Iowa human trafficking: 11 foreign students allege community college forced them to do factory jobs
A group of foreign students has filed a lawsuit against Western Iowa Tech Community College, alleging that the school and a few more local businesses lured them to university with work-study visas and later forced them to do factory jobs. A total of 11 students, 9 from Brazil and 2 from Chile have filed the lawsuit on Monday, January 11, in U.S District Court in Sioux City. The complaint stated that the college and J&L staffing, both based in Sioux City, “ lured the students to Iowa in 2019 under a work- and study- based visa exchange program only to push them into up to 50 hours-a-week factory jobs making pet food that had no educational value and were unrelated to the field of study,” according to Daily Mail.
It further claims that the students were paid “significantly less than US employees” and a half from their $15 paycheck was deducted towards funds for college and staffing agency. And some have alleged that they didn’t have enough money to buy food for themselves and the college officials had told them to seek help at the food pantry when escalated. The jobs at Royal Canon pet food plant and Tur-Pak foods reportedly included packing, assembling, and moving pet food and frozen meat.
Meanwhile, Sioux CIity Journal reports state that the local factory that the students worked at had threatened them saying they would be “deported or have housing and food withheld if they missed work because of illness.”
Civil rights lawyer Roxanne Conlin who is representing the students’ case is demanding the college to fulfill the promises they made to her clients. She said, “It appears to us the documents are very clear what promises were made. It's also clear that they never had any kind of a program to teach these students robotics or the culinary arts. They worked at a pet food manufacturing company on the line. You cannot coerce or persuade people to go to work by making false promises and that's what they did here.”
The lawsuit says that these students had been segregated from “general students” and were made to take classes with other Brazilians and Chileans in the J-1 visa program. “Defendants collectively required plaintiffs to work under conditions that constituted involuntary servitude. Defendants took advantage of the natural isolation that occurred because plaintiffs were immigrants with limited English abilities,” the lawsuit alleges.
College denies the allegations
A spokesperson for the college, Andrea Rohlena, has however denied the allegations saying, “Western Iowa Tech Community College vehemently denies the claims brought forth in the lawsuit. These accusations are completely untrue, sensational, and offensive. We look forward to defending the college and its employees in district court and welcome the opportunity to refute these malicious allegations.” Previously, in November 2019, a similar lawsuit was filed against the community college by a different set of students from Chile claiming they were brought “into debt bondage at a Sioux City, Iowa, area food packaging plant and dog food factory by offering them a degree with free tuition, room, and board.”
By the end of January 2020, the college announced that all students had been placed in new jobs. But, the students in the earlier lawsuit said that they weren’t offered any internships. Their visas were reportedly canceled and the college bought them air tickets to go home. Reports suggest that some of them chose to remain in the US.