Eleazar was 24 in 2014, when he began working seasonally with a H-2A visa for temporary farmworkers at a tobacco farm in Benson, North Carolina.

Eleazar, who requested that only his first name be published for fear of retaliation, lived in a bunker with 49 other workers, without a cooling or heating system.

The now 33-year-old described how workers often suffered illnesses that they blamed on continued exposure to nicotine in the tobacco, as well as symptoms from heat in the fields. 

“One day, it hit me hard,” he recalled.

“When I got home, I couldn’t bear it anymore, and it felt like I was getting dizzy. I got sick. I spent two days without going to work. I told the supervisor, and he just told me to take a pill and stay in bed, that’s it. It was the same for everyone … they didn’t pay much attention to us.”

From 2011 to 2023, at least five agriculture, forestry and fishing workers died from heat-related causes in North Carolina, according to state Occupational Safety and Health data.

Thirty-year-old José Arturo González Mendoza may belong on that list — he died on Sept. 5, harvesting sweet potatoes at Barnes Farming & Farm Pak in Nash County. The cause of death is still undetermined, but his brother Gustavo believes José Arturo died because of harsh working conditions exacerbated by extreme heat.

The H-2A visa program has a history of controversy. Advocates say H-2A workers in North Carolina are vulnerable to abuses at each step of the visa program because employers hold so much power over them, making them afraid to speak up.

Still, some farms claim to pose a more progressive model. Advocates also hope that proposed federal regulations, if adopted, would help ameliorate the systemic issues in the program — although many expressed concerns over a lack of staffing in the enforcement agencies.

The H-2A program

González Mendoza arrived in North Carolina from Guanajuato, Mexico, to work as a seasonal farmworker 11 days prior to his death.  

The day he died “was a very hot day,” Gustavo said. “His coworkers who were there said he was feeling unwell, and the supervisors told him to keep going because nothing was wrong.

“He collapsed … they took him to the bus and called an ambulance, but it was too late.”

In an emailed statement, a spokesperson for Barnes Farming wrote: “Each Barnes Farming team member is vital to the Company, to the community, and to the global food supply and, as a Company and a family of devoted team members, we are deeply saddened by the loss of Mr. Gonzalez Mendoza.”

In the H-2A visa program, which allows foreign agricultural workers to temporarily work in the U.S, workers rely on their employers for the visa, transportation, food and housing, in addition to their livelihood.

The H-2 visa program was established in 1952, and later split into H-2A for agricultural workers and H-2B for seasonal non-agricultural employment, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center. The Department of Labor (DOL) certified 372,000 farm jobs with H-2A workers in fiscal year 2022, up 17% from the previous year, according to Rural Migration News.

But the visa program has raised concerns nationally about what some advocates say is “exploitation” of workers and too-light enforcement.

Barnes Farming and the NC Growers Association

The N.C. Department of Labor is still looking into González Mendoza’s death at Barnes Farming; the department investigates all reports of work-related fatalities. 

This is not the first time the farm has been embroiled in controversy over its workers. One of the oldest incidents was a 1983 Congressional oversight hearing that pointed to two labor camp operators for Barnes Farming who repeatedly violated labor laws. Migrant farmworkers sued Barnes Farming in 1986 and 2013 over unpaid or too-low wages and substandard housing conditions. 

As part of the earlier statement, the Barnes Farming spokesperson wrote: “The Company takes the health and safety of each one of its team members extremely seriously and has prioritized health and safety since the Farm was started.”

Johnny Barnes, the president of Barnes Farming Corporation, is married to state Senator Lisa Barnes, R-Franklin, Nash, Vance counties.

Barnes Farming is a member of the NC Growers Association, or NC Growers, a network of farm owners across the state. NC Growers helps its members apply for H-2A workers and manages the workers’ visa applications and transportation from their hometowns in Mexico to North Carolina. Then the association jointly employs those workers with the member-farms.

González Mendoza was one of those workers. 

NC Growers, founded by former N.C. state government employee Stan Eury, is the largest user of H-2A workers in the country; in 2020, it certified more than 10,000 H-2A positions. The organization also has a history of alleged labor law violations, laid out in a 2015 Buzzfeed investigation — including suits over wage theft and multiple investigations by the federal Labor Department. Another visa company founded by Eury, International Labor Management Corp., was shut down because of visa violations.

Leadership at North Carolina Growers Association did not respond to multiple requests over email and phone for comment.

According to Flor Herrera-Picasso at Casa Azul de Wilson, a Latinx advocacy nonprofit that worked with González Mendoza’s brother Gustavo, the other workers at Barnes Farming experienced intimidation after González Mendoza died.

“They got sent to different camps so that they wouldn’t organize or talk and try to figure something else out or speak up,” she said. “Who investigates this type of behavior when there’s intimidation and trying to silence people?”

Asked about these claims, a spokesperson for Barnes Farming denied any efforts to intimidate workers.

An emailed statement from Barnes Farming said: “Allegations of intimidation by Barnes Farming following the loss of Mr. Gonzalez Mendoza, along with other allegations made due to this tragic incident, are ill-founded and without any basis in fact.”

González Mendoza’s death also sparked calls for N.C. to pass a heat protection law, as laborers complained of limited breaks, inadequate access to shade and insufficient water. 

Gustavo also  said he’d heard that workers were not being given adequate breaks for water at the farm where his brother died. Asked about this, a spokesperson for Barnes Farming denied the allegations.

“Allegations that workers at Barnes are not or were not provided multiple breaks to stay well-hydrated, like the allegations that workers were intimidated or moved to other camps as a form of intimidation, which Barnes has addressed previously, are likewise ill-founded and without any basis in fact,” the spokesperson said.

“The passing of Mr. Gonzalez Mendoza remains a tragic loss for his family, the community and Barnes.”

The autopsy of González Mendoza remains pending and is expected to take three to six months, according to Herrera-Picasso. Because of the prolonged wait for results, Herrera-Picasso said Gustavo expressed concern that the autopsy could be tampered with and that he wouldn’t know the cause of his brother’s death before his work permit was up. 

The language barrier and little communication from officials and employers can make it difficult for family members to find out what happened to loved ones who died, said the wife of Abraham Gonzalez Cervantes, 53, who passed away in August.

Juana Muñoz Guerrero, his wife, said he expressed feeling unwell but did not receive medical attention in the field where he was working in Wilson County. She said she still doesn’t know how he died.

“In the death certificate that was sent to me with the body, it says it was a possible heart attack,” Muñoz Guerrero said. “From the hospital, they told me that they will continue investigating his death. It could take six or eight months.”  

Imbalanced power dynamics

Illegal recruiting fees: Regardless of what might have caused González Mendoza’s death, some farmworkers from outside the U.S. face abuses even before entering the country.

Since he started in 2014, Eleazar said it’s been difficult to find H-2A employment without having to pay illegal recruitment fees, which are sometimes charged to workers by agents who recruit them in their home countries for the H-2A program. 

Jocelyn Reyes, director of Promotion, Education, and Leadership Development at Centro de los Derechos del Migrante, a nonprofit that helps Mexico-based migrant workers, said illegal recruiter fees are one of the most common forms of fraud in the H-2A process.

Some recruiters also offer nonexistent job opportunities or falsely describe the pay and working conditions, she said. Reyes said this happens because there isn’t a “structured” recruitment process for employers to get H-2A workers.

Currently, employers who want to hire H-2A workers must provide a copy of agreements with their foreign labor recruiters that “expressly prohibit unlawful fees” if requested by the certifying officer. 

A recruitment chain in Mexico for H-2A workers can mean different levels of risk and costs for the workers involved, Reyes said. Because hundreds of individuals or agencies are involved, the Mexican government lacks the capacity to track each recruitment process effectively, she said. 

Substandard working conditions: Once farmworkers arrive in the U.S., they may face harsh working and living conditions. One migrant farmworker, 40, works at a farm in Harnett County and wished to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation from his employer. He said the workers’ contract entitles them to a 15-minute break each hour on exceptionally hot days.

Despite this provision and being paid hourly, he said workers experienced pressure from the farm owner if the container was not filled with tobacco leaves within a predetermined time.

A seasonal farmworker of 20 years said the boss will question what workers are doing if they take longer than normal to fill the bowl: “We cannot take more time than what is already checked for us. Once we start filling a bowl, we cannot afford to sit for about 10 minutes,” he said.

Even so, on scorching days, the workers said they took breaks collectively, although they faced threats from the farm owner to report them to the North Carolina Growers Association.

“I prefer preserving my physical well-being over dying there in the field. When it’s excessively hot, we leave, and it has happened twice,” said another farmworker, who wished to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation from his employer.

Migrant workers at the farm in Harnett County also expressed concern about substandard living conditions in their trailers, including a bed bug infestation. Workers said their beds have blood stains from bed bug bites.

To cope with high temperatures in their trailers, they installed air conditioners, but each individual is required to contribute $10 to the farm owner every eight days for its use.

Going home: After the harvest season concludes, farmworkers affiliated with NC Growers said they must wait until all vacancies at other member farms for the next season’s harvest are filled before leaving the U.S., even if they already have fulfilled their contract on a particular farm.

After finishing their job at the Harnett County farm, three farmworkers said they waited for weeks without employment until early November, when they received permission to return to their home country.

If they had tried to leave before the vacancies were filled, they wouldn’t have received reimbursement for their trip home, they said.

“It’s only when the vacancies for the sweet potatoes and pine trees positions are filled that they will start giving out refunds because there is no more work to offer to other workers,” said one of the workers, who harvests tobacco; he chose to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation.

Once workers do have permission to leave, the H-2A employers are supposed to reimburse them for their trips back home — yet some fail to meet this requirement. Even if workers are properly reimbursed, they may have to pay extra fees along the way.

Three farmworkers, who wished to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation from their employers, said when they cross the U.S.-Mexico border on the buses contracted by the NC Growers Association, they often have to pay additional fees to cross, known as “la mordida,” or bribes.

One of the workers said those charges have gone up — a decade ago, he would pay around $20-30 at the Texas-Mexico border. By 2020, the charges escalated to between $80-100 per worker, he said. 

He usually completes the first leg of his trip, from the U.S. to Monterey, Mexico, at 6 in the morning, he said. Then he reaches Michoacán, his destination, around midnight. If the workers don’t pay the bribes, the trip takes far longer, he said.

“If all the luggage were unloaded, it would add another four hours,” he said. “At the border, you might find yourself standing for approximately six to 10 hours. Therefore, we save all that time by paying.”

The money is collected by the driver, who, he assumes, then hands it over to the person overseeing their entry into Mexico. 

The fees can also vary depending on certain days or hours when workers cross, one worker said. 

Maria Mejia, a member of El Futuro Es Nuestro, a farmworker-led organization that pushes for better working conditions, has been advocating against these fees. She asked workers for anonymous reports of these incidents in 2019.

“We received more than 100 complaints from workers, including photos and recordings of the driver receiving money, and the driver asking a worker to help collect the money”, she said. “Unfortunately, when we tried to take it further, it didn’t go anywhere.”

A Mexican government-escorted troop accompanied some of the buses after a farmworker presented a complaint directly to the Mexican consulate. Eight bus drivers were fired that year, she said, but no lasting changes were made.  

Officials, lawyers and advocates for farmworkers

Enforcing laws against abuses within the H-2A visa program can be difficult. Caitlin Ryland, managing attorney at the Farmworker Unit of Legal Aid of NC, said the way the H-2A program is set up creates an imbalanced power dynamic between the employers and the workers.

“You may be disincentivized from reporting something happening at work because of that power dynamic,” she said. 

“In fact, if things are really bad, you’re even more disincentivized from speaking up because your employer might be barred from the program in the future and then you lose that income stream and your ability to come back every year,” she said.

Yet the state Labor Department often relies on worker complaints to enforce protections, she said.

“My understanding is that their resources seriously limit their ability to follow up on certain issues or conduct proactive investigations while the workers are here,” Ryland said.

In an emailed statement, Jennifer Haigwood, director of the Occupational Safety and Health Division at N.C. Labor Department, wrote: “The Agricultural Safety and Health Bureau (responsible for migrant housing inspections) has eight inspector positions. Our general Safety and Health Compliance bureaus (covering all general industry and construction) have approximately 100 compliance positions.”

The federal and state labor departments share the responsibility of enforcing standards for H-2A workers. According to Haigwood, the state mostly handles migrant housing inspections and complaints, as well as any workplace safety and health issue that falls under the Occupational Safety and Health Division’s jurisdiction.

Wage payment issues and other protections under H-2A rules are enforced by the U.S. Department of Labor.

Alexis Guild, Vice President of Strategy and Programs at Farmworker Justice, said a similar issue exists at the federal level, with a limited number of U.S. Labor Department inspectors, meaning the agency must rely on worker complaints.

The federal Wage and Hour Division, in charge of investigating things like wage theft, suffers from “severe understaffing” and currently investigates fewer than 1% of farm employers per year, according to a 2023 report from the Economic Policy Institute. 

According to a U.S. Labor Department spokesperson, the Wage and Hour Division has 733 investigators. The division enforces federal labor laws in 11 million workplaces for 165 million employees. 

In an emailed statement, the spokesperson wrote: “Though we are a small agency, we work tirelessly to protect the rights of the nation’s workforce and engage diverse partners and stakeholders to amplify the impact of our enforcement and outreach efforts.”

When asked about protections for agricultural workers at a press conference, Gov. Roy Cooper said, “There are a lot of different rules and regulations that interact, the Department of Labor here in North Carolina, there are federal rules, there are also rules that I know that the legislature passes.

“I want to continue to work with communities across North Carolina to try to improve those conditions, both in trying to put pressure on businesses, but also getting passed things that are fair that can make sure that people are protected.”

Feds, enforcement and regulations

When workers do complain, some feel they aren’t heard.

According to Haigwood, when the state Labor Department receives complaints, compliance staff first evaluate whether each complaint warrants an investigation. For those that do, they send letters to the employers to give them a chance to respond. Staffers evaluate responses and may conduct onsite inspections if they feel the problem isn’t resolved.

Inspectors always try to interview employees, Haigwood wrote in an emailed statement.

After González Mendoza’s death, the N.C. Labor Department opened an onsite inspection at Barnes Farming, which is ongoing.

But farmworkers say inspectors do not engage with them.

“They only talk to the supervisors. With us, who really have things to discuss, well, no,” said a seasoned seasonal farmworker with 14 years of experience, who wished to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation from his employer.

An employer who is found to have violated a labor law could be fined or removed from the H-2A program temporarily or permanently, depending on the severity of the violation. Still, some growers have found ways to circumvent the penalty, which is known as debarment.

Investigate Midwest, an independent, nonprofit newsroom based in Illinois, discovered six instances in which employers with the same address, owner or phone number as actively banned companies were approved for H-2A workers. 

To initiate a complaint, workers affiliated with the union Farm Labor Organizing Committee, or FLOC, contact a union representative. If the union fails to resolve the matter, workers can communicate with NC Growers, if their employer is part of the association. If resolution is still not achieved, workers can file a complaint with the DOL. 

FLOC members work under the terms of a contract that the union negotiated with NC Growers. But the union has come under scrutiny for its alleged lack of responsiveness to farmworkers’ complaints. Questions about its leadership have also surfaced, as revealed in an investigation by The Assembly.

Solutions for farmworkers

Despite the H-2A program’s issues, many see it as a mutual win for foreign workers and American employers.

Timothee Sallin is co-CEO of IMG Enterprises, which operates Cherrylake, an ornamental horticulture company in Florida. Cherrylake started using the H-2A program a decade ago, because not a lot of domestic workers wanted to do the challenging physical labor required for its crops, Sallin said.

Sallin said he sees the H-2A program as highly regulated. He has to show that he exhausted all options for American workers before hiring foreign workers, and that the workers are carrying out the labor his work order describes.

“If we were banned from the program, it could very well spell the end of our business because we wouldn’t be able to go on producing,” he said.

A majority of his workers want to come back and work for him every year, he said, which tells him that he’s providing a good working environment.

He said workers make much better wages than they might at home, along with access to health insurance and 401K plans. At Cherrylake, most workers live in a 16,000-square-foot facility on the farm that Sallin designed, which has eight three-bedroom units. 

“I know from speaking with them that many of them have been able to save a lot of money and use that money to build houses back in their home country. Some of them have gone back to school. Some of them have started businesses,” he said.

Without the H-2A program, Sallin said there would be no regulation on the importation of foreign labor.

Hope for change for farmworkers

Advocates are hopeful that proposed federal regulations to the H-2A program, if passed, would strengthen worker protections and enforcement.

“The new rule is being specific, stating that there will be consequences for employers who are not vigilant about these charges or who may be permissive, meaning they could be punished with several years of not being granted certifications to bring in workers for another season,” Reyes said. 

Guild said the proposed regulations aim to make it easier for H-2A farmworkers to get health care and join unions, shield workers from retaliation, and tighten debarment rules to prevent banned companies from continuing to hire H-2A workers.

“These proposed regulations are very positive and will strengthen protections for workers and hopefully also strengthen effective enforcement on the DOL side to prevent abuse within the program,” she said.

However, Guild said she expects that the rules, once finalized, will be subject to litigation. 

The comment period on the proposed regulations ended Nov. 14. The USDOL must review all the comments before the regulations are reviewed by the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. Then the final rule is published in the Federal Register with responses to the comments.

This article was produced by Carolina Public Press in collaboration with Enlace Latino NC. Read this story in Spanish here. This article was updated on Dec. 14 with new information that became available after initial publication.

Republish This Story

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. You may republish our stories for free, online or in print. Simply copy and paste the article contents from the box below. Note, some images and interactive features may not be included here.