When Dwight Allen from Jamaica was accepted into the US guest worker programme he must have thought that finally he had an opportunity to support his wife and four children in Jamaica.
It cost Dwight US$2,000 to just enter the United States, this includes the fee for H-2B Visa. That’s approximately 36 weeks’ salary for the average Jamaican.
But he was promised a 40-hour work week at wages that seem reasonable (at least more than what he would earn back in Jamaica). However as soon as he arrived in the US, he discovered that what he thought was an opportunity was actually a bad situation for him and his fellow Jamaicans.
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Allen, along with 142 Jamaican counterparts ended up living in horrible conditions and working virtually for free. This was all a sham (some would say a scam) and Dwight Allen’s journey was full of disappointment and despair.
Dwight Allen is just one of the many Jamaicans who have been let down by a system that seems to exploit rather than offer an opportunity for hard working Jamaicans.
These stories once again reveal the struggles that people from the Caribbean face on a daily basis just to survive.
