2A program. However, the report grounds its narrative in a couple data points delivered at the top of the piece (along with the graphic) that are problematic:
Read the rest of this post →Last year, the Labor Department closed 431 cases with confirmed H‑2A violations — a 150 percent increase since 2014; the agency found about 12,000 violations under the program, with nearly 5,000 H‑2A workers cheated out of their wages, according to federal data.