Atlanta, GA – Migrant workers with TN visas met today with representatives from the U.S. Department of Labor and the Mexican Consulate in Atlanta to ask for justice and strengthened labor protections for migrant professionals working in the United States with TN visas. The gathering was part of The Future of [Guest]work: Building TN Worker Power, a three-day summit convened by Migration that Works (MTW) that brought together TN workers and worker advocates to develop an advocacy agenda centered around workers’ experiences and priorities.
During today’s event, workers shared their experiences working with TN visas in the United States as well as the advocacy priorities they identified, alongside worker advocates, during the summit. TN workers demanded more oversight and visibility to the abuses committed within this little-known and sparsely-regulated visa category, emphasizing the importance of ensuring TN workers’ access to justice, increasing data transparency, and eliminating unjust clauses that inevitably tie workers to abusive employers.
“I was offered an engineering position, but I was put to work as a “picker”, carrying heavy autoparts. Job, pay, housing, transportation: nothing was like they said. When I became pregnant, and I couldn’t carry heavy objects anymore, my employer fired me. I speak out today to share my story in the hope that others won’t have to go through what I went through” shared Rosalinda Soriano, one of the TN workers who participated in the summit and spoke during today’s event.
The TN visa was created in 1994, following the enactment of the North American Free Trade Agreement, allowing Mexican and Canadian professionals to work temporarily in the United States within specified industries, such as automotive and animal husbandry. However, as the number of visas issued has increased by almost 250% in the past decade (from 9,548 in 2013 to 33,361 in 2022), so has the misuse of the visa by employers.
Rachel Micah-Jones, Executive Director of Centro de los Derechos del Migrante, commented on the outcomes of the summit, “All of us at CDM believe that laws and policies must reflect the voices and experiences of the people directly impacted by them. And this is precisely what this summit was all about: shaping a shared vision of the future and developing an advocacy agenda informed by the needs and priorities of migrant TN workers. The priorities identified by workers through conversations at the summit were data transparency, access to justice, and the elimination of breach fees. These will be our priorities moving forward.”
Migration that Works (MTW) members have documented systematic abuses of TN workers for years. A report “Coerced Under NAFTA” by Centro de los Derechos del Migrante, MTW chair, highlights the visa’s structural flaws and most common abuses faced by migrant TN workers. They have also filed complaints on behalf of workers who’ve suffered gender and racial discrimination, wage theft, and blatant retaliation. In 2022 CDM filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of a group of Mexican engineers who suffered fraud, discrimination, and wage violations and were exploited in a scheme for low-wage labor in Hyundai and Kia’s automotive supply chain in Georgia.
Polaris, another MTW member organization, through its work on the National Human Trafficking Hotline (NHTH) has indicators that this visa has been misused by some employers in the United States, who have been exploiting people under the pretext of needing a professional workforce. The NHTH has identified at least 50 situations of trafficking that referenced the TN visa between 2015 and 2021.
Claudia Cruz, Polaris Liaison in Mexico mentioned, “What we ask of the U.S. government is collaborative effort so that working individuals have resources, information, and justice. Having access to information available from government agencies is crucial in case individuals face any issues with their employers.”
According to NHTH data, Texas, Alabama, California, and Iowa are the most mentioned states when it comes to the states where the abuse took place. The three main categories of businesses mentioned in these situations of trafficking are: 1) Professional//Scientific/Tech Services, 2) Agriculture/Farms/Animal Husbandry, 3) Manufacturing/Factories.
AFL-CIO’s Chris Daniel, Strategic Organizer & Trainer from Georgia, shared at the event: “We need to get disaggregated information about the program: where the workers are and which companies they are working with. We think that when workers are empowered, communities do better, the world does better. So what we would like to see is workers come together and then grow their movement out.”
You can find the complete TN worker statement here.
For media inquiries and further information, please contact Francisco Díaz at francisco@cdmigrante.org
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Migration that Works is a coalition of labor, migration, civil rights, anti-trafficking organizations and academics advancing a labor migration model that respects the human rights of workers, families and communities and reflects their voices and experiences.
Centro de los Derechos del Migrante, Inc (CDM) envisions a world where migrant workers’ rights are respected, and laws and policies reflect their voices. Through education, outreach, and leadership development; intake, evaluation, and referral services; litigation support and direct representation; and policy advocacy; CDM empowers Mexico-based migrant workers to defend and protect their rights as they move between their home communities in Mexico and their workplaces in the United States. www.cdmigrante.org
Polaris is leading a survivor-centered, justice- and equity-driven movement to end human trafficking. Since 2007, Polaris has operated the U.S. National Human Trafficking Hotline, connecting victims and survivors to support and services, and helping communities hold traffickers accountable. Through that work, Polaris has built the largest known dataset on human trafficking in North America. The data and expertise gained from two decades of working on trafficking situations in real time informs strategies that hold traffickers accountable, support survivors on their healing journeys and address the vulnerabilities that enable the business of stealing freedom for profit.
AFL-CIO is the largest federation of unions in the U.S., with 60 unions representing more than 12.5 million workers across every sector of the economy. It is dedicated to improving the lives of working families, bringing fairness and dignity to the workplace, and securing social equity.