THE SET-UP: Immigration is going to dominate the first hundred days of the second Trump administration. It’s also going to dominate the lead-up to his inauguration. And it should because Trump’s promise to deport millions is a minefield of potential consequences for the economy, for inflation and for the nation’s food supply … let alone the Constitutional questions that will arise, particularly when the first underage US citizen is taken away in a van.
But until then, take a look at a truncated version of a powerhouse piece in today’s NY Times. Yes, it is a compilation of excerpts. The full story has details of BaronHR’s criminal cases. I focused on the plight of the workers it exploited. - jp
TITLE: The Hidden Truth Linking the Broken Border to Your Online Shopping Cart
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/17/us/immigration-undocumented-migrants-jobs.html
EXCERPTS: During the depths of the pandemic, sales at Alo Yoga surged as its popularity exploded on social media. Kendall Jenner appeared on Instagram wearing the brand’s high-waist leggings. Alessandra Ambrosio and Jennifer Lopez were seen in Alo gear, too. In just one year, business reportedly almost doubled, surpassing $1 billion.
Alo’s sister company, Bella+Canvas, a wholesaler of basic apparel, also reached a milestone, selling directly to consumers through its website. To keep up, the two companies turned to a vast new distribution warehouse in Nevada.
Finding workers for such facilities is no small task, but corporate America often looks to a time-tested strategy: contracting with staffing agencies that temporarily employ migrants, including some who enter the country illegally and are desperate for jobs.
This year, America’s southern border was once again a flashpoint in a presidential election, with President-elect Donald J. Trump pledging to deport millions of people who he said were “poisoning the blood” of the country. Within days of his re-election, he announced his intention to appoint hard-liners on immigration.
But despite the tough talk, the broken border has been a lifeline for America’s on-demand economy under both Democratic and Republican administrations, including Mr. Trump’s first term, an investigation by The New York Times found. Thousands of companies have exploited its porousness by plucking workers from the ranks of unauthorized migrants, sometimes with impunity.
Hidden from public view is the middleman role often played by staffing agencies. They recruit workers for warehouses, factories and distribution centers that serve up billions of dollars in goods for brand-name companies.
One of the most notorious agencies, BaronHR, worked with Alo Yoga and Bella+Canvas for years, including at the Nevada warehouse. The reporting shows that the agency’s founder, Luis E. Perez, cast himself as a benefactor for immigrant workers, but in many cases his firms cheated them out of wages and stole their tax payments.
While BaronHR provided jobs to migrants — and employees to companies — it was also an active player on the darker side of the immigration economy. Until the firm collapsed early this year, it was an agent for the exploitation of laborers who were often underpaid and working in unsafe conditions, all while shielding brands from direct responsibility.
Mr. Perez is now in jail awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty to federal tax crimes involving nearly $60 million. But since 2018, while his case went unresolved, records indicate that BaronHR and affiliated firms entered into contracts and collected more than $750 million from corporate partners, including Alo Yoga and Bella+Canvas. Much of the business occurred even as Mr. Trump cracked down on illegal immigration.
On any given day, Mr. Perez’s agencies had upward of 8,000 workers at partner locations, according to a 2021 deposition by a former top executive. Over more than a decade, they provided staffing for at least 800 companies large and small, publicly traded and privately held, client lists and other records obtained by The Times show. In addition to Alo Yoga and Bella+Canvas, the companies included well-known giants like TJX — the parent of T.J. Maxx, HomeGoods and Marshalls — and Keurig Dr Pepper, the beverage maker.
Staffing agencies were among the top employers of unauthorized workers at sites inspected for immigration violations over the past decade, according to data collected by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The records indicate that at least 160 staffing firms, most of them identified during the Trump administration, employed people with suspicious documents or no evidence of authorization.
Federal, state and local regulators have pursued at least 80 investigations of agencies over possible violations involving immigrants, including many who are in the United States illegally, according to records from the Department of Homeland Security obtained through public records requests. They were compiled during the Biden administration but document accusations stretching back at least as far as the Trump era. They do not indicate the status of the investigations, and a department spokesperson did not provide more information.
Three staffing firms, for example, are under investigation by the Illinois Labor Department for concerns related to improper training at Ferrara Candy, the maker of SweeTarts and Jelly Belly jelly beans.
Interviews and regulatory records show that BaronHR and its affiliates have been the subject of at least three investigations involving discrimination or failure to pay workers assigned to dozens of job sites, including at TJX.
In a statement, TJX said it requires staffing partners to provide authorized workers. “As these individuals are Baron employees,” the company said, “it would be inappropriate for us to comment on BaronHR’s business practices.”
When Keurig Dr Pepper signed a new contract with BaronHR in 2019 to staff a facility in California, Mr. Perez and two of his executives were facing state charges for tax and workers’ compensation premium fraud.
Later that year, as federal prosecutors unsealed an indictment charging Mr. Perez with not paying millions in payroll taxes, Keurig Dr Pepper expanded the partnership to include more warehouses.
Agency records show that workers were sent to Keurig Dr Pepper locations across the country, including manufacturing and warehouse sites in Florida and Illinois. Like the other BaronHR records reviewed by The Times, these do not indicate workers’ immigration status.
In interviews, several former employees at BaronHR offices described workers from a variety of sites, including Alo Yoga and Bella+Canvas, complaining about missing wages and bounced paychecks. In some cases, they responded to calls from partner companies about why the workers were not getting paid.
The Times interviewed more than 20 people whom BaronHR had hired to work for Alo Yoga, Bella+Canvas, Color Image or their contractors. All of them were undocumented during their employment, and some shared texts, emails, pay stubs and other documents.
Many of the workers described banks rejecting their paychecks for insufficient funds. By last fall, they said, BaronHR often directed them to specific check-cashing businesses that charged high fees.
While workers struggled to get paid, Alo Yoga promoted steep holiday discounts and, on Instagram, free fast shipping on “party looks” and “winter wish lists.”
Many workers who spoke to The Times had committed to working six-day weeks to meet the demand. In return, BaronHR promised bonuses, but many of those checks bounced too.
After struggling to get paid during the holidays, workers in Nevada occupied the cafeteria and refused to work. Within days, Alo Yoga and Bella+Canvas switched BaronHR workers to other agencies staffing their warehouses.
Some workers were still reckoning their losses months later. When [a] Salvadoran man who once sold oranges tried to file his taxes this year, he learned that BaronHR had not reported his income, even though it had deducted federal taxes from his paychecks, he said in interview. In fact, he said, the Internal Revenue Service told him it had no record of his employment at the Nevada warehouse.
One company that partnered with the firm determined that two-thirds of its workers from the staffing agency were undocumented, according to a 2019 lawsuit by a former BaronHR executive.
Early this year, when the three federal and state labor agencies notified the Homeland Security Department that BaronHR was being investigated, the workplace violations involved unauthorized workers deployed to dozens of companies, according to interviews and financial documents.
These include a snack company owned at the time by Utz, the Las Vegas hotel Circus Circus, and Alo Yoga and Bella+Canvas. None of them responded to requests for comment.
Several former corporate employees of BaronHR said the firm targeted undocumented immigrants because they were less likely to quit or speak up if mistreated.
“These people needed this work,” said Yesenia Murillo, a sales representative in BaronHR’s Chula Vista, Calif., office in 2017 and 2018, adding that the agency and its clients had leveraged workers’ desperation to place them in “dangerous, hazardous, inhumane” jobs.
TITLE: Despite their critical role in feeding the nation, farmworkers face harsh working conditions
https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/2024/11/17/despite-their-critical-role-in-feeding-the-nation-farmworkers-face-harsh-working-conditions/
EXCERPTS: Calling the U.S. farm workforce “critical” is an understatement. Agricultural workers’ labor feeds us. Yet their living and working conditions often do not reflect their immense contributions to society. They face a variety of challenges for at work — difficulties taking leave for sick days or family or personal obligations and harmful working conditions — and outside of work, like securing housing, child care, food, and health care.
Most farmworkers are paid above the minimum wage, and wages, on average, have been increasing in recent years. However, because farmwork is highly seasonal, hourly wage rates provide a misleading indicator of overall earnings. As one example, the average hourly wage rate for California crop workers in 2021 was $17.50. This would translate to annual earnings of $36,000 if these workers were employed full-time and year-round. But farm jobs are seasonal and temporary. Actual average annual earnings for farmworkers were roughly $20,000.
Earnings are just one component of working conditions. Farmwork requires back-breaking exertion, and farmworkers are exposed to harsh environmental conditions — and since most do not have paid time off, they face a difficult decision: Work, and potentially damage their health, or do not work, and do not get paid.
In part because of economic incentives for both employer and employee, outdoor work often continues during high temperatures, pollution, and wildfires; ceasing work at such times can lead to major crop loss, because such environmental conditions damage many fruits and vegetables. During the 2018 California wildfires, the Washington Post reported on strawberry harvesters who felt pressure to continue work through smoke that was thick enough to sting their eyes and throats. From the employer and consumer perspective, getting strawberries off the plants on their normal rotation was crucial to avoid crop loss and supply disruptions.
There have been many national and state efforts to bring U.S. citizens from non-farm backgrounds into the occupation: the 1965 federal A-TEAM initiative (Athletes in Temporary Employment as Agricultural Manpower), Georgia’s 2011 program to replace farmworkers with probationers (there are also prison-run farms, but that is a whole different topic), and efforts by regional growers associations. Not surprisingly, they have failed. Most people cannot tolerate the high physical demands and long hours — and don’t have the unique and underappreciated skillsets — that one needs to be successful at these jobs.
Across these failures, the lessons are consistent: We are incredibly lucky to have people who are able and willing to perform these vital and demanding tasks. 00:01
TITLE: Donald Trump's Deportation Plan Causes 'Panic' Among Farmers
https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-mass-deportation-farmers-1987371
EXCERPTS: President-elect Donald Trump's deportation plan is causing widespread "panic" among farmers at risk of losing staff and business.
Agricultural output will fall between $30 and $60 billion if Trump's flagship policy is carried out, according to the American Business Immigration Coalition (ABIC).
Business leaders, backed by the ABIC—a lobbying group focused on immigration policies that support industries dependent on immigrant labor—warn that Trump's policy could result in a "massive loss of revenue."
Jennifer Tilton Flood, a dairy farmer from Maine, called the potential mass deportations a "catastrophic nightmare" for the U.S. agricultural industry, particularly the dairy sector, which relies heavily on immigrant labor.
"The idea of mass deportations is frightening and scary, just on a humane level, with regards to our community," Flood, of Flood Brothers Farm, told Newsweek in a press call.
"Mass deportations could affect our entire dairy industry throughout the U.S."
She also said it would be a "catastrophic nightmare" for communities, churches and businesses that depend on migrants.
Mass deportations could cost the U.S. a staggering $315 billion for a one-time effort, according to the American Immigration Council.
The long-term cost of deporting 1 million people per year could average $88 billion annually, totaling $967.9 billion over a decade. This would require a vast expansion of detention and court systems.
Sam Sanchez, owner of Third Coast Hospitality and a board member of the National Restaurant Association, told Newsweek on the call, "If these workers are deported, restaurants will close, leading to massive losses in revenue and a significant downturn in the economy."
Experts previously warned that if Trump's proposed mass deportation plan is implemented, it could slash the U.S. agricultural labor force by nearly half, posing a serious threat to the dairy industry and other farming sectors.
Currently, undocumented immigrants make up close to 45 percent of agricultural workers in the U.S.—approximately 950,000 out of an estimated 2.2 million farm laborers.