“Migrant farmworkers help NC farms survive. But some end up abused, lawsuits say.”

A visa program designed to protect and provide for temporary farm workers has been used to abuse them in North Carolina, according to nine federal lawsuits filed since 2017...

Most of visa holders are young men from Mexico…

…González arrived at a farm damaged by Hurricane Florence…

…His contractor lied about reimbursing him for the nearly $700 in debt…

…a recruitment scheme, run by contractor Francisco Valadez, Jr. charged the workers illegal fees and travel costs and left them in “crippling debt,”

Valadez, Jr. disputes the lawsuit’s claims and settled because he couldn’t financially afford to continue the lawsuit, he said in an interview…

…Jose Gracia of Gracia Harvesting told them to work in the kitchen, cooking meals for other farmworkers…Jose Gracia declined to comment…

His lawsuit against Lamm Farms and the farm labor contractors is pending. Lamm Farms and its attorney could not be reached for comment.

In 2019, researchers with the U.S. Department of Justice interviewed 400 migrant workers in North Carolina, most of whom held H-2A visas. About a quarter of them had experienced some type of employment abuse…