Federal courts weighing key aspects of H-2A program, expert says

Key aspects of the H-2A agricultural guestworker program are subject to federal court battles that will shape its regulations and how they’re enforced, according to a legal expert. For instance, the U.S. Supreme Court is expected to decide whether farmers are entitled to a federal jury trial over civil penalties for alleged H-2A violations, said Leon Sequeira, an attorney and former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Labor. The eventual ruling could be “earth-shattering,” as it has the potential to “upend” the U.S. Department of Labor’s current practice of imposing fines through an in-house administrative process, which is totally controlled by the agency’s own employees, Sequeira said. “This is a huge, huge case for the H-2A program. It probably will be the most impactful case in the history of the program, at least on the enforcement side,” he said during the Worker and Farmer Labor Association’s Nov. 12 conference in Salem, Ore.

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