'Palm Beach Post' Exposes Slavery

By: Seth Porges They come from the south, mostly from Mexico, with fake names, fake social security numbers, and fake IDs. Working under the tropical sun, they are responsible for harvesting the oranges that have become synonymous with Florida. They are illegal immigrants forced to work long hours for minimal pay, bound to their masters, to the land, to their work. They are slaves, by any other name.

Based on a nine-month investigation, The Palm Beach Post ran a three-part series Dec. 7-9 examining the origins, causes, and effects of modern-day slavery in Florida. Parts of the 32-page series were picked up by other Cox-owned newspapers. The package was also presented online, including audio and photo galleries..

"The over-arching part of this whole thing is that we have to do something about what is indeed slavery," Post editor Edward M. Sears told E&P. "These people are bought and sold. That has got to stop. I hope we can make a dent in it, make a difference."

The series was sparked last November when investigative reporter Jane Daugherty saw that a federal judge in Martin County "sentenced three people who were labor contractors for enslaving human beings. I thought: 'This is incredible. Slavery in Florida?' So I proposed the project."

Daugherty stressed that slave is not too harsh a term in this case. "A slave can't leave. A slave is locked up or otherwise prevented physically from leaving," Daugherty said. "We found people who were locked in trailers at night. Sometimes as many as 16 people in a trailer intended for three. To me, that's slavery. It's not a fudgy definition for us. If people can walk away, they're not enslaved. And the young women who were locked up in brothels and had their lives threatened if they left, they were sex slaves."

The first part of the series, "Used and Abused," examined the daily plight of the illegal migrant worker. Ripe with profiles, this section attempted to attach names and faces to the statistics.

"Never before has the border-crossing been as dangerous as it is today," began part two in the series. Its centerpiece was a gripping firsthand story by Post reporter John Lantigua, who went along with a group of Mexican immigrants being smuggled across the border by a hired "coyote" or "snakehead." Lantigua described the unbearable conditions in covertly crossing the desert (which claimed at least 99 victims last year), including a harrowing encounter with a band of gun-wielding bandits.

"I gained an appreciation of how difficult the voyage is," Latigua told E&P, "and how desperate the situation in parts of Mexico has become. I lived in Oaxaca, Mexico for four years in the 1970s and people were not leaving in the numbers anywhere near the numbers they're leaving now. The situation has become much more difficult."

The series did not pretend to have answers to all the issues of illegal immigration and migrant labor in Florida and elsewhere, but did lay the blame for the rise of slavery at a number of feet: the American consumer who demands the cheapest possible food, exploitative labor contractors, and farm-owners and food producers that turn a blind eye to slavery. "They're sort of outsourcing the illegal activities," Daugherty said. "There needs to be corrective action at all these levels. This is why we did a relatively complicated project."

Several of those involved in the series said that they hope the articles will raise public awareness of how their food comes to them, and a better understanding of the unseen costs behind it. Said Post investigative reporter Christine Evans: "I think we successfully put a real human face on it."