Indian workers were recently detained by armed security guards in a ship yard in United States' Mississippi, a web site has revealed.
A group of guest workers from India last month lodged a complaint with the lead organiser of the New Orleans Workers' Center for Racial Justice Saket Soni, saying that the guards were holding the workers prisoners in the TV room of the Signal International Ship Yard in Pascagoula, Mississippi, where the company's 290 welders and pipe fitters live, Raw Story website said in an investigative report.
External Link: Read the full investigative report here
The men told Soni that Signal International -- a sub-contractor for defence contractor Northrop Grumman -- had staged the pre-dawn. About 200 other Indian employees at Signal were standing outside the room.
According to the report, Signal said that they detained the guest workers at the advice of US immigration officials, in an attempt to forcibly deport them following a labour dispute.
Indian workers Joseph Jacob and Sabu Lal believe the March 9 raid was initiated as Signal's reaction to worker complaints, while the company says the workers were fired for performance-related issues.
Though the workers were later released into the custody of community groups, the incident has shed light on a longstanding immigration problem -- the vulnerability of guest workers who travel to the United States on H-2B visas, and their exploitation at the hands of so-called "recruiters" and the companies they work for.
The report added that these 290 Indians paid upwards of $15,000 each to travel to America, lured by the promises of a Mississippi sheriff's deputy. Deputy Michael Pol is also the president of Global Resources, Inc., a placement firm that recruits Indian workers to fill jobs in the US. Global Resources works with local recruiting firms in India to enlist talent and with US-based immigration attorneys to secure visas for the workers.
The Indian workers recruited by Signal International paid on average between $15,000 and $20,000 to Pol. For some, the sum represented their life savings. The six workers who face deportation are terrified of returning to India, where they now face loan sharks and the disappointment of their families.
Overseas recruiters lure guest workers to the US with lavish promises of permanent residency, high-paying jobs and better living conditions, charging thousands of dollars in "processing fees." Guest workers are usually deeply in debt by the time they arrive in the US, where the companies that hire them often charge additional fees for boarding, food and expenses.
Signal charges residents $35 a day for living expenses.
But John Sanders, who manages Signal's workers' camp, says his firm was also tricked by Pol, who promised to supply the company with badly-needed Indian welders and pipe-fitters and arrange their passage free of charge.
The camp manager says he was shocked when workers told him that they had borrowed thousands of dollars at what he calls usurious interest rates from money lenders back in India.
Sanders says Pol lied to Signal about how much the workers were paying him because that enabled him to arrange their passage to the US for free. "We thought, somebody's paying something, otherwise you wouldn't be in business," Sanders added.
Signal management called Pol to their offices in November to ask why he'd told the company workers were only paying $2,000 apiece. Signal demanded that Pol refund half the money that each worker had paid. When he refused, Signal terminated Pol's contract. Reached by telephone, Pol declined to comment and referred calls to his attorney.
Joseph Jacob, the welder from Kerala who is now facing deportation and staying with community activists, says Pol also promised him permanent resident status. Under his visa, he was actually only entitled to stay in the US for one year.