Nine Mexican nationals have filed a lawsuit against automaker Kia and several staffing agencies alleging that they were hired on for roles in the company that did not actually exist.

The lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court in Atlanta accuses the automaker of exploiting international workers by luring them into positions that were advertised but not actually available. The nine plaintiffs argue that they applied and were hired for white-collar engineering roles but were instead placed on labor-intensive factory floor roles in Kia’s West Point, Georgia, production plant. The lawsuit details that the Mexican employees performed “repetitive, production line manual labor.”

One of the plaintiffs, 26-year-old Isidro Arellano, explains that he was a student at the Universidad Tecnológica de Torreón in Mexico when recruiters from several staffing companies that worked on behalf of Kia came to the school advertising available positions as engineers in the U.S. manufacturing plants. Arellano details that he and other students received services from the staffing agencies which included helping them get work visas and prepping resumes in order to obtain a position at the Kia factory. For many of the workers, they were assisted in obtaining the Trade NAFTA, or TN visa. These visas are designed to help fill roles that require high skills and are typically designed for technicians and engineers among other professional roles.

Manual assembly line work is not one of the professions typically covered under the TN visa program. Additionally, Arellano details that recruiters with the staffing agencies helped many of the students craft resumes with fake work histories to help them secure positions in the U.S.

When Kia hired some of the students, Arellano explains that he was prepared to take on an engineering role at the production facility. He shared, “I expected to attend meetings with executives, in an environment that was friendly. I expected what I was promised, what I signed up for.” Instead, he and other newly hired engineer applicants were put in manual labor positions conducting work duties such as installing bumpers, speakers, suspension systems, and other critical vehicle parts.

Additionally, the plaintiffs argue that on top of being put into positions that were not engineering roles, they were forced to work overtime without adequate compensation and they were paid lower wages than American workers. One of the plaintiffs argued that he was paid “far below” the state's minimum wage of $7.25.

The initial report, which was brought forward by Bloomberg, highlights that the Kia plant in question is designed for emerging Hyundai and Kia EV models. As part of the greater push toward electric vehicles, the state of Georgia has given the automaker roughly $1.8 billion to establish this production plant which sits just outside of Savannah. The plant was expected to bring in thousands of new jobs, but the Bloomberg report suggests that the company has been struggling to fill its open positions, a majority of which entail manual labor on the factory floor.

Georgia has struggled with a lower-than-average employment rate as the state's unemployment rate hovers at 3.1%, slightly lower than the national average of 3.3%. The state’s economist, Jeffrey Dorfman, offers a similar sentiment sharing, “I kid the governor about bringing us jobs,” adding, “but we need to bring in more people.”

The automaker has since responded to the lawsuit, saying, “Kia denies the lawsuit’s allegations and will vigorously defend such claims. Kia requires that its business partners strictly adhere to all applicable laws, including immigration laws.”

Ben Botts, legal director of the Centro de los Derechos del Migrante, a migrant workers organization that operates in Mexico and the U.S., shared, “This case is really emblematic of a pattern that we’ve seen in this region and in this industry, where employers in these supply chains are misusing these visas.” Botts is also one of the attorneys representing a plaintiff named in the case.

The lawsuit has since been upgraded to include at least four different labor recruiters and staffing agencies including SPJ Connect, Allswell, TESS, and JKL. As part of the lawsuit, the nine plaintiffs are seeking lost wages and benefits as well as an unspecified amount of compensatory and punitive damages.