{"id":1763,"date":"2023-11-01T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-11-01T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/eaganimmigration.com\/labor-t-visas-and-modern-day-slavery-in-the-united-states-3\/"},"modified":"2026-04-16T18:22:42","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T23:22:42","slug":"labor-t-visas-and-modern-day-slavery-in-the-united-states-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eaganimmigration.com\/en\/labor-t-visas-and-modern-day-slavery-in-the-united-states-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Labor T Visas and Modern-Day Slavery in the United States"},"content":{"rendered":"by Alicia Atteberry<\/strong>\n\n\u201cThe American dream is a powerful attraction for destitute and desperate people across the globe, and where there is need, there is greed from those who will attempt to exploit these willing workers for their own obscene profits.\u201d – U.S. Attorney David Howard Estes<\/em>\n\nIn November 2021, U.S. federal agents raided a blueberry farm in Georgia as part of an operation called \u201cBlooming Onion.\u201d The agents were not there to arrest and deport undocumented immigrants. Years of investigation had told them what they would find: workers kept in cramped, unsanitary living conditions and being forced to continue working using threats of deportation and violence. These workers were brought to the United States under false pretenses, then underpaid and mistreated. The U.S. Department of Justice said more than 100 individuals were freed from 20 locations across the state of Georgia, all part of an organized crime operation that profited millions of dollars from human trafficking and forced labor. Eagan Immigration is proud to have recently taken on a client who was liberated from one of these locations. He has now begun the process of getting legal status in the United States through a T Visa application based on his experiences.\n\nThe reality is, although we think of slavery as something in the past, many people today work or live in conditions where their freedom has been taken from them. The U.S. Department of Justice\u2019s Human Trafficking Hotline<\/a> received 50,123 calls, texts, and other messages in 2021 alone. Even in the United States, which prides itself on values of freedom and justice, law enforcement struggles to protect vulnerable people, including the thousands of migrants who come every year from Latin America to work and seek better lives. When they come without documentation, they are at a higher risk of being exploited.\n\nOne of the tools our government uses to help fight human trafficking is what we call a \u201cT Visa.\u201d Officially \u201cT Nonimmigrant Status” is not a visa, but an immigration benefit created to help victims of human trafficking in the United States and to ensure they can safely identify their traffickers to law enforcement. In the widest definition, undocumented immigrants currently in the United States, who have been made to believe they had to continue working or providing services despite abusive circumstances that made them want to leave, may qualify for a T Visa. Commonly, victims are threatened, held captive in some way, and either not paid or paid less than they are owed. To qualify for a T Visa, except in rare circumstances, you cannot have left the United States since the incident, unless as part of the trafficking.\n

What made our \u201cBlooming Onion\u201d client qualify for a T Visa? <\/strong><\/h4>\n