Recent Graduates Were Told They Were Coming to the U.S. for Cultural Exchange. They Ended Up Trapped in a Factory Farm.

At the end of their studies at San Carlos University in Guatemala City, Fredy Alvarado Contreras, Sergio Escobar Gonzalez and Dennis Najera Barillas were recruited to participate in a special opportunity: a year-long internship at a swine operation, where they would learn from experts, partake in American cultural activities and agronomy courses and receive free housing, according to a new lawsuit. The plaintiffs came on a J-1 visa: a State Department visa commonly awarded to foreigners coming here for educational or research programs. Yet according to the lawsuit, plaintiffs instead worked dangerous jobs in hog processing facilities and discovered that most of the other promises — from free housing to cultural exchange — were a “sham.” Before their first paycheck, the plaintiffs had to shell out thousands of dollars, relying on loans and selling their belongings.

“My hope in coming to the U.S. on a J-1 visa was to share my culture and learn about U.S. culture. I wanted to improve as a person, as a professional, and economically. I wanted to improve my job prospects and get a certificate to help with that,” said Sergio Escobar Gonzalez, one of the plaintiffs in this action, via a press release from the legal advocacy non-profit FarmSTAND.

The lawsuit was filed against Livingston Enterprises Inc. (LEI), a company that operates in Nebraska and Kansas, and Worldwide Farmers Exchange, a California-based non-profit. A number of employees at both organizations are also named in the suit. The plaintiffs are represented by FarmSTAND, Legal Aid of Nebraska and Georgia-based law firm Radford Scott LLP.

Work visa programs, like the H-2A program, allow immigrants to temporarily fill agricultural labor shortages in the United States. H-2A programs are controversial and rife with exploitation, a recent investigation by the nonprofit newsroom Prism shows. In December, a Connecticut farm that employs H-2A visa holders was served a class-action lawsuit for violating labor conditions.

The J-1 visa, on the other hand, strictly prohibits using visa-holders to fill a labor need or engage in work that a U.S. worker could be hired for. In theory, these visas are supposed to provide educational work and study opportunities, and are often awarded to visiting professors and scholars. But unlike H-2A visas, which are for temporary agriculture positions, these can cover up to 12 months in the United States.

“Animal agriculture is year-round, so they can’t avail themselves of those visas,” Amal Bouhabib, a senior staff attorney for FarmSTAND, tells Sentient. A recent report by the Southern Poverty Law Center has documented the exploitation of J-1 visas by employers seeking cheap labor; and this lawsuit suggests the agricultural sector is not exempt from the practice. Luring visa holders to work in concentrated feeding operations with promises of a cultural and educational experience via the J-1 visa program is deceptive and exploitative, the lawsuit alleges.

Sold on a Fake, (Bedbug-Ridden) Promise

To pay for the approximately $2,535 program fees, Gonzalez sold his car and took out a loan with a monthly interest of around 15 percent. Contreras depleted his savings account, borrowed cash from his parents and put some of the fees on a credit card. They then purchased their approximately $660 flights to Lincoln, Nebraska.

When Gonzalez and Contreras got to their housing there — which they were charged for via a paycheck deduction — they found that they would be living in four-person “makeshift windowless rooms in a former Walmart,” the lawsuit alleges. For the approximately 40 men living in the building, there was one kitchen with one working stove. The lawsuit also alleges that all common areas, including bathrooms, had 24/7 video camera monitoring. Two months into living there, a bed-bug infestation broke out, according to the allegations in the suit.

Their paychecks also did not reflect what they were promised, the plaintiffs allege. To meet the hourly wage they were promised at recruitment — after deductions for housing and a lower hourly rate — Contreras and Gonzalez would have needed to work 70-90 hours a week. They ended up agreeing to a 56-hour a week schedule, which they say their manager advised them to do, citing that most Guatemalans did that, but they could earn more money by working more.

Recent Grads Made to Do a Gruesome Job, Without Training

In the swine processing facilities, Contreras and Gonzalez were asked to “process” newborn piglets. “This included, among other things, applying a tattoo gun to their ears to give them identifying marks, and cutting off their tails with scissors,” the lawsuit states. The defendants were not trained in this practice. “When the piglets Plaintiff Escobar Gonzalez was tattooing began to bleed profusely, Plaintiff Escobar Gonzalez did not receive any instruction or guidance from anyone at LEI as to whether he was performing the task correctly. Even after some of the piglets bled out and died, LEI still didn’t make any effort to instruct Plaintiffs.”

Contreras was also instructed to assist a sow in birthing piglets. The complaint states that he received no formal training in tasks such as administering oxytocin, a hormone used to induce labor. In one instance, Contreras gave one sow two doses, causing her to suffer from a prolapsed uterus and die.

Livingston Enterprises Inc., where the plaintiffs worked, raises 36,000 sows and 1.2 million weaned pigs for production per year. They mention the J-1 visa program on their website, which they describe as an experience for “trainees” to “not only to learn about our farm practices, but to also experience American culture.” LEI did not respond to Sentient’s multiple requests for comment.

The plaintiffs were also instructed to power-wash the barns without instruction or sufficient personal protective equipment. They were only given goggles and an N-95 face mask that they would use for up to three weeks. According to the claims in the lawsuit, this is especially dangerous. The task can cause “the debris to be forcibly ejected into the air in a toxic spray of feces and blood particles and highly concentrated chemicals like hydrogen peroxide that can enter a worker’s mouth, eyes, ears, nose or skin if the worker is not properly protected.”

Because of this, Gonzalez developed hives, which the lawsuit alleges were brushed off by his manager as allergies, and Contreras developed impaired vision and eye pain, even wearing goggles. When Contreras took a day off from work due to these ailments, the Visa Program Administrator/HR Assistant told him that his boss “was punishing him for missing a day of work,” by making Contreras subsequently power wash for three days in a row.

As for the “cultural exchange” promise, the lawsuit alleges that while the plaintiffs were informed of goings on in town, like a bake sale at a local school, the events were during work hours. And, “if Plaintiffs wanted to go anywhere or do anything in their time off, they had to request a company car, a request that was frequently denied,” the lawsuit states. “After several months, unable to handle the isolation, Plaintiffs Escobar Gonzalez and Alvarado Contreras and others pooled together some of their earnings to buy a car together,” the lawsuit alleges.

Worldwide Farmers Exchange’s “About Us” page describes the long-lasting benefits of the program. “For many WFE participants, the true value of the exchange comes in the friendships made, the cultural experiences shared, and the professional connections that last a lifetime.”

In response to a request for comment, Worldwide Farmers Exchange Executive Director Ashley Medulan, who is also a defendant in the suit, wrote to Sentient that while the organization cannot comment on the specifics of pending litigation, “we remain confident in our position and will respond appropriately through the legal process. Our organization is committed to upholding the highest standards of integrity and compliance, and we will continue to operate with transparency and professionalism as this matter proceeds.”

Threats of ICE Detainment and Retaliation, Suit Alleges

When Contreras and Gonzalez asked to lower their hours to a 45-hour a week schedule, they say their boss refused, telling them that the 45-hour schedule was ‘only for Americans. They were then transferred to a different facility, in an apparently retaliatory move. When Contreras asked to do some of the tasks he was initially promised, like learn about the industry, he was told that he was not there to learn, but to do “whatever we tell you to do.”

The workers were also unable to leave the arrangement without consequence. They were told that “if they left early or tried to leave the program, they could be picked up by ICE, they could be detained. One of the threats was that they would never be able to work in the U.S. again,” Bouhabib says.

The plaintiffs were essentially trapped.

“That is really what the federal trafficking statute tries to get at,” Bouhabib says. “You’re not necessarily being physically bound, but the number of ways the pressure can be exerted to coerce someone into staying where they don’t want to stay and do the work they shouldn’t be doing.”

The complaint alleges that the companies involved in recruiting the plaintiffs were experienced users of the J-1 visa program, and thus would have known that the visa cannot be used to replace laborers, let alone exploit them. The plaintiffs’ attorneys are making claims under a range of statutes, including the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, the Fair Labor Standards Act, the Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act, Nebraska wage and employment laws and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The plaintiffs are seeking compensatory, punitive and declaratory relief, as well as an end to the abuse of the J-1 visa program.

A New Pattern of J-1 Visa Abuse in the U.S.

One recent study found that between 2018 and 2020, 45 percent of surveyed J-1 visa holders reported that the work they performed did not align with what was promoted during recruitment, and that threats of deportation were a common form of exploitation.

From illegally detaining J-1 visa holders to asking undocumented immigrants to “self-deport,” the Trump administration has been imposing a host of new immigration practices. The exploitation of the J-1 visa is a way for organizations to get around the system, says Jeannie Economos, Pesticide Safety and Environmental Health Project Coordinator at the Farmworker Association of Florida, a labor advocacy group. While the administration cracks down on undocumented immigrants, visas are a way for companies “to have cheap labor and fewer restrictions,” she says.

Economos, who has worked at the organization for 25 years, says she first noticed J-1 visas being used for agricultural work in the past few years. She says she knows of one operation that replaced their permanent, undocumented employees with J-1 “interns.”

“It’s supposed to be an internship, and I think that’s kind of stretching it a little bit,” she says. In an internship model, you would expect the students to spend some time in the classroom and some out in the field, she says, which is what they had been told their experience would be. It’s also common to hope for more, Economos says. “They come to learn, they come for an ‘internship,’ but they also have hopes of possibly coming back someday when they graduate in their home country, maybe finding a job here.”

This is why many J-1 visa-holders are afraid to speak out against their employers, Economos adds. They are threatened with not only deportation, but also potentially being barred from returning to the U.S. — threats Contreras and Gonzalez say they experienced in Nebraska.

“All of this mess right now is because we have a broken immigration system that’s getting increasingly worse, literally day by day, if not hour by hour,” she says. “It’s a way to circumvent that.”

As of last month, more than 525 student and faculty visa holders have had their visas revoked this year, according to CNN. Also last month, the Washington Post reported on a leaked memo signaling that Trump’s 2026 fiscal year budget would include major cuts to the State Department, including the elimination of “all educational and cultural programs administered by the State Department.”

Bouhabib says the case highlights an important, often underscored element of the industrialized food system: Many operations rely on foreign, exploited labor to keep prices low and maintain high profits. “Big agriculture is abusing these visas,” she says.

The attorneys are still waiting to hear back on a Freedom of Information Act request, filed with the U.S. Department of State in June 2024.

At the time of publication, LEI is still promoting their J-1 “trainee” program on their website.