Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Suit Points to Guest Worker Program Flaws

By Julia Preston, New York Times
February 1, 2010


Immigration authorities worked closely with a marine oil-rig company in Mississippi to discourage protests by temporary guest workers from India over their job conditions, including advising managers to send some workers back to India, according to new testimony in a federal lawsuit against the company, Signal International.

The cooperation between the company and federal immigration agents is recounted in sworn depositions by Signal managers who were involved when tensions in its shipyard in Pascagoula, Miss., erupted into a public clash in March 2007.

Since then, hundreds of the Indian workers have brought a civil rights lawsuit against the company, claiming they were victims of human trafficking and labor abuse. [...]

Read the full article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/02/us/02immig.html?ref=us

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