Immigrants: Working at ranch was ‘like slavery’

SYRACUSE, Kan. — Immigrants working on a remote Kansas ranch toil long days in a type of servitude to work off loans from the company for the cost of smuggling them into the country, according to five people who worked there.

There are no holidays, health insurance benefits or overtime pay at Fullmer Cattle Co., which raises calves for dairies in four states. The immigrants must buy their own safety gear such as goggles.

One worker spent eight months cleaning out calf pens, laying down cement and doing other construction work. Esteban Cornejo, a Mexican citizen who is in the U.S. illegally, left Kansas in November after paying off debt, which he figures was nearly $7,000.

The pay stub Cornejo shared with The Associated Press shows he worked 182.5 hours at $10 an hour over two weeks — an average of 15 hours a day with Sundays off. His pay was $1,828.34 before taxes. Also deducted was a $1,300 “cash advance repayment” that he said was a company loan for bringing him into the country.

His take-home pay was $207.46, the pay stub shows, or just over $1 an hour working at Fullmer Auto Co. Texas LLC, which does business as Fullmer Cattle.

“It is like slavery what they do to those poor people,” said Rachel Tovar, another former worker who spoke to The Associated Press.

Tovar said she was interviewed recently by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent, who asked about the company’s Kansas employment practices, but ICE declined to say if it is investigating.

Dean Ryan, the company’s attorney, said in an email that the allegations “are simply not true.”

“There was no smuggler’s fee and has never been,” Ryan wrote, adding that there are “plenty of people willing to work in western Kansas without having to ‘import’ them.”

Ryan said company policy is to give pay advances to workers who have no credit. He said those loans are made so employees can purchase a vehicle or put a down payment on a home.

President Donald Trump’s administration has cracked down on immigrants living in the country illegally. But it has said less about the companies that employ them, let alone a company accused of using smugglers to bring workers to the United States.

The plight of the Kansas workers also highlights the exploitation that immigrants face when a company forces them to pay off debt with work, a practice called “debt peonage.”

Under federal law, employers do not have to pay overtime to agricultural workers. Erik Nicholson, national vice president for the United Farm Workers union, said it is not unusual for employers to recruit immigrant farmworkers. Some employers use kickback schemes, although deducting from paychecks is “pretty brazen.”