The Mississippi Gulf Coast has faced a severe labor shortage in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, and many companies have replenished their workforce with overseas labor brought in under a guest worker plan. Human rights groups, however, charge that many foreign workers have been exploited by their employers.
"The U.S. State Department calls it 'a repulsive crime' when recruiters and employers in other parts of the world bind guest workers with crushing debts and threats of deportation," said Saket Soni of the New Orleans Workers' Center for Racial Justice. "This is precisely what is happening on the Gulf Coast."
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