Trillium Farms, an Ohio egg producer that authorities say used undocumented immigrants, said it has changed several policies in the wake of a federal investigation into contractors who supplied workers.
Trillium Chief Operating Officer Doug Mack said the company was “misled” by a contractor, Haba Corporate Services, and was unaware that Haba’s owner was under investigation until the company received a federal subpoena and a visit from federal agents in December 2014.
“While we have the same requirements for our contractors, it is clear in this case we were misled by the contracting company, which intended to act illegally,” Mack wrote in a message to cleveland.com. “Their actions are unacceptable, and we are pleased the court case is moving forward.”
Federal prosecutors say Haba, along with two other contracting companies, were part of a human-trafficking ring that smuggled mostly poor teens into the U.S. from Guatemala and forced them to work at Trillium’s central Ohio farms for up to 12 hours a day. The workers removed beaks from chickens, vaccinated the birds and cleaned coups.
Court filings state that Aroldo Castillo-Serrano, the ring’s admitted leader, Haba’s owner Pablo Duran Jr., and others kept more than 40 Guatemalans in 16 sparsely-furnished trailers at a mobile home park in rural Marion County, about 130 miles southwest of Cleveland.
Federal agents removed the workers from the trailer park in December 2014.
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Related to this case, U.S. Sen. Rob Portman on Thursday is expected to unveil the findings of a committee investigation spurred by the human-trafficking case.
Portman, the Republican chair of the permanent subcommittee on investigations, says the findings came in the wake of a six-month investigation. It is expected to show what it sees as failings by the Office of Refugee Resettlement, a division of the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services in how unaccompanied minors crossing the U.S.-Mexico border were placed into homes.
A news release states that the investigation was into “systemic vulnerabilities” created by the office.
The investigation was brought because the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Cleveland brought charges against six individuals it says ran a forced-labor ring out of a trailer park in Marion, about two hours southwest of Cleveland. The victims, many of whom were Guatemalan teens, were forced to work long hours at egg farms for menial pay.
According to an indictment, the workers crossed the U.S.-Mexico border. If border guards caught and detained them, they claimed to be refugees, or unaccompanied minors.
Then, one of the members of the trafficking organization would travel to the border and falsely claim that they were related to the minor. The Office of Refugee Resettlement would then release the worker, unwittingly, into the trafficking ring.
The senator has said he feels that officials at the border did not properly vet the people who claimed to be the relatives of the underage workers.
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