In 2020, 13 Mexican visa holders left their hometowns to pick blueberries and blackberries in southeastern North Carolina.

This week, a settlement awarded them a total of $150,000 in response to a human trafficking lawsuit. The farms and the contractors who brought the workers to the U.S. withheld thousands of dollars they were owed, threatened them with deportation if they fled and sexually assaulted one woman, the federal lawsuit alleged….

But that didn’t happen according to the case against farm labor contractors Valentino Lopez, Jr. and Gilberto “Beto” Lopez, brothers who sent the 13 workers to Hannah Forrest Blueberries and Ronnie Carter Farms, both in Sampson County…

The contractors threatened to deport anyone who fled, the suit said….

Valentino Lopez violated federal H-2A program rules before the this week’s settlement, records show.

In 2023, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division fined the Valentino Lopez more than $62,500 in civil penalties and recovered more than $58,000 in wages owed to 72 H-2A visa holders, according to the Department of Labor…

A message left for Hannah Forrest Blueberries was not returned. Ronnie Carter Farms and an attorney for the Lopez brothers could not be reached.