Physical Therapist Accuses Ameristar Staffing of Using Fraud, Threats to Secure Forced Labor and Exploit Wages

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A proposed class action alleges Ameristar Staffing and its CEO and vice president have fraudulently recruited foreign-trained physical therapists, physiotherapists, exercise physiologists and physical therapy assistants to work in New York under what amount to contracts of indentured servitude. 

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The 43-page complaint was filed by a licensed physical therapist and citizen of the Philippines who alleges she was forced to continue working for Ameristar due to the defendants’ threats of “baseless and abusive lawsuits” and/or enforcing an indenture provision requiring her to pay a $10,000 penalty and “the cost of recruiting another therapist.” 

The plaintiff accuses Ameristar and its top executives, Ahmed S. Ahemed and Lamis Yahia, of violating the Trafficking Victims Protection Act and New York Labor Law and seeks, among other relief, an injunction prohibiting the defendants from threatening to enforce or enforcing the indenture in their employment contracts. 

According to the lawsuit, the defendants in October 2021 reached out to the plaintiff, then an Illinois resident, and offered her work in New York. The parties offered the plaintiff an immigration sponsorship to secure her permanent resident status in exchange for working as a physical therapist, the filing says. Per the suit, the plaintiff was told she would be paid $40 per hour and agreed to sign a two-year contract. 

That month, however, the defendants’ immigration lawyer sent a draft of the Form I-140 immigrant petition for the plaintiff to review, and the woman noticed that the worksite address and wage rate “did not match what she had been told by Defendants,” the suit claims. 

As the end of October 2021 approached, the plaintiff “was afraid that Defendants would not file her immigration sponsorship application” if she did not start working for them, particularly since she recalled Yahia stating that the form would only be filed “once you come and start working with us,” the complaint relays. 

The plaintiff claims that during the periods of time she worked for the defendants, she was almost always the lone physical therapist treating patients at each worksite and rarely took a full meal break due to the excessive number of patients in her care. During this time, from October 2021 through roughly October 2023, the defendants failed to pay their therapists at least the prevailing wages required by federal immigration rules and have failed to pay the workers for every hour worked, the lawsuit alleges. 

Further, the suit claims the defendants deliberately led the plaintiff and similarly situated workers to believe that “they would suffer serious harm if they tried to leave their employ or find other employment.” The case states that the defendants’ standard contract stipulates that an immigration-sponsored therapist cannot leave their employ until they either pay or work off a $10,000 indenture, disguised as “liquidated damages,” and pay for the cost of recruiting another therapist, “which is usually 50% of said therapist’s annual salary.” 

“The $10,000 indenture and ‘paying the cost of recruiting another therapist’ provision are designed to coerce the sponsored therapists into continuing their employment with Defendant AMERISTAR,” the filing charges, claiming the $10,000 is disproportionate to the actual costs incurred by Ameristar. 

The suit states that the plaintiff resigned from her employment with the defendants on October 27, 2023 and continues to suffer “stress, anxiety, and depression as a result of her forced labor experience” and decision to leave her job. 

“She continues to face ongoing harm because of Defendants’ ongoing threat to enforce the illegal indenture provisions to which Defendants claim Plaintiff is bound,” the case reads. 

The lawsuit looks to cover all hourly-paid therapists sponsored and employed by Ameristar since May 16, 2017 who were required to sign contracts with indenture provisions, including a “liquidated damages” penalty provision. 

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