Lawsuit Claims Auto Parts Maker Sewon, Recruiter ‘Lured’ Skilled Mexican Engineers to Georgia as Cheap Labor

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A proposed class action lawsuit accuses auto parts supplier Sewon America and recruitment agency Total Employee Solution Support (TESS) of luring and exploiting highly skilled Mexican engineers and technicians to a LaGrange, Georgia, Sewon manufacturing plant as part of an illegal “bait and switch” scheme to secure cheap labor.

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The 73-page lawsuit claims the companies have defrauded hundreds of foreign professionals and the United States government by conspiring to recruit Mexican engineers to work at the Sewon facility under the Trade NAFTA (TN) visa program, a nonimmigrant classification that permits Mexican and Canadian professionals in certain skilled occupations to work in the U.S. for up to three years.

As the suit tells it, because Sewon and TESS knew that TN visas “would not and could not be granted for the manual labor positions that Sewon wanted filled,” the companies “hatched a scheme” to recruit highly skilled Mexican technicians under false pretenses for fictitious professional-level jobs that would qualify for the TN visa program.

The case alleges that as part of the scheme, the defendants provided to the engineers fraudulent documents that misrepresented the job duties and pay so that a position met the visa program’s requirements, and induced the foreign workers to accept the employment offer. The companies then assisted the technicians with securing TN visas by submitting the false documents to the U.S. government, the complaint alleges.

The plaintiffs—two professional engineers from Mexico—claim they and other victims of the alleged scheme, after being promised high-level technical jobs that would utilize their specialized training, were “lured” to the U.S. to perform manual labor under discriminatory and hazardous working conditions.

One plaintiff, a skilled technician with nearly 20 years of experience, applied in February 2021 to one of the fraudulent job postings TESS advertised in Mexico, the filing says. During the months-long recruitment and TN visa application process, TESS and Sewon coached the man on how to represent his background, qualifications and intentions to the U.S. government to acquire a visa, the lawsuit claims.

The plaintiff began work at the Sewon manufacturing plant in August 2021, after spending a substantial amount of money to obtain a visa, travel to the U.S. consulate for interviews and move from Mexico to the U.S., the suit shares.

According to the case, when the man began working at the facility, he “immediately learned that the job he had been promised did not exist.” The complaint says that the plaintiff was put to work as a “picker” on an assembly line, a repetitive job that required no specialized training or knowledge and was a far cry from the skilled technical work he had been led to expect.

The man asserts that at no time during his employment at the Sewon plant did he ever perform technical engineering work as represented to him by the defendants—work which was “key in qualifying him for the TN visa program.”

In addition, the plaintiff claims that while employed by Sewon, he was subjected to unsafe working conditions, dangerous temperatures and hazardous materials. The man also says he and other employees were routinely required to extend their 12-hour shifts by as many as five hours per day without being paid proper overtime wages, in violation of federal law.

As the filing tells it, the plaintiff faced discriminatory pay practices while working at the Sewon plant. The lawsuit alleges that the man’s salary began at $10.70 per hour, while American employees’ salaries started at $14 per hour.

Per the suit, the plaintiff complained to his managing director that he was being discriminated against and was subsequently fired in August 2023, apparently for “insubordination after his complaints to management.”

“[The plaintiff] personally observed about 200 other Mexican engineers working under the TN visa program that were required to perform manual labor, rather than work that would actually qualify them for the TN visa program,” the case charges. “[The plaintiff] and other similarly situated workers suffered pecuniary losses, including low wages and lost employment opportunities, as a consequence of [Sewon’s and TESS’s] fraud.”

Because government supervision of TN visa holders’ working conditions is marginal, the complaint relays, reports of misrepresentations in employment contracts and other “abuses” of workers under the visa program are not unusual.

The lawsuit looks to represent anyone who, since March 15, 2019, was recruited by TESS or Sewon; employed at the Sewon plant in LaGrange, Georgia; received wages from Sewon and was a TN visa holder, including those who are Mexican and non-white Hispanic or Latino.

The suit also seeks to cover those who worked at the Sewon plant within the past three years and were paid a regular rate that did not include the fair value of housing and transportation assistance provided, not reimbursed in full for inbound or outbound visa and travel costs or other deductions, or otherwise deprived of minimum or overtime wages.

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