
(ConservativeSense.com) – Pure Beauty Farm Inc., a plant nursery based in Miami, has been found to have discriminated against qualified Americans by giving preferential treatment to immigrants.
The Department of Labor investigation into the company concluded that it had violated the federal H-2A program that allows the hiring of foreign workers if qualified Americans cannot be found. Pure Beauty Farm was guilty of discrimination because it required American workers to have had previous experience in the role but did not expect this experience from foreign applicant. Further violations included housing the migrants in unsuitable and unsafe accommodations. The company was fined almost $200,000.
The H-2A visa program came under fire in 2021 when a group of black Americans sued their employers in Mississippi for replacing them with overseas workers under the visa scheme. The workers filed a lawsuit against Pitts Farms for replacing them with staff from South Africa. The case was settled in January 2023, but the details of the settlement remain private.
Also in 2021, the Biden administration expanded the use of the H-2A program and allowed even more immigrants to come to America and replace blue-collar workers. The replacement is not restricted to agricultural work and also occurs under a similar H-2B program. A construction firm in South Dakota was found guilty in 2021 of hiring foreign workers in order to pay them less than Americans. It was fined just over $30,000 and barred from hiring under the visa program for 5 years.
The Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) says that the issuance of H-2A visas has tripled in the US since 2007, aligning with massive immigration increases more generally. Its data reveals that foreign workers are paid less than native Americans, which is the most likely cause of unfair discrimination. Moreover, the agricultural sector is one of the most powerful in the US and spends more money lobbying Congress than the defense industry. In 2017, it spent over $131 million in Washington, DC.
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