A report by the Advocate alleges Attorney General Jeff Landry, who rails against immigration issues, brought in skilled Mexican laborers on work visas to construct an LNG plant in Cameron Parish.
Landry political advisor Brent Littlefield says yes, the AG did help bring foreign workers to the job site, but it was only temporary.
“The folks that were building that facility felt like they had exhausted all avenues to get workers at that location for that temporary work. It was temporary work that was an urgent need in order to keep the project on track,” says Littlefield.
Littlefield says the jobs were advertised locally first, but Advocate reporter Bryn Stole says the H-2B skilled worker visa program is controversial and opposed by both the Trump admin and labor unions.
“They don’t think these employers are actually making a good faith effort to hire Americans, and they feel that they are using this guest worker program as a way to import lower-cost, controlled labor,” says Stole.
Stole says there is no definitive proof Landry broke the law in these dealings, but they did uncover documents indicating his companies may have misled the feds to get access to the visas.
“There is certainly a suggestion that there could be some things that do run afoul of the law,” says Stole.
Stole says the paper also discovered Landry and his brother Benjamin, had dealings with a now-imprisoned “labor broker” who illegally brought over 1,000 Mexican workers into the country.
Littlefield says the whole investigation was bogus, no laws were broken, and all the information uncovered was public record already. He also took issue with Advocate reporters’ behavior.
“They showed up unannounced and started knocking on the doors of private homes of employees and coworkers with these companies, and at one point they even peered in the windows of a private home where there are children living,” says Littlefield.
