EDINBURG — Isidro Aguilera-Zuniga traveled hundreds of miles from Central Mexico on the promise of a good job packing vegetables for $8.75 an hour. Instead, he was saddled with physically demanding work for lower wages.

Rosa Luna grew up on the promise of bountiful employment for hard-working U.S. citizens, but found agricultural companies doing anything they could to drive her away.

For years, Mexican migrant laborers like Aguilera-Zuniga and U.S. agricultural workers such as Luna have sparred for jobs, competed for wages and attacked each other from opposing sides of the labor market.

For now, though, the two have found something to agree upon.

They are fed up with employers playing them off each other and reaping financial rewards.

Aguilera-Zuniga, Luna and 18 other farm workers from Weslaco and Eagle Pass filed suit last week against a group of farming and shipping companies who they say manipulated federal visa programs to illegally import hundreds of foreign workers and deny jobs to willing American laborers.

They claim that companies owned by and associated with Edinburg farming firm Nowell Borders, L.P. actively discouraged applications from U.S. citizens for work at several farming, packing and shipping sites, while recruiting Mexican laborers with empty promises of high pay and generous amenities.

The suit also names U.S. Labor Secretary Elaine Chao, whose department they accuse of enabling similar practices with an ever-relaxing set of visa requirements.

“These companies purposefully manipulated events so that they could hire cheap foreign labor,” said Jonathan Wedemeyer, of the Del Rio-based Texas RioGrande Legal Aid, which is handling the lawsuit for the laborers.

“They violated the rights of U.S. workers so that they could take advantage of the foreign workers.”

Attorneys for Nowell Borders, L.P. did not return repeated calls for interviews.

Representatives for neither of the companies named in the suit could be reached for comment.

WAREHOUSES VS. WATERMELON PATCHES

The plaintiffs accuse Nowell Borders, L.P. and its associate companies of hiring foreign workers with visas designed for employees at resorts, shipping yards and similar job sites with seasonal traffic.

These work permits, known as H-2B visas, have less stringent requirements for worker pay, injury insurance and housing and food allowances, than those specifically designed for agricultural workers.

Once the laborers arrived, their suit alleges, the companies changed the job descriptions often stranding foreigners with strenuous work in less than ideal conditions.

Aguilera-Zuniga, the Mexican farm worker, learned first hand that the differences between visas are more than bureaucratic red tape.

After leaving his home in Juventino Rosas, Gto., in 2004 for an $8.75 an hour job in a packing warehouse, he arrived at the border only to be told there was no work available. Instead, he was offered a job planting watermelons at a more than $3 hourly pay cut.

He was promised housing, but spent his time working for Borders companies sharing a trailer without air conditioning with seven other workers.

“This is something we’ve seen in other parts of the country,” said Javier Riojas, branch manager for Rio Grande LegalAid’s Eagle Pass office. “They’ve deviated from the visa programs, and the protections for the workers just aren’t there.”

U.S. WORKERS WANT JOBS

Farm owners claim, however, that gaming the visa system is one of the few options open to them in this volatile political climate.

The Department of Labor has even effectively looked the other way by continuing to grant inappropriate visa requests, Riojas said.

Congress’ failure to pass an expanded guest worker program earlier this year has left them stuck between hiring cheap illegal labor, relying on an anemic force of U.S. farm workers or navigating a cumbersome visa process that rarely fits into strict planting and harvesting schedules.

“The (Bush) administration is promoting a guest worker program,” Riojas said. “But there’s got to be a balance for willing U.S. workers and foreign workers.”

Eustaquio Lopez, 50, of Weslaco, says there are plenty of low-income U.S. citizens in South Texas willing to work under reasonable conditions.

He and his wife responded to a job ad for a Borders contractor that appeared in The Monitor in October 2004. It promised crop packing work at an Edinburg warehouse for $8.75 an hour, the lawsuit states.

But when they called inquiring about the position, company representatives told them they would have to move to Quemado, about 35 miles southeast of Del Rio, to cut onions in a field for part of the work period. They would also be required to pay for their own rental housing.

At such a high wage, Lopez still considered the work a decent job. He contacted the company several times thereafter but his phone calls went unreturned, according to court documents.

Those hired with the companies reported less than ideal working conditions.

Rosa Luna, of Edinburg, took a job harvesting onions at a Borders farm in Quemado in May of this year. After a particularly rainy day, she asked her supervisor if she could wear sandals because her work shoes were soaked.

The supervisor said yes, prompting her co-workers to complain about the perceived favoritism, and the supervisor to turn around on her, cursing and screaming at her in front of the others, according to the lawsuit. Luna fled from the job site in tears, only to be told later that day that she could work at a nearby packing shed, also owned by Borders, if she agreed to follow orders no matter how she was treated.

The company later reported that it could only recruit 29 U.S. workers that year for 60 open positions and sought approval for 31 foreign worker visas.

After a series of similar incidents, the Texas Workforce Commission contacted the Department of Labor in March to ask why the companies’ requests for more visas were still being granted, the lawsuit states.

“The DOL is making TWC open up this job posting to U.S. workers that are really looking for a job,” the commission e-mail reads. “Then, the employer is doing everything to dissuade them from applying.”

So far, none of the defendants named in the lawsuit have responded in court to the claims.

A court hearing for the farm workers’ suit has not been scheduled.

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Jeremy Roebuck covers courts, law enforcement and general assignments for The Monitor. You can reach him at (956) 683-4437.