Earlier this month two dozen people were indicted for what is now called a “modern-day slavery” ring that operated in Georgia, Florida, Texas, Mexico, Guatemala, and Honduras. The U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Georgia revealed a 54-count indictment accusing those involved with taking advantage of the H-2A visa program for guest farmworkers since at least 2015 and profiting over $200 million from their scheme.

The H-2A is a nonimmigrant visa that authorizes foreign workers to harvest crops for agricultural firms for the seasons with the highest demand. The program requires employers to apply for foreign workers through an official petition and if approved, pay their workers typically ten to twelve dollars an hour. Employers are also required to pay for the H-2A visa process, border crossing fees, transportation, lodging, food expenses, and the cost of returning to their home countries once the contract finishes.

Beginning as late as 2015, collectively, the 24 people involved in the Patricio transnational criminal organization (TCO), sent in multiple petitions for as many as 71,000 foreign workers through the H-2A program.

Operation Blooming Onion was “a transnational, multi-year investigation” undertaken by multiple U.S. law enforcement agencies into allegations of human trafficking, visa fraud, forced labor, mail fraud, money laundering, and more criminal activity equaling up to more than $200 million. The analysis found at least two workers died and most others were threatened with death. The workers were forced to work at gunpoint while earning 20 cents for each bucket of onions they dug up. The investigation also found that some were even sold to farms in other states. In total, the Operation found 54 counts of fraud or illegal activity by Patricio TCO.

The organization confiscated the workers’ identification documents, forced them to pay fees for recruiting them, forced them to live in “crowded, unsanitary, and degrading living conditions” and paid them “little to no pay.”

Those involved with Patricio TCO would then launder the $200 million in profit they received through “cash purchases of land, homes, vehicles, businesses, cashier’s checks, and funneling millions of dollars through casinos.”

The Operation is reportedly one of the largest human-trafficking and visa fraud investigations and is being publicized as ICE’s shift in focus to aid immigration victims and a crackdown on the employers.

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas issued a memo directing immigration authorities to cease the worksite raids authorized under the Trump administration. Mayorkas stated that this new tactic is not focused on “exploitative employers,” but rather focuses on arrests of hundreds of unauthorized immigrants.

In the fiscal year 2021, 317,619 applications were approved for seasonal guest workers, accounting for a 15% increase from 2020. The House passed the Farm Workforce Modernization Act earlier this year which would allow workers to earn legal status through their agricultural employment and gives more flexibility for employers while at the same time ensuring living “real-world wages” for foreign workers.

In early 2020, Centro De Los Derechos Del Migrante, Inc. published a report “Ripe for Reform: Abuses of Agricultural Workers in the H-2A Visa Program.” The study found that 43% of the 100 workers they interviewed were not paid the promised wages and 94% said they experienced three or more legal violations during their time working. All of this is exacerbated with the onset of COVID-19.