Coalition of Immokalee Workers

A barbed wire fence surrounds the forced labor camp in Pahokee, FL, where two workers escaped hidden in the trunk of a car, their escape ultimately leading to the recent forced labor prosecution, US v Moreno. After escaping, the workers reported their experience to the Coalition of Immokalee Workers. The CIW took the case to federal authorities and assisted in the investigation of the successful prosecution. Kroger was found to be linked to the forced labor ring as a buyer of watermelons harvested by workers entrapped by the criminal conspiracy. US Attorney Gregory W. Kehoe for the Middle District of Florida: “The victims in this case were deceived by conspirators and subjected to deplorable conditions while being exploited for greed and profit.” Special Agent in Charge Brett Skiles of the FBI Miami Field Office: “Villatoro Moreno and his co-conspirators lured victims from Mexico with false promises of fair wages and good working conditions. It was all a lie… In addition to harsh and extreme working conditions, the workers were subjected to poor living conditions, charged excessive expenses, and endured humiliating treatment and threats.” US Department of Justice Press Release: “The Palm Beach County Human Trafficking Task Force, which includes the FBI, HSI, and the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office investigated the case. The Task Force received assistance from the Department of Labor Office of the Inspector General, the Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division, the U.S. Department of State’s Diplomatic Security Service, (and) the Coalition of Immokalee Workers…”

Since its inception in 2010, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers’ Fair Food Program has brought life-saving human rights guarantees to hundreds of thousands of farmworkers and helped transform the practice of farm labor management on farms from Florida to California. Indeed, the FFP has ushered in nothing short of a human rights revolution in the fields for nearly two decades now, eliminating longstanding abuses in our country’s trillion-dollar food industry ranging from systemic wage theft and deadly working conditions to sexual assault modern-day slavery. 

Along the way, many of the world’s largest retail food brands have joined the Fair Food Program — including household names like McDonald’s, Walmart, and Whole Foods — recognizing the program’s unique power not just to remedy abuses after they have happened, but actually to prevent human rights violations altogether, and so to prevent the full-blown public relations crises that can occur when egregious abuses are connected to popular consumer brands through their supply chains. Here at the FFP, we call that invaluable risk mitigation capacity of the program the “Power of Prevention”, and we are proud not only of the FFP’s immense impact on farmworkers’ lives over the past 16 years, but of its impact on our participating buyers’ and participating growers’ business practices and supply chain management, as well. 

It’s really quite simple: Sometimes the best headline is the headline that never happens, especially when that headline is a US Department of Justice press release connecting yet another brutal forced labor prosecution to your company’s supply chain. And yet…

All too many retail food brands — among them many well-known companies like Publix, Kroger, and Wendy’s — still refuse to join the FFP. Instead, they continue to cling to the long-discredited “Corporate Social Responsibility” playbook, claiming — against ample and painful evidence — that their supplier codes of conduct and occasional social audits are effective and sufficient to address any labor abuses in their suppliers’ operations. As a result, there are still far, far more farmworkers who toil beyond the reach of the Fair Food Program’s powerful protections than there are who harvest our food in the FFP’s environment of dignity and respect.

And that’s why the CIW continues to uncover and help prosecute modern-day slavery cases on non-FFP farms, including the recent case US v. Moreno, which came to light after two workers hid in the trunk of a car driven by a Good Samaritan who helped the workers escape the control of their crewleader and call the CIW to report the rampant abuse and threats they had experienced at the camp. That slavery case cast a national spotlight on the growing issue of forced labor in agriculture, and inspired the CIW’s 5-day, 50-mile march from Pahokee, FL to Palm Beach — home of Wendy’s former board chairman Nelson Peltz. When announcing that the defendant in the case had been sentenced to nearly a decade in prison, the US Department of Labor also disclosed that Kroger, a long-time Fair Food Program holdout, had been buying watermelons from the forced labor operation. 

Today, we want to share an update on that case and, in that context, take a moment to reflect on the FFP’s unique “Power of Prevention”. 

Here below is the latest update from the US Department of Justice on US v. Moreno — including the announcement that Alexander Villatoro Moreno, who was a critical player in the forced labor ring, was extradited from Mexico, pleaded guilty to conspiracy, and just received a 70-month prison sentence:

Mexican National Pleads Guilty to Racketeering Conspiracy Involving the Forced Labor of Mexican Workers

Alexander Villatoro Moreno, age 53, also known as Quichi, pleaded guilty in federal court in Tampa, Florida, to conspiracy under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act. A federal grand jury in the Middle District of Florida had previously returned a six-count indictment against multiple defendants for their roles in the conspiracy, which victimized Mexican H-2A workers who, between 2015 and 2017, had worked in the United States harvesting fruits, vegetables and other agricultural products.

According to court documents, Villatoro Moreno and his co-defendants operated and managed Los Villatoros Harvesting (LVH), a farm labor contracting company, that functioned as a criminal enterprise compelling victims to work in Florida, Kentucky, Indiana, Georgia and North Carolina. Villatoro Moreno and his co-defendants fraudulently recruited Mexican nationals to come into the United States on short-term, H-2A, agricultural visas and misled the United States to secure visas for the victims. Villatoro Moreno and his co-defendants charged workers exorbitant recruitment fees to work for LVH and lied to the victims about how much they would be paid, the hours they would work, the working conditions and the reimbursement they would receive for paying recruitment fees and other expenses. The workers were then compelled to provide long hours of physically demanding agricultural labor, six to seven days a week, for far less pay than they were entitled to under the law.

In addition to the work conditions, Villatoro Moreno and his co-defendants used various coercive means to compel the victims’ labor, including imposing debts on workers; confiscating the workers’ passports; subjecting workers to crowded, unsanitary and degrading living conditions; verbally abusing and humiliating the workers; threatening workers with arrest, jail time and deportation; isolating workers by preventing them from interacting with anyone other than LVH employees; and threatening to physically harm the workers’ family members back in Mexico if the workers failed to comply with their demands.

When officials began investigating, Villatoro Moreno obstructed the federal investigation by helping to prepare false payroll information to conceal underpayments to the workers and distributing fake reimbursement receipts to the victims to make it appear that LVH was complying with the law by reimbursing the workers for their travel-related expenses.

In the course of the investigation, one worker told prosecutors: “All this time, I could not return to Mexico for fear that something would happen to me. That the Villatoros had paid someone to kill me.”   In the press release announcing Villatoro Moreno’s sentencing, representatives from the Department of Justice had this to say:  “The victims in this case were deceived by conspirators and subjected to deplorable conditions while being exploited for greed and profit,” said US Attorney Gregory W. Kehoe for the Middle District of Florida. “Today’s judgment sends a clear message that we will leverage the resources of our law enforcement partners to uphold our nation’s immigration laws and vigorously prosecute those who engage in human trafficking.”   “Villatoro Moreno and his co-conspirators lured victims from Mexico with false promises of fair wages and good working conditions. It was all a lie,” said Special Agent in Charge Brett Skiles of the FBI Miami Field Office. “In addition to harsh and extreme working conditions, the workers were subjected to poor living conditions, charged excessive expenses, and endured humiliating treatment and threats. Not only is this wrong, but it is also against the law. Investigating this case was a team effort. I commend the Palm Beach County Human Trafficking Task Force, the Department of Labor, the Diplomatic Security Service, and numerous workers’ rights groups for their close cooperation.”   “Today’s sentence sends a clear message that those who exploit vulnerable workers and engage in forced labor will face serious consequences,” said Acting Special Agent in Charge Jose R. Figueroa of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Miami Field Office. “We are committed to protecting workers, safeguarding the integrity of the H‑2A program, and relentlessly pursuing those who manipulate the immigration system. HSI will continue to leverage partnerships across the government, with private industry, and around the world to combat forced labor and disrupt crimes of victimization…”  Read more of the DOJ press release here    The Power of Prevention

While successful slavery prosecutions of individual farm bosses provide a measure of justice for victims, they are a limited and ultimately insufficient tool if the goal is to end forced labor altogether.

First, prosecutions are inherently backward-looking. By the time a case reaches court, workers have already endured the abuses typical of forced labor operations — physical violence, psychological trauma, sexual abuse, and dangerous or even deadly working conditions. Even when justice is served, it is difficult, if not impossible, to fully repair the harm inflicted on those victims.

A Fair Food Standards Council auditor (left) interviews a worker on an FFP farm

Moreover, the legal framework used in forced labor prosecutions generally targets the employers closest to the workers: crewleaders and farm bosses directly involved in the abuse. Those higher up the supply chain — from farm owners to the retail brands purchasing the produce harvested by exploited workers — almost always emerge unscathed. Though they may have known, or should have known, about the abuse, and though they often benefit indirectly through lower labor costs and lower prices, they rarely face consequences when a crewleader is convicted of forced labor.

Early on in the CIW’s three-decade fight against human trafficking, it became clear that prosecutions alone would never end forced labor. If the movement’s broader goals — ending modern-day slavery in the fields and creating a world without victims — were ever to be achieved, something more was needed. The solution lay in addressing the underlying economics that had made slavery and other widespread farm labor abuses possible for generations.

The incentives were clear. For decades, major food retailers used their enormous purchasing power to push prices lower and lower throughout their supply chains. As farm-gate prices fell, growers struggled to survive on increasingly thin margins, often by suppressing wages and minimizing labor costs. Combined with weak and infrequent enforcement of labor laws, this created a system in which those who violated workers’ rights were effectively rewarded — whether through wage theft, sexual harassment, or forced labor — and rarely punished for their crimes.

As Warren Buffett’s longtime investor partner Charlie Munger famously said, “Show me the incentives, and I’ll show you the outcomes.” That principle applies as much to farm labor management systems as it does to financial markets. When economic pressures encourage abuse and legal protections are weakly enforced, exploitation flourishes. But the reverse is also true. When protecting workers is rewarded, and violations carry meaningful consequences, outcomes change. Abuses decline, accountability increases, and the possibility of a world without victims comes into view.

That is not merely a theory.

Since the launch of the Fair Food Program in 2010, incentives on participating farms have been fundamentally transformed. By leveraging the purchasing power of participating buyers, the FFP rewards growers who comply with its labor standards through continued business and preferential purchasing, while growers who violate workers’ rights risk losing access to major markets.

Just as importantly, the program protects workers who report violations. Retaliation itself is a serious violation that can jeopardize a grower’s relationships with some of the largest food buyers in the world. The result is a powerful system of worker-driven monitoring that ensures abuses are identified quickly and violators face real consequences. As a result, forced labor, sexual violence, and other severe human rights abuses have been effectively eliminated on participating farms for nearly two decades.

That is the “Power of Prevention” in action.

Central to the program’s success are the CIW’s legally binding agreements with participating buyers, who commit to preferentially purchasing from suppliers that comply with the FFP’s labor standards and suspending purchases from those who don’t. These market incentives helped transform Florida’s tomato industry from what federal prosecutors once called “ground zero for modern-day slavery” into what one human rights expert described on the front page of The New York Times as “the best workplace environment in U.S. agriculture.” No comparable system exists elsewhere in American agriculture.

Had the Fair Food Program been operating on the melon farms involved in the U.S. v. Moreno case, its protections and enforcement mechanisms would have dispelled the climate of fear among workers and detected even minor abuses before they escalated into forced labor. Yet buyers of those melons, including Kroger, continue to reject participation in the program. Instead, they rely on a failed model of voluntary standards and social audits that has repeatedly proven incapable of protecting workers or preventing abuse.

That is why nationwide expansion of the Fair Food Program is so urgently needed.

As Fair Food allies, you play an indispensable role in expanding the market power behind the program. By making your voices heard in executive offices and corporate boardrooms, you help pressure companies to take responsibility for labor conditions in their supply chains.  Farmworkers need your continued support to ensure that companies such as Kroger, Publix, and Wendy’s embrace genuine, worker-driven social responsibility and join the Fair Food Program.

Stay tuned for an upcoming digital action where you can help call on more corporate buyers — including Kroger, Publix, and Wendy’s — to join the Fair Food Program.

Business and Human Rights Resource Centre: “The Centre invited the companies to respond to allegations of abuse at a reported supplier, to disclose what due diligence it has undertaken regarding the supplier, and any steps it has already, or plans to take, to investigate and remedy abuse of migrant workers in its supply chain. Neither Kroger nor Publix provided a response.”

Just a few weeks ago, we revealed that two holdouts from the Presidential Medal-winning Fair Food Program — Kroger and Publix — have both sourced from a farming operation currently being sued by farmworkers for forced labor.

Farmworker plaintiffs in the lawsuit allege a shocking pattern of human rights abuses, including wage theft, threats, confiscation of passports, predatory recruitment fees, and the denial of basic necessities such as bathrooms, clean drinking water, and appropriate care when workers suffered debilitating heat stress. The North Carolina-based farm where they say these abuses occurred, Jackson Farming Company, also has a long, publicly-documented history of lawsuits alleging similarly abusive conditions.

We asked both companies a simple question: How many more farmworkers in their supply chains must endure extreme exploitation before Kroger and Publix join the Fair Food Program — the only human rights program with a proven record of preventing these abuses?

The widely respected, London-based Business and Human Rights Resource Centre (BHRRC) brought these allegations directly to both corporations, requesting a response. Faced with yet another example of preventable human rights abuse in agriculture, the only responsible course of action should have been clear: commit to joining the Fair Food Program and work alongside industry leaders to ensure these abuses never happen again.

Instead, the BHRRC was met with deafening silence from both Kroger and Publix. However, Kroger’s subsidiary, Harris Teeter,  has now removed most mentions of Jackson Farming Company from its website.

Silence in the face of injustice is egregious enough. But silence when presented with a practical, proven solution is nothing short of unconscionable. That silence — the refusal to accept responsibility despite the existence of an effective remedy — is what allows exploitation to continue unabated in the fields beyond the protections of the Fair Food Program. As long as Kroger and Publix continue to turn away from this solution, workers in their supply chains remain vulnerable to abuse that is entirely preventable.

Every season Kroger and Publix delay is another season in which farmworkers remain exposed to dangerous, exploitative conditions that the Fair Food Program was specifically designed to prevent, and has been successfully preventing on farms across the country. Kroger and Publix have no excuse to remain on the sidelines.

In the coming days, we will share a digital action toolkit with easy ways for you to demand that Kroger and Publix do the right thing for the farmworkers whose labor drives their profits. Until then, help us spread the word: Share this newsletter with anyone who believes in human rights, farmworker justice, and corporate accountability so they can join the growing call for Kroger and Publix to finally join the Fair Food Program when we share the action toolkit.

Below, you can find the BHRRC’s full report on the forced labor allegations, including additional details on Kroger and Publix’s inexcusable silence in the face of preventable abuse.

USA: Supermarkets Kroger & Publix fail to respond to allegations of worker abuse in lawsuit against supplier Jackson Farming Company

In May 2026, the Centre invited US-headquartered retailers Kroger and Publix to respond to allegations of “extreme abuse” at a reported supplier, Jackson Farming Company.

A lawsuit filed against Jackson Farming Company alleges a series of labour violations, including wage theft, intimidation and threats, confiscation of passports, recruitment fee-charging, poor and inadequate living conditions – including a lack of bathrooms and potable water – and a lack of medical care in response to suspected heat stress.

Coalition of Immokalee Workers have linked Kroger and Publix to the supplier through a 2020 North Carolina Department of Agriculture post which profiles the supplier and states its produce is sold in Harris Tweeter (Kroger’s regional subsidiary) and Publix. CIW alleges “Because the civil suit’s time span includes those farmworkers with Jackson Farming Company during the 2020 harvest season up until 2025, there is a risk that crops harvested under conditions of extreme abuse have, for at least half a decade, been bought by both Kroger and Publix, and sold to unsuspecting customers”.

The Centre invited the companies to respond to allegations of abuse at a reported supplier, to disclose what due diligence it has undertaken regarding the supplier, and any steps it has already, or plans to take, to investigate and remedy abuse of migrant workers in its supply chain. Neither Kroger nor Publix provided a response.