By Rob Moritz
Arkansas News Bureau

LITTLE ROCK — Four migrant workers accused a Lonoke County farmer of labor trafficking and abuse in a federal lawsuit filed Wednesday.

The lawsuit against Jack Odom, doing business as Odom Farms in Austin, said the four Mexicans were brought to the United States under a federal guest worker program which allows employers to hire foreign workers if sufficient domestic labor cannot be found.

The four allege they were forced to live in deplorable conditions, and that their passports were confiscated and they were not paid what they were promised.

“These workers followed the law in coming to this country,” said Sarah Donaldson, an attorney with the Nashville, Tenn.-based Southern Migrant Legal Services, which filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Little Rock.

Donaldson said the four worked on Odom’s farm in 2006, 2007 and 2008. They no longer work there, she added, declining to say where the four live now.

Odom said Wednesday that “there is no legitimacy to these complaints.”

He said one of the four workers was fired last year because he was caught smoking marijuana, and that the other three were not invited back to work this year because of poor performance last year.

“I have been doing this for 10 years and never had a complaint,” he said.

Odom said the claims of poor living conditions were not true and that the building the workers lived in was inspected by federal authorities. He said the workers’ passports were taken to keep them safe because several had them stolen in previous years. The passports were returned when the migrants wanted to leave, he said.

The farmer also said the migrant workers kept their own time cards, “so if they have any pay issues it’s their own fault.”

“They come and go as they please,” he said. “We treat them like family.”

Southern Migrant Legal Services represents the rights of migrant farmers in Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi and Tennessee.