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One of the six people charged in a human slavery case out of Immokalee pleaded guilty today to five charges and now faces up to 37 years in federal prison.
Jose Navarrete, 24, a Mexican citizen, pleaded guilty to charges he conspired to harbor aliens, did harbor aliens, counterfeited an alien registration receipt, a Social Security card and re-entered the country after he was once deported.
Navarrete, speaking through a translator, admitted to using illegal immigrants to work for him, though he himself is an illegal immigrant. He admitted that he and five others knew the workers were illegal and transported them for labor anyway.
According to a federal complaint filed in December, the defendants made Mexican and Guatemalan immigrants sleep in box trucks and shacks, charged them for food and showers, didn’t pay them for picking produce and beat them if they tried to leave.
“I never thought that was illegal because when I was young, my dad always did that,” Navarrete said. “The house where we lived, Mexicans would stop by and ask for work.”
Navarrete, speaking through a translator, admitted to using illegal immigrants to work for him, though he himself is an illegal immigrant. He admitted that he and five others knew the workers were illegal and transported them for labor anyway.
According to a federal complaint filed in December, the defendants made Mexican and Guatemalan immigrants sleep in box trucks and shacks, charged them for food and showers, didn’t pay them for picking produce and beat them if they tried to leave.
“I never thought that was illegal because when I was young, my dad always did that,” Navarrete said. “The house where we lived, Mexicans would stop by and ask for work.”
