Hindu Sect Is Accused of Using Forced Labor to Build N.J. Temple
Source: New York Times
Federal law enforcement agents descended on a massive temple in New Jersey on Tuesday after workers accused a prominent Hindu sect of luring them from India, confining them to the temple grounds and paying them the equivalent of about $1 an hour to perform grueling labor in near servitude. In a lawsuit filed on Tuesday, lawyers for the laborers said Bochasanwasi Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha, a Hindu sect known as BAPS that has close ties to India’s ruling party and has built temples around the world, had exploited possibly hundreds of low-caste men in the yearslong construction project.
A spokeswoman for the F.B.I. confirmed agents were on the grounds of the temple in rural Robbinsville, N.J., but would not comment further. The action is believed to be connected to the claims of labor and immigration law violations, according to several people familiar with the matter. A spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security declined to comment. The workers, who lived in trailers hidden from view, had been promised jobs helping to build the temple with standard work hours and ample time off, according to the lawsuit, a wage claim filed in U.S. District Court in New Jersey. The majority are Dalit, the lowest rung in India’s caste system.
They were brought to the United States on religious visas, or R-1 visas — temporary visas used for clergy and lay religious workers such as missionaries — and presented to the U.S. government as volunteers, according to the claim. They were asked to sign several documents, often in English, and instructed to tell U.S. embassy staffers that they were skilled carvers or decorative painters, the complaint said. Lawyers for the men, however, said they did manual labor on the site, working nearly 13 hours a day lifting large stones, operating cranes and other heavy machinery, building roads and storm sewers, digging ditches and shoveling snow, all for the equivalent of about $450 per month.
“I respectfully disagree with the wage claim,” Kanu Patel, the chief executive of BAPS, told The New York Times, while noting he was not in charge of day-to-day operations at the site. Lenin Joshi, a spokesman for BAPS, also disputed the accusations, saying the men did complicated work connecting stones that had been hand-carved in India. “They have to be fit together like a jigsaw puzzle. In that process, we need specialized artisans,” Mr. Joshi said, saying this work qualified the men for the visas. “We are naturally shaken by this turn of events and are sure that once the full facts come out, we will be able to provide answers and show that these accusations and allegations are without merit,” Mr. Joshi said.
Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/11/nyregion/nj-hindu-temple-india-baps.html
I expect this sort of thing "common" although it usually happens with immigrants from Central America - I recall a recent case in Florida. One of the older Florida cases is here - https://www.justice.gov/archive/opa/pr/1997/November97/482cr.htm.html
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Don't see you over here much. 
GD lady 
