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But still few protections in place

US: Many legal Mexican workers coming to South Carolina

Tens of thousands of foreign workers are flooding into South Carolina and other states through a government-sponsored program to take jobs Americans don’t want. And this is going on even as the Trump administration clamps down on illegal immigration.

These seasonal migrant workers mostly come from Mexico, and they’ve become an essential lynchpin in the agricultural network that moves fresh produce from the nation’s fields to its supermarkets and dinner tables.

Use of this “guest worker” program has risen steadily since the mid-1960s. But its growth has surged exponentially in recent years as the nation’s low unemployment rate and a massive crackdown on undocumented workers has made it difficult for farmers to find laborers to help harvest their crops.

Nearly a quarter-million foreign workers poured into the country to fill these jobs last year through the U.S. Labor Department’s H-2A visa program — almost triple the number recorded just five years earlier.

Roughly 5,200 of those workers have ended up in South Carolina so far this year, placing it among the 10 states that most heavily depend on the program. Use of H-2A workers here jumped 30 percent in the past year. Farmers say they have no other choice, with most Americans simply unwilling to do this gruelling work for the state’s prevailing wage of $10.95 an hour — among the nation’s lowest.

But according to postandcourier.com, protections in place to safeguard these workers, however, have not kept pace with the program’s explosive growth, leaving foreign laborers vulnerable to abuse, mistreatment and exploitation, legal experts said.

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