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Agustin Mendez-Vazquez, a 44 years old man from Miami Florida works as a Homestead labor subcontractor. He is known in the Homestead farming industry as a ‘nicolero’—which according to Miami Herald, the word pertains to “the nickel commission most labor subcontractors get for each bucket of produce picked by the workers he provides.”
Mendez-Vazquez was also known, especially by authorities, as a slavemaster. Mendez-Vazquez was charged with “conspiracy to provide and maintain forced labor.” He used forms of violence to control and keep his workers under his authority and power. He threatened them and used “white collar” strategies to manipulate them.
He is sentenced to six years of imprisonment. He gets commission for sending migrant workers to farms and crews and make them do labor without any contract.
Ever Mendez-Perez, Agustin’s 24 years old son, acts as his right hand and helps him keep his father’s business floating. Mendez-Perez committed “conspiracy to encourage and induce illegal aliens to reside in the United States,” according to Miami Herald.
Mendez-Perez will serve a year in federal prison.
Wilfredo A. Ferrer, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District, released a statement through the Department of Justice:
“Forced labor equates to modern-day slavery and the United States Attorney’s Office, together with our federal, state, and local law enforcement partners stand ready to prosecute those individuals who facilitate these illegal practices.”
The implementation of the so-called modern slavery was made in varieties by the two suspects.
The farms who hired or recruited the workers who directly give their wage salaries to them. They will instead give them to the ‘nicolero’ first, who will decide how to distribute the money earned by his workers.
Not only is this illegal, but it also provides the ‘nicolero’ overflowing power in terms of finance. According to one complaint, Mendez-Vasquez had been withholding money from his workers since 2013. A farm industry regulatory organizations received the complaint.
The son was accused of allegedly “utilized physical force, threats of physical force, threats of deportation, and debt bondage to maintain control over other migrant workers.”
An incident was also extracted from a complaint back in May 2015:
“Witness A was attempting to assist a worker who wanted to leave Mendez's employment, but Agustin Mendez prevented the worker from leaving. Agustin Mendez physically blocked the worker from leaving, made statements regarding pay arrangements, threatened Witness A with violence and smashed the windshield of Witness A’s vehicle. Later, Ever Mendez, Agustin’s son, communicated a threat to Witness A over the phone. Witness A filed a police report in Palmetto, Florida.”
Mendez-Vazquez released a legal statement in which he confessed that he and others “intimidated and physically assaulted a manual farm worker who had recently arrived from Mexico.”
“The Defendant did this in an attempt to make sure that the manual farm worker ... would work only for him. Additionally, the Defendant threatened to report the recently arrived worker to law enforcement.”
According to the prosecutors, the father and the son are originally from Mexico. The two allegedly intimidated the workers to work without ever questioning their authority. The two would send them to farms in the southern part of Miami.
One of the victims said that the dad “smuggled him into the country, but illegally took control of the paychecks,” according to the New York Daily News.
The two used other forms of financial intimidation such as making loans or withholding immigration documents from the workers, such as passports. These tactics would strengthen the chain that Mendez-Vasquez tied around his workers.
Such slave ownership is pretty hard to detect since almost, if not all, of the workers are illegal immigrants who managed to dodge Homeland Security officers and patrollers and to cross the river separating the two countries.
It could also be alleged that these workers went over the border, just further proving that no border can stop illegal immigration.
‘Nicoleros’ like Mendez-Vasquez and his son of course are difficult to find, too. Since they’re workers, who are illegal and get deported, won’t speak up and point their owners to the authorities. These workers are content enough to even be making half of the minimum wage in Florida.
Although there’s no statistics regarding this issue, this kind of slavery should alert every corner of the government.
