“Protecting the integrity of the H2-A visa program and ensuring the lawful treatment of workers is important for our agricultural industry, which is a bedrock of Idaho’s economy and way of life,” U.S. Attorney Josh Hurwit said. (Lance Cheung/USDA)
A Texas man was sentenced on Thursday to 27 months in federal prison for extorting foreign farmworkers in Idaho and filing a false tax return, according to a press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Idaho.
Ernesto Garza, 62, was a supervisor and foreman at F.D.C., an agricultural services company that operates farms throughout Idaho. The company employs H-2A workers, or foreign farmworkers, from March to November.
The H-2A program allows U.S. employers to fill temporary agriculture jobs that cannot otherwise be filled by U.S. workers. According to the Idaho Department of Labor , there were 7,200 H-2A Idaho workers in Idaho in 2023.
As a supervisor, Garza prepared and submitted timesheets for the workers, but regularly falsified those timesheets by adding extra hours and then asked the workers to return cash to him for the extra hours.