Black Farmers File Lawsuit After Immigrants Took Their Jobs For Higher Pay

A group of black farmers in the Mississippi Delta filed a federal lawsuit alleging that immigrants were illegally paid at a higher rate to replace them at their jobs after the black farmers spent years training them.

Richard Strong and five other farm workers allege in a lawsuit that their bosses flew in white immigrants from South Africa to work under the guidance of the black American workers tending the fields in Mississippi, only to turn around and replace the black workers years later. Strong said the immigrant workers were being drawn to the United States on H-2A visas for wages of up to $11 per hour, more than the $7.25 per hour the black workers were making.

“I’ve been around farming all my life. It’s all we knew,” Strong told The New York Times. Strong, age 50, worked in the fields for more than 25 years. But now, Strong said he and his black colleagues were told their services are no longer needed due to the influx of immigrant labor from South Africa.