Immigrant smugglers sentenced

Date: Thursday, November 21, 2002 7:13 PM

H-1B and JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER

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Immigrant smugglers sentenced

By Kelly Wolfe, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Thursday, November 21, 2002

FORT PIERCE -- Three men convicted of forcing 700 illegal workers into slave
labor in Florida's citrus groves drew prison sentences totaling 34 years and
nine months Wednesday in addition to forfeiting $3 million in proceeds from
their immigrant smuggling operation.

The presiding federal judge also criticized the citrus industry, calling the
slavery convictions a sign of the larger problems in Florida's
second-largest industry.

"Others at a higher level of the fruit picking industry seem complicit in
one way or another with how these activities occur," U.S. District Judge K.
Michael Moore said while handing down the sentences. "I think there is a
broader interest out there the government should look into as well."

Relatives of three men convicted in June of forcing the 700 illegal workers
into slavery packed a small courtroom Wednesday, but not one victim was
there to watch them be sentenced. Prosecutor Adrianna Vieco told Moore the
victims couldn't afford to take a day off work.

In 2000 and 2001, hundreds of workers supplied by brothers Juan and Ramiro
Ramos and a cousin, Jose Ramos, picked fruit from dawn until sundown,
bringing home as little as $6 a day after making payments on a "smuggling
fee."

Wednesday, the three Ramos men waited -- as did their wives, children and
grandchildren -- to learn how long they would live behind bars.

Juan, 34, and Ramiro Ramos, 42, were ordered to spend the next 12 years and
three months in a federal prison, after being convicted of conspiring to
hold hundreds of citrus workers as slaves, threatening them with violence
and forcing them to work off a $1,000 smuggling fee. Jose Ramos, 45, was
ordered to spend 10 years and three months in prison for his part in the
conspiracy.

The two brothers also have to give up central Florida real estate, cars and
other personal property and more than $3 million in proceeds from the
illegal venture, according to the U.S. Justice Department. In June, a jury
determined the property was used in the conspiracy to hold migrant farm
workers in involuntary servitude and supply those laborers to citrus
growers.

Attorneys for the men said the sentence was severe and compared it to
punishing a corner drug dealer for the influx of drugs into this country.

"These people are now not only in prison, they are destitute," said Nelson
Rodriguez, Juan Ramos' attorney.

Fidelia Ramos, Jose Ramos' wife of 25 years, asked Moore for leniency,
saying he treated his workers "almost better than he treats me."

"This whole situation worries me a great deal," she told the judge. "I would
like to ask your honor if my husband could be released on probation because
in this manner he would help take care of me and my family."

But advocates said it was too late to ask for mercy. Mercy should have been
shown in the fields, they said.

Francisca Cortez, 20, a member of the Coalition for Immokalee Workers, an
advocacy organization that represents migrant farm workers in Florida, said,
"When we're exploited, we don't have any way to maintain our families
either."

The coalition contacted the FBI after hearing about abuses by the Ramoses at
farms in Lake Placid.

"We'd heard in the community that something was happening that wasn't
right," said Cortez, an agricultural worker.

After deductions for "debts," some workers were paid as little as $40 a week
for seven days' work, she said.

"They were scared, they felt threatened," she said. "They had them there as
if they were machines, working all the time."

During a four-week trial in June, witnesses testified that Ramiro and Juan
Ramos employed about 700 workers from January 2000 to June 2001, bringing
them here from Arizona in a trailer. Upon arrival they threatened the
workers with violence -- sometimes waving guns -- and told them could not
leave until they paid a $1,000 smuggling debt.

Attorneys said their clients were small parts of a larger machine.

"I hope the investigation doesn't stop here," Rodriguez said. "Grove owners
can't hide behind the façade of innocence. It's almost like they can't see
because they are closing their eyes."

kelly_wolfe@pbpost.com

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