Mexican veterinarians given low-skill jobs
Offers in visa program don’t measure up to reality of work
Leslie Ortiz had just graduated when a recruiter arrived at her Mexico City university looking for veterinarians to work on an Idaho dairy farm.
It appeared to be an opportunity to gain experience, learn English, pay down credit card debt from her time as a student and even start to save.
The offer came with a visa — one issued through a special program for professionals from Mexico and Canada who are needed for high-skilled jobs in the U.S.
When Ortiz, then 26, learned she got the job — an animal scientist at Funk Dairy — she was thrilled. To pay for her flight to Idaho, she borrowed $150 from family and pawned her jewelry, including a gold chainlet with the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe she received on her 15th birthday.
Within weeks, she realized she had been deceived.
She was milking cows and cleaning the milking parlor 12 hours a day for $10 an hour without so much as a lunch break. She turned to pills to quell pain in her fingers, her hands, her legs. On the job, she was told over and over she had to work faster. At night, she was too tired to do much more than eat and sleep.
“I spent all day crying,” Ortiz said. As U.S. dairy farms struggle to find low-cost workers, some are using the special visa program to lure Mexican veterinarians and engineers with offers
of high-skilled jobs, but then assign them to clean barns or other menial tasks — circumventing the visa rules for work requiring a college degree.
Ana Karen Barragán had expected to care for calves and heifers as an animal scientist at Harmony Grove Dairy in Georgia. Instead, she had to carry sacks and feed, and the shared trailer she was provided to live in was infested with cockroaches and mice.
Arturo Sánchez died in a skid loader accident just after he finished cleaning a barn at a Riverview farm in Minnesota.
Once in the U.S., some quit after a few days or a few months, disappointed or exhausted.
Others find themselves stuck. They can’t take a new job better suited to their education and skills unless another employer helps obtain government approval. They may need to earn money to recover their moving costs.
Some stay longer, even years, hoping job conditions get better, or willing to hang on for bonuses and wages that, while low, are higher than back home.
“They tell you that you are going as an animal scientist,” said Moisés Candelario, who worked at the Riverview farm. “You arrive, and they tell you to take a scraper and clean all the manure.”
The program has grown rapidly at a time when the federal government has moved to restrict immigration.
Unlike some other visas, the Trade NAFTA or TN visa program doesn’t require businesses to first recruit Americans, pay thousands of dollars or offer workers a prevailing wage.
But a lack of scrutiny leaves the program open for abuse.
Through a review of court filings, sworn depositions, offer letters, visas and interviews, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel identified 23 Mexican university graduates who were hired by dairy and other animal farms through the program, but quickly were assigned tasks that do not require a college degree. The real number is likely vastly higher.
Most workers said they were deceived at least once, though others said they knew what was in store.
Officials at dairy farms that use the TN visa program say they followed all of its requirements and made efforts to ensure those hired knew what type of work to expect.
Kevin Wulf, an official with the farm where Sánchez died, told the Journal Sentinel he didn’t know if the company had placed workers in jobs they weren’t allowed to perform, but if the company did, he said, it was unintentional.
Joel Coble, manager at the Georgia farm, said Barragán was undergoing a training program to expose her to all aspects of the farm’s operations before her permanent assignment.
In court filings, officials from the Idaho farm said they did not deceive Ortiz or other veterinarians they brought in through the TN program.
Manager Curtis Giles stated when he talked with the recruits in Mexico, he didn’t know what specific tasks they would perform, but told them the work would be hands-on and physical.
Use of program skyrockets
TN visas were created with the implementation of NAFTA in 1994.
The idea was that skilled workers should be able to move quickly and freely among the three countries, just as barriers had been reduced to encourage more trade.
The number of TN visas issued to Mexicans skyrocketed after 2010, as the U.S. economy recovered from a recession, unemployment rates fell and the number of undocumented immigrants in the country declined. That year, more than 3,300 received TN visas. The number has since risen to more than 21,000.
The Journal Sentinel first requested information on the job classifications for the visas granted by the department, and the companies where the workers wound up, in December 2018. The State Department rejected that request.
Department officials have refused to answer questions about the program.
Thus, it’s impossible to say how often the workers are inappropriately placed in less-skilled jobs that do not qualify for the visas. But workers, advocates and others say the practice is widespread; the Journal Sentinel’s review found cases on 12 farms in nine states.
In theory, the TN visa program offers a relatively easy way to fill farm jobs, but with one big problem: The program is only for high-skilled jobs, and most dairy jobs don’t fit that definition.
So farms are bending or even ignoring the definition, and rolling their general hires under the “animal scientist” classification, or as “breeders.”
Helen Tarokic, an immigration attorney based in North Carolina, said for a TN visa to be appropriate, the job duties need to be related to the worker’s education. If the worker’s duties don’t match what was promised, it could constitute fraud, she said.
“Animal scientist is not meant to be a catch-all for someone who is doing physical labor with animals,” said Kathleen C. Walker, an immigration attorney based in Texas.
In Mexico, Ortiz soon received an email saying she got the job. Giles, the farm manager, signed a letter in support of her visa application.
The Oct. 15, 2014 letter, reviewed by the Journal Sentinel, says Funk Dairy intended to hire her as an animal scientist to help develop, implement and oversee animal reproduction, nutrition, health and other programs.
The pay: At least $25,000 a year. Ortiz was one of seven veterinarians from Mexico all hired in 2014 by the Idaho farm, which company records show had more than 17,000 cows and heifers at the time.
Ortiz and five of the others later filed a federal lawsuit accusing the company, Giles and farm owner David Funk of human trafficking and forced labor. In May, a judge dismissed the case, saying the allegations did not meet the legal threshold for either. The case is now on appeal.
The lawsuit provides a window into how dairy farms are using the TN visa program to obtain workers.
The process often begins with ads on Facebook, where posts recruiting veterinarians and engineers to work on farms throughout the U.S. abound.
In January 2015, about a month after they arrived in Idaho, Ortiz and the others emailed a letter protesting their work conditions to the Mexican contact who helped with the recruiting, Mario Mercado.
Mercado responded that he would talk with Giles, the manager, but the type of work never changed.
Oversight is lax
For many employment-based visas, the Department of Labor is required to vet the jobs offered to make sure the work is appropriate and that businesses aren’t trying to drive down wages. For agricultural workers on seasonal visas, states are required to inspect employerprovided housing.
None of that is required with the TN program.
According to the department’s Foreign Affairs Manual, which includes guidelines for the TN program, U.S. consular officers should verify that the proposed salary tied to a visa is indicative of professional-level employment.
The Journal Sentinel reviewed nine letters for people hired as animal scientists on TN visas. Time and again, State Department officials approved visas in cases where companies offered $25,000 or $30,000 salaries to animal scientists.
That’s 25% to 50% less than the prevailing entry-level wage in the counties where they were hired to work, a Journal Sentinel found.
Tarokic said she would leave the program unchanged and instead favors stronger enforcement to catch companies that are abusing it.
“Animal scientist is not meant to be a catch-all for someone who is doing physical labor with animals.” Kathleen C. Walker Immigration attorney