Five people have been charged in a scheme to smuggle illegal immigrants into the United States by exploiting an agricultural worker visa program.
Martha Aquino, 61; Evangelina Aquino De Galvan, 49; Julio Cervantes, 38; Marco Cervantes, 41; and Juan Felipe Romero-Lopez, 31, are accused of conspiring to manipulate the H-2A visa program, the Department of Justice (DOJ) said in a Sept. 15 statement.
The H-2A program allows American employers to bring in foreign nationals to fill temporary job vacancies in the agriculture sector.
According to the statement, the defendants fraudulently obtained these temporary visas, deceived authorities regarding workers’ residence, and were “demanding and receiving improper payments from the workers” for their visas. …