In October 2021, a grand jury indicted 24 people for orchestrating a human trafficking scheme that federal prosecutors said trapped Georgia farmworkers in brutal conditions akin to “modern-day slavery.” Dubbed Operation Blooming Onion, the scheme yielded one of the country’s largest human trafficking and visa fraud investigations, according to the Department of Justice.
On Monday, the central figure in the case, 63-year-old Maria Patricio, was sentenced to 12 months and one day in prison, according to Savannah Morning News coverage of a court hearing held at the Waycross Federal Courthouse. Patricio must also pay $314,369 in restitution to multiple victims.
According to farmworker advocates, Operation Blooming Onion shed light on a pattern of worker abuse that they say is pervasive across the Southeast, where foreign guestworkers are a vital but vulnerable part of the agriculture industry.
Federal prosecutors say defendants engaged in forced labor, coercing immigrants to work under the threat of gun violence and sometimes dig for onions with their bare hands. When not in the fields, the workers were allegedly detained in work camps surrounded by electric fencing, or held in cramped living quarters, including dirty trailers with raw sewage leaks and little access to food or safe drinking water. To prevent escapes, federal prosecutors say that members of the accused ring confiscated guestworkers’ passports and documents.
Two workers died on the job, according to the indictment. Court records say five workers were kidnapped, and one was raped, the Savannah Morning News reports.
The bulk of the Operation Blooming Onion defendants, including Patricio, worked as farm-labor contractors, or middlemen enlisted by farmers to recruit and manage their field laborers. Contractors found the wanted workers through the H-2A visa program, which has been booming in Georgia as domestic sources of labor dried up. The H-2A program allows foreign guestworkers, most of whom hail from Mexico or Central America, to legally come to the U.S. for months at a time to work in agriculture. But because workers’ legal status is contingent on their remaining under the employment of the party that sponsored their visa, labor advocates say the program is ripe for exploitation.
Last fiscal year, a high of 43,436 workers crossed the border to legally work in the state, according to federal data. That’s up from around 10,000 just 10 years ago. Georgia is currently the second biggest user of the H-2A program nationwide, trailing only Florida.
According to a statement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Georgia, charges have thus far been resolved against 17 of the Operation Blooming Onion defendants. Charges or resolution are pending against seven. Patricio’s sentencing comes more than six months after she pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit mail fraud for her role in workers’ exploitation.
In Monday’s hearing, Patricio’s defense attorney requested probation. She noted that the case was not emblematic of Patricio’s character, and that Patricio provided assistance to the government in its investigation, the Savannah Morning News reports.
Countering that argument, U.S. Attorney Tania Groover said Patricio should be “humiliated” and “ashamed” for her role in the case. Patricio filed 15 petitions with the government to bring H-2A workers to Georgia, which led to 42 people being harmed. But she received a shorter sentence than other codefendants because she had less direct harmful contact with the farmworkers.
No victims testified at the sentencing hearing, the Savannah Morning News reports, with many workers having migrated back to their home countries or declining to speak.
For some farmworker advocates, Patricio’s sentencing does not represent the victory they’d hoped it would be.
“This short sentence — significantly less than the years-long Operation Blooming Onion investigation itself — is an insult to the hundreds of workers who were trafficked and exploited in conditions prosecutors called ‘modern-day slavery,’” Teresa Romero, president of United Farm Workers, said in a statement.
Romero noted the judge who sentenced Patricio, U.S. District Court Judge Lisa Godbey Wood, is the same judge who blocked new protections for H-2A farmworkers created by the administration of President Joe Biden from going into effect last year.
“Individuals engaged in human trafficking using ‘legal’ guestworker programs like the uncapped H-2A visa program must be severely punished, while the program is clearly in desperate need of accountability, oversight and reform. This abuse must be prevented from ever happening again,” Romero said.
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