“Migrant Farmworker Files Suit Alleging Violations of Trafficking and Wage Laws by North Carolina Farm and Labor Contractor”

Fernando Javier Rodríguez Luna, a migrant farmworker who worked in North Carolina with an H-2A agricultural visa, filed a class action lawsuit today alleging violations of trafficking and wage laws by farm labor contractor Alvino Avilez Castaneda, Avilez & Sons Harvesting LLC, and Jackson Farming Company of Autryville.

Centro de los Derechos del Migrante, Inc. (CDM) and the North Carolina Justice Center represent the worker, who filed the lawsuit in the United States Eastern District of North Carolina, Southern Division.

The suit claims that the Avilez Defendants, in an attempt to prevent workers from leaving their employment, confiscated workers’ passports —an act prohibited by the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA) and North Carolina law regarding involuntary servitude—and only returned the workers’ passports when the U.S. Department of Labor initiated an investigation… dozens of H-2A agricultural workers, including named Plaintiff Fernando Javier Rodríguez Luna, were charged thousands of dollars in illegal fees…

Rodríguez Luna also alleges that he and other H-2A workers faced substandard working conditions and were routinely paid below the minimum wage…