A Santa Maria recruiter was sentenced after prosecutors said he charged Mexican workers thousands of dollars for H-2A visas. Here’s what farmworkers should know about illegal recruitment fees, wages and their rights.
If someone asks you for thousands of dollars to get an H-2A farm job in California, that is not simply an expensive job opportunity. It could be illegal.
That is the central lesson from a Santa Maria case that ended Monday with a labor recruiter being sentenced to federal prison.
Jorge Vasquez, 65, was sentenced to 12 months and one day in prison and ordered to pay $165,157 in restitution after pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit mail fraud. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Vasquez and his co-conspirators recruited 162 foreign workers for H-2A jobs and charged workers between $8,000 and $15,000 for their visas.
The case also involved wages. Prosecutors said workers were promised $19.50 or $19.97 an hour in visa applications but were actually paid about $16 to $16.50 an hour.
For farmworkers considering an H-2A job, the most important question is:
What are you legally supposed to pay?
H-2A workers should not pay recruitment fees
The U.S. Department of Labor is explicit: H-2A workers cannot be charged recruitment fees to obtain a job or fees to obtain the visa. Employers must also prohibit recruiters working for them from demanding those payments.
California has its own protection. State regulations prohibit foreign labor contractors from directly or indirectly charging, collecting or demanding recruitment fees or creating a financial obligation for a foreign worker related to recruitment.
That means a recruiter asking a prospective worker for thousands of dollars in exchange for an H-2A job is a major warning sign.
And workers should not assume that a fee is legitimate simply because the person asking for it calls it a “visa fee,” “processing fee,” “recruitment fee” or something else.
What H-2A workers should receive
The H-2A program allows agricultural employers to bring temporary foreign workers to the United States when they cannot find enough domestic workers.
But the program comes with worker protections.
Employers generally must:
- Pay required recruitment and visa-related costs.
- Provide a written job contract in a language the worker understands.
- Provide free and safe housing.
- Provide free and safe daily transportation between housing and the worksite.
- Pay the promised wage and provide an itemized pay statement.
- Reimburse certain travel costs.
- Respect a worker’s right to file a complaint without retaliation.
The Department of Labor also says workers may be entitled to reimbursement if they paid illegal recruitment fees.
What if you already paid a recruiter?
Keep the evidence.
Save contracts, receipts, text messages, WhatsApp messages, bank records, photographs, names, phone numbers and anything else showing who requested the money and what the payment was supposed to cover.
The U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division accepts complaints about H-2A violations. Complaints are confidential, and workers can call 1-866-487-9243 for assistance. The department says workers are protected from retaliation for exercising their rights or filing a complaint.
Workers can also check legitimate temporary agricultural job listings through the federal government’s SeasonalJobs.dol.gov.
If you are already back in Mexico and believe you are owed wages, the Department of Labor says it has a program with Mexico’s labor ministry to help locate workers who may be owed money.
The H-2A fight is bigger than recruitment fees
The Santa Maria case comes as the H-2A program faces another major fight over wages.
On Aug. 27, a federal judge ruled that the Trump administration unlawfully changed the methodology used to calculate H-2A wages and ordered the Labor Department to redo the rule. The case could affect what farmworkers are paid going forward and whether some workers are owed additional money.
That issue is separate from the Santa Maria fraud case.
But together, they show why understanding the H-2A rules matters.
A worker should know what the job pays before accepting it, what costs the employer must cover, and what a recruiter cannot legally demand.
Parriva has been following the broader immigration and worker-protection debate in California, including California’s efforts to respond to intensified federal immigration enforcement and what changing federal enforcement means for California workers and immigrant communities.
The lesson from the Santa Maria case is not simply that one recruiter went to prison.
It is that H-2A workers have rights before they ever arrive in California.
If someone demands thousands of dollars for access to an H-2A job, that should be treated as a warning—not the price of getting to work in America.
Know what the job promises. Know what you are being asked to pay. And keep the evidence if something does not look right.
