Guest workers at Minnesota farm paid illegal fees, kept silent by threats

A family-owned vegetable farm in Foley, Minn., is at the center of an alleged conspiracy to bring in workers with false papers from the Dominican Republic, force them to pay illegal fees and threaten them to keep them quiet.

The workers lived in a dormitory on the nearly 500-acre farm, cultivating sweet corn, berries and a wide range of vegetables about 20 miles northeast of St. Cloud. But they told federal authorities that the penalty for complaining about their pay was getting sent back to their homes near Puerto Plata on the Dominican Republic’s northern coast.

http://www.startribune.com/guest-workers-at-minnesota-farm-paid-illegal-fees-kept-silent-by-threats/327584571/