Firm accused of illegally recruiting 500 Mexican workers to Eastern WA

Three Tri-Cities area residents and a Yakima resident are accused in a fraud, identity theft and forced labor case involving the nation’s H-2A foreign worker program that brings temporary agriculture workers to the United States.

They have been indicted by a federal grand jury on a combined 51 criminal counts after allegedly bringing about 500 laborers from Mexico on fraudulent temporary work visas.

They variously forged documents, required improper payments from workers and not only lied to workers, customers and regulators, but intimidated workers to also lie, according to accusations in federal court document.

“The importance of this case cannot be understated,” said Pete Serrano, first assistant U.S. attorney for Eastern Washington. “... The United States Attorney’s office will protect these vulnerable victims and the integrity of a vital federal programs, including the H-2A program which is critical to Eastern Washington’s agricultural successes.”

Francisco Rodriguez Martel and his wife, Esmeralda Rodriguez, and Erica Cisneros, all from the Tri-Cities area, and Giovanna Sierra Carrillo of Yakima have been charged in the case.

Rodriguez Martel owned and managed Harvest Plus in Kennewick, a business that was approved to supply H-2A workers to farms in Washington in 2022 and 2023 and in Oregon in 2023 and 2024.

The other three defendants acted as agents or employees of the business.

In 2022, Harvest Plus received approval to bring workers to the United States to work at farms, orchards and a ranch in Goldendale, Pasco, Wapato, Prescott and Sunnyside, with housing provided at motels in Pasco, Yakima and Hermiston, Ore., according to court documents. The next year it applied to bring workers to farms and vineyards in Yakima and Walla Walla.

To bring in H-2A workers, employers or contractors, such as Harvest Plus, must be approved by the U.S. government to employ workers at specific agricultural businesses on specific dates with a description of the crops they will work with and their planned work activities.

However, some agricultural businesses had no H-2A workers or contracted for far fewer workers than Harvest Plus told federal officials, according to federal court documents.

Orchard requested no workers

For example, Arthur J. Den Hoed of Sunnyside did not receive any H-2A worker, did not need any and was not aware an application had been submitted by Harvest Plus for Den Hoed orchards, according to a court documents.

Den Hoed’s signature was forged on a work agreement attached to an application to the H-2A program and workers were coached to falsely say they would be working at the Sunnyside farm, according to a court document.

Harvest Plus used the workers covered by 125 temporary visas for H-2A workers at the Sunnyside orchard business to assign the workers to various employers, some of them in nonagricultural businesses, according to a court document.

The business paid the worker less than the $17.41 an hour approved in the contract and charged them for food and housing, which the H2-A program does not allow, according to court document.

Some were assigned to work at Aquilini Vinyards (as spelled in a court document) where they not only did not receive the agreed upon wage, but were not paid for overtime and were forced to work in extreme heat, sometimes without clean drinking water, according to a court document.

They were exposed to pesticides and were not given gloves or other safety equipment, as required by the H-2A program, according to court documents. They were not provided access to medical care and not paid for days they missed for work-related illness or injury.

They were working in Benton County, but not housed in a Yakima motel, as was approved in the H2-A application. Instead, they were housed in Hermiston, Ore., with many workers to a room and no access to a kitchen to prepare food as required by the immigration program, according to the prosecution.

The workers were forced to pay about $200 a week for food and housing. Rodriguez Martel told workers if they did not pay, he would collect the money, including from their families in Mexico, according to a court document.

Workers also were required to pay for their own H-2A visas and transportation in and out of the United States, according to a court document.

Workers not returned to Mexico

Harvest Plus was required to take workers back to Mexico when their contracts had expired.

Instead, Rodriguez Martel told them to stay in the United States illegally, using false names and documents, and continued to employ them through Harvest Plus, according to a court document.

Defendants coached the workers to provide false information to federal and state regulators, including how much they were being paid, and not to discuss the housing and food fees, according to a court document.

Rodriguez Martel and his wife threatened to report workers to immigration authorities or threatened their safety to make sure they did not alert Washington officials about illegal employment practices of Harvest Plus, state prosecutors allege.

“When bad actors exploit vulnerable workers or attempt to game the system, we investigate, we expose and we hold them accountable,” said Anthony P D’Esposito, U.S. Department of Labor inspector general. “At the same time, we safeguard the U.S. employers who follow the law and play by the rules.”

This case is being prosecuted by Courtney Pratten, Jeremy Kelley and Tyler Tornabene, assistant U.S. attorneys in the Eastern Washington district. The case was investigated by the Department of Labor Office of Inspector General and the Department of State Diplomatic Security Service.

2nd Eastern WA H-2A case

The same agencies also investigated two Yakima defendants recently indicted by a federal grand jury for allegedly illegally transporting about 100 temporary foreign agricultural workers over the border of the United States and engaging in both forced labor practices and also victim tampering.

Arrest warrants have been issued for Cesar Jamie Rebolledo Diaz and Socorro Ramos.

They are accused of recruiting H-2A laborers from Mexico for temporary jobs at a Wapato farm, where they falsely claimed to work.

When workers arrived in Washington on overcrowded school buses with no air conditioning or water, some had no job available or worked for no pay, according to a court document. They were not consistently provided food and adequate housing, according to a court document.

The court document says that when Washington state authorities began to investigate how the workers were being treated, Rebolledo Diaz and Ramos told them to remain silent and to report on foreign laborers who were interacting with state investigators.

This story was originally published February 23, 2026 at 6:51 PM with the headline "Firm accused of illegally recruiting 500 Mexican workers to Eastern WA."