The H-2A Visa Trap

Sofi, a young single mother, left Mexico and came to the US under the H-2a visa program, which enables non-citizens to do temporary agricultural work. She quickly found herself controlled by her visa broker, a violent man who held her passport and threatened her family. Max Blau and Zaydee Sanchez trace Sofi’s harrowing path through the thick of Operation Blooming Onion, a three-year, multi-agency investigation that revealed sprawling abuse of the H-2A visa. Though central to a major investigation, the details of Sofi’s story have largely been confined to court documents. Here, they are made vivid, unfolded with tension and intimacy.

Sofi was among the first groups of people recruited to work for Kings Berry Farm. She initially felt some relief when she stepped off the bus in the parking lot of the dingy motel, after making it past customs and having spent more than 20 hours on the road. But she was taken aback by how she and the others were treated by the people there to meet them: The workers were unloaded like prisoners, their heads bowed so they couldn’t see what was happening.

One of the people who received the workers separated Sofi from the rest. She recalled that she was taken to a motel room. She found another female worker waiting there. Guards were assigned to watch them.

It was in the motel room that she first saw Mendoza. Short and stout with a shaggy chinstrap beard, he spoke with a strong lisp because of a congenital disorder. It could be hard to understand what he was saying, but that day he had no problem making his message clear.

Sofi recalled that the other woman asked Mendoza if she could have her passport back. Mendoza said that if she had it in her mind to leave his operation, she’d have to do so without her passport. She wasn’t getting it back.

He already had Sofi’s.