An immigration raid in Santa Maria, California, has uncovered a criminal enterprise targeting migrant farmworkers who were illegally sold H2A visas. Agents arrested four people, including a U.S. citizen who served as a labor recruiter for area farms.
According to an ICE press release, Jorge Vasquez is suspected of charging would-be migrants in Mexico anywhere from $8000 to $17,000 for the visas.
Vasquez, who is currently being held at MDC Los Angeles, allegedly collaborated with others in Mexico to recruit workers there to apply for the visas, at least once demanding they pay a $1,000 deposit up front, with the remaining balance to be deducted from the worker’s farm wages.
Vasquez faces multiple counts, including Conspiracy to Defraud the United States, Mail and Visa Fraud, and Fraud in Foreign Labor Contracting.
H-2A visas are non-immigrant visas that allow foreign nationals to enter the country for a defined period, typically less than one year. They have long been used by agricultural employers to hire foreign workers.
Records show as many as 163 migrant workers were caught up in the scheme between September 2023 and November 2025.
Investigators say Vasquez used intimidation tactics, including threatening the families of workers who purchased the visas if they denounced him to authorities, and warning that he would report workers to immigration officials if they failed to pay the illegal fees or if their productivity declined.
Multiple attempts to reach some of the victims in Santa Maria were unsuccessful.
The investigation was a combined effort that included the Department of Labor’s Office of Inspector General, the Department of State’s Diplomatic Security Service, and the Homeland Security Task Force.
Vasquez was previously sentenced to 12 months in federal prison and ordered to pay $135,389 in restitution in 2020 for a similar scheme. In that case, as stated by the Department of Justice, USCIS records show that Vasquez and an accomplice, Melquiades Jacinto Lara, filed petitions for more than 350 farmworkers between 2012 and 2018.
Recruiters are often employed by farm owners to help with the H-2A application process, filing paperwork with the relevant agencies prior to securing the needed visas. Vasquez is believed to have worked with agricultural employers across the southwest of the country.
The H2A program, which comes out of the infamous Bracero program, has a checkered history with reports showing systematic violations, including wage theft and labor exploitation.
The Trump Administration has floated plans to streamline the program while also tightening some restrictions in response to complaints from agricultural employers who are feeling the strain of a labor shortage amid ongoing deportations.
Local news station KSBY reported that during the November 13 operation, a crowd of protesters gathered at the scene and was later dispersed with flash-bangs, creating confusion and fear among those present.
“It was really scary. They refused to talk to you, and they wouldn’t look you in the eyes,” one protester told reporters.
Latinos make up around 80% of the population in Santa Maria, located in Santa Barbara County. Many are employed in the agricultural sector.
ICE raids targeting the area earlier this year sparked widespread distress and anxiety in the community, leaving many wary of approaching authorities out of fear they may be detained.
Rutilio Vázquez (no relation to Vasquez) rents a living space on the same property in the East Valley Farms neighborhood where this latest raid occurred. According to a statement he later shared on Facebook, officers seized computers and other electronic devices from his home without explanation.
American Community Media reached out to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California to ask why the items were confiscated, given that Vázquez is not part of the investigation, and to clarify the reasons for the detention of the three other individuals arrested alongside Vasquez, all of whom are undocumented. The office declined to comment.
During Vasquez’s detention hearing on November 19, the judge ordered him held without bond. His court hearing is scheduled for December 4.
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