Perez's story is one of many documented in Taken for a Ride: Migrant Workers in the U.S. Fair and Carnival Industry, a report published by Centro de los Derechos del Migrante Inc. (CDM) and American University Washington College of Law (WCL). Fair and carnival employers bring about 5,000 migrant workers to the United States. Many workers experience similar, if not worse, treatment and working conditions. The report uncovers widespread abuses in the H-2B visa program in the fair and carnival industry, including the following:

The first edition of “We Stand in Solidarity with Migrant Workers” appeared on the AFL-CIO Now blog in 2010.  

Dec. 18 is International Day of Solidarity with Migrants and marks the date the United Nations adopted the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families.

To commemorate this day, we have compiled personal stories of the immigrant experience at the AFL-CIO. As you’ll see, our colleagues’ collective experiences are a tapestry of the immigrant experience. Our co-workers have come to the United States from around the world for a variety of reasons—to escape war and repression, to work, to feed their families back home, to study and to marry.

This is an excerpt of the AFL-CIO Solidarity Center's Human Trafficking Thrives Under Worker Exploitation. 

Human trafficking thrives in an environment of worker exploitation and engenders forced labor, debt bondage and other egregious labor abuse. The most effective way to address this scourge, says Neha Misra, Solidarity Center senior specialist on migration and human trafficking, is by empowering workers to have a voice in their workplace and supporting their right to organize and join unions.  

Migrant workers face tremendous pressure and exploitation in dynamic and wealthy South Korea, reports the AFL-CIO Solidarity Center’s Timothy Ryan.

In one of the richest and the most Internet-wired countries in the world, you might assume that workers’ and migrants’ rights are respected. You’d be wrong.