“Migrants were trafficked to work at Michigan blueberry farm, suit says”

A lawsuit filed in federal court alleges that a West Olive-based blueberry farm engaged in human trafficking and violated Michigan law.

The complaint, filed Friday in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan, says two men from Mexico … with others, were coerced into boarding vans from North Carolina to Michigan in June 2017 and forced to work on the farm owned by First Pick Farms…

According to the lawsuit, Luis Guzman Rojas and Feliciano Velasco Rojas were awoken in the middle of the night in their residence in North Carolina by a First Pick Farms "agent and employee" telling them they were to be transported to Michigan. The complaint alleges that the man gave the two false identification and threatened to contact immigration authorities if they refused to comply. Guzman, of Michoacan, Mexico, and Velasco, of Oaxaca, Mexico, were transported along with 30 other H-2A workers, the suit says.

Gonzalo Peralta, a staff attorney at the Michigan Immigration Rights Center in Grand Rapids, said the plaintiffs were paid a piecemeal rate of approximately 50 cents per pound of blueberries they picked and required to pay rent of $25 a week for their housing…