Farm Workers Were Trafficked and Threatened With a Gun in South Carolina, Feds Say

[Jilly_in_VA]

Two people in South Carolina allegedly conspired to traffic seasonal agricultural workers, confiscated their passports and immigration documents to keep them from fleeing, and failed to pay them their due wages for sometimes excessive working hours. One of the accused even allegedly brandished and fired a gun as a show of force.

Elizabeth Balcazar and Enrique Balcazar of Batesburg-Leesville and the company Balcazar Nature Harvesting were federally charged last month with conspiracy to commit labor trafficking and fraud in foreign labor contracting, as well as confiscation of workers’ passports and immigration documents, according to an announcement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of South Carolina last week.

At least one individual, a migrant from Mexico described as “Victim 1” in the indictment, was also allegedly made to believe they’d be deported if they failed to work hard enough, according to the indictment.

According to the indictment, that worker was recruited last spring. The indictment did not elaborate on the current status of the workers.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/m7v38x/south-carolina-balcazar-human-trafficking-farm-workers

[LastDemocratInSC]

1. It seems that South Carolina's slave state past isn't really in the past.

[crickets]

2. Reprehensible.

Sadly, the same thing has been going on in Georgia and Texas as well.

Workers Held at Gunpoint in Modern-Day Slavery Operation in Georgia, Feds Allege
https://www.vice.com/en/article/dypvn7/georgia-modern-day-slavery-federal-investigation

https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdga/pr/human-smuggling-forced-labor-among-allegations-south-georgia-federal-indictment

The activities took place within the Southern, Middle, and Northern Districts of Georgia; the Middle District of Florida; the Southern District of Texas; and Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, and elsewhere. The conspirators required the workers to pay unlawful fees for transportation, food, and housing while illegally withholding their travel and identification documents, and subjected the workers “to perform physically demanding work for little or no pay, housing them in crowded, unsanitary, and degrading living conditions, and by threatening them with deportation and violence.”