Migrant workers at Georgia factories get multimillion-dollar settlement

Earlier this year, a Georgia federal court approved an $11.5 million settlement over immigrant workers’ claims, putting an end to a class-action lawsuit first filed in 2022. More than 600 workers could receive financial compensation.

“At the end of the day, justice was done,” Zapata said.

Footing the bill will be Hyundai Mobis, Kia and an assortment of local staffing and recruitment agencies that helped find and bring the immigrant workers to Georgia on temporary visas.

Lawyers representing the companies did not respond to requests for comment from the AJC. But several passages in the settlement agreement stipulate that the companies deny any wrongdoing.

Credit: Miguel Martinez

Credit: Miguel Martinez

“The Defendants specifically deny any allegations that they individually or collectively violated any applicable laws or regulations. No portion of this Agreement shall be construed as an admission by the Defendants to any of the Plaintiffs’ factual allegations, including any and all alleged criminal conduct,” the settlement says.

Despite that language, attorneys representing the immigrant workers say the settlement represents a victory.

“It’s a result we’re proud of,” said Brian Sutherland, an Atlanta-based civil rights attorney. “We hope this sends a signal to other employers that the costs of engaging in alleged fraudulent schemes like this can far outweigh any potential benefit they may think they’re going to derive from it.”

Covered by the settlement are hundreds of autoworkers who, like Zapata, recently worked at Kia or Hyundai Mobis in West Point through the Trade NAFTA, or TN, visa program.

The program is meant to fill high-skilled jobs in the U.S. with Mexican and Canadian professionals. According to a list published by the U.S. Department of State, jobs as engineers and technicians are among the professions covered by the TN visa. Assembly-line work is not.

U.S. authorities vet TN visa applications and job offers before migrants travel and when they first arrive in the country. But experts say there is no oversight of the program once TN workers actually report to a job site.

The TN visa “is probably one of the most unregulated visa programs out there,” said Daniel Werner, a workers’ rights litigator involved in the Georgia class action suit.

Werner said he receives calls from “all over the country (from people) who have suffered very similar schemes, very often told they’re coming to work job A, end up working job B, not getting the pay they’re expected.

“Sometimes, there’s a lot of coercion to prevent them from leaving,” Werner said. “I think more and more employers are discovering the TN visa program as a tool for exploitation.”

Plaintiffs in the Georgia class action suit allege that the companies misrepresented the nature of the work awaiting them in West Point — to both the workers and to the U.S. consular authorities tasked with approving the visa applications. Threats of deportation allegedly kept many of them from leaving.

According to Julia Solórzano, with the Centro de los Derechos del Migrante, a binational migrant rights organization, TN visa workers cannot easily leave their employers and retain legal status in the U.S. It’s a dynamic that she says creates a power imbalance and puts workers at risk of abuse.

Zapata said that, unlike many of his Hyundai Mobis co-workers, he didn’t return to Mexico after quitting. Instead, he stayed in the U.S. and successfully applied for another visa, meant for trafficking victims. That visa, unlike the TN visa, is not tied to a specific employer, and it makes him eligible for permanent residence through a green card.

Last year, Zapata left Georgia for Texas. He is once again working in a factory, this one producing bottled water and soft drinks. But this time, Zapata is not doing manual labor, he said. His job is quality control technician.