LX Hausys, Staffing Agencies Facing Lawsuit Over Alleged Trade NAFTA Visa Exploitation Scheme

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LX Hausys America, Inc. has been hit with a proposed class action lawsuit that alleges the building and decorative materials supplier and two recruitment agencies have lured hundreds of skilled Mexican professionals under false pretenses to a Calhoun, Georgia facility, where the workers faced “excessive mandatory work hours” and discriminatory pay.

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The 77-page lawsuit claims that as part of an illegal scheme to exploit foreign workers for cheap labor, LX Hausys—together with co-defendants CL Global and Total Employee Solution Support (TESS)—recruited Mexican engineers and technicians under the Trade NAFTA (TN) visa program. This nonimmigrant classification is firmly regulated and available only to professional-level Mexican and Canadian workers in specialized fields, the suit explains.

Because the companies understood that the United States government would not grant TN visas for the unskilled, manual labor positions they wanted to fill at the LX Hausys facility, the defendants engaged in a “bait and switch” scheme whereby they hired Mexican professionals for “jobs that did not exist” but would qualify for the TN visa program, the case alleges.

To help foreign workers obtain TN visas, the companies supplied new hires—and through them, the U.S. government—with false documents that misrepresented their job description and pay so that a position satisfied the program’s requirements, the complaint contends.

As such, the filing charges that the defendants have defrauded the federal government and countless Mexican engineers, who relied on the alleged misrepresentations, paid out of pocket for visa application fees and travel costs, and relocated to the U.S. for jobs they were led to believe would utilize their technical training and experience.

One of the two plaintiffs, a highly skilled industrial engineer, applied in 2022 for an engineering job opening posted by TESS, the lawsuit says. The companies, after hiring the man, then assisted him with successfully securing a TN visa by conducting a practice interview with him and providing him with a “study guide” and suggested answers to questions he might be asked during his appointment at the U.S. consulate, the suit claims.

Per the case, once the plaintiff’s TN visa application was granted, he moved to Georgia to begin work at the LX Hausys facility.

The man says he discovered right away that the position he had been promised was nonexistent. According to the plaintiff, he was required by his employers to work on a production line making kitchen countertops—“strenuous, physically demanding” labor that in no way utilized the specialized skills for which he thought he’d been hired.

As the complaint tells it, workers like the plaintiff were not properly compensated for overtime hours and earned discriminatory pay in comparison with employees who were U.S. or Korean citizens, non-Hispanic or non-Mexican nationals. While American or non-Mexican workers earned $18 per hour, the plaintiff was paid roughly $14 per hour for an equivalent position, the filing alleges. In addition, non-Mexican employees were not required to work overtime or night shifts and had more flexibility with respect to scheduling, the lawsuit contends.

The plaintiff says he “reached his breaking point” and quit his job in April 2022, deciding that he “would rather bear the costs and risks of leaving than continue working excessive mandatory overtime, in poor working conditions at a manual labor position that was contrary to what he had been promised.”

The man claims that at the time of his employment, up to 70 other employees were working under the TN visa program at the LX Hausys facility, none of whom were employed as engineers or technicians. Per the suit, the other plaintiff had a similar experience and says he does not plan on working in the United States again as a result.

The lawsuit looks to represent anyone who, since March 25, 2018, was recruited by TESS, employed at the LX Hausys plant, received wages from CL Global and was a TN visa holder.

The suit also seeks to cover workers who, since March 25, 2020, were recruited by TESS, employed at the LX Hausys plant, received wages from CL Global and are non-white Hispanic or Latino, non-U.S. citizens and of Mexican national origin.

The case additionally aims to represent any current or former TN visa employees who worked at LX Hausys within the past three years and elect to opt into this action under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act.

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