Lawsuit Claims Clinton, Oklahoma Businesses Abused J-1 Visa Program for Cheap Labor

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Three plaintiffs claim in a proposed class action that two individuals and the various hospitality businesses they own and operate in Clinton, Oklahoma abused the J-1 visa program to exploit foreign workers for cheap labor.

Echoing a case filed last year over similar human trafficking allegations, the lawsuit explains that the J-1 visa program offers students and recent graduates from other countries an opportunity to study or work in the United States through the Summer Work Travel Program and/or Trainee and Intern Program, for which defendant APEX USA, Inc. is a sponsor. According to the complaint, APEX is owned by the two individual defendants, a married couple, and is responsible for recruiting foreign workers, placing them in job positions, and assisting them throughout their stays.

The plaintiffs, three Jamaican citizens, claim they were each offered job positions through APEX at one of the businesses run by the individual defendants in Clinton, home to the Holiday Inn Express, Hampton Inn Clinton, Montana Mike’s Steakhouse, and Water Zoo Indoor Water Park. When they arrived in the U.S., however, the plaintiffs discovered their job positions and terms of employment “bore little resemblance to those to which they had agreed,” the suit says. In fact, the plaintiffs were shuffled through the defendants’ various businesses regardless of which entity was listed on the individuals’ offer letters, the case continues. The individuals were then given fewer hours than promised and paid less than the agreed-upon rates, which many times dipped below the federal minimum wage, according to the suit. Further, instead of offering “affordable and suitable” housing, the defendants supposedly provided workers with “overcrowded, decrepit company-owned housing and/or referred them to overcrowded and costly motel-room accommodations.”

Even worse, the plaintiffs and others were required to pay various fees throughout the recruitment process that were not initially disclosed to them, the suit alleges, including application fees; airfare and travel expenses; consular fees; U.S. embassy interview fees; and recruiter fees. The plaintiffs claim the payments were “staggered” throughout the process so workers would feel compelled to continue to keep paying at the risk of losing the funds they had already invested. The total price of recruitment usually averaged between $2,000 and $3,000 – a hefty sum many workers could only afford by borrowing money, the suit says. The plaintiffs argue that instead of saving money, they returned to Jamaica in debt.

To make matters worse, the lawsuit points out that the plaintiffs and others had no means by which to voice their complaints, as their sponsor was owned and operated by the same individuals as their corporate employers. When they did attempt to express their concerns, one of the individual defendants supposedly threatened them with physical harm and ensured that they could not find any other employment in Clinton, leaving them “no choice but to continue working for [the defendants].”