JACKSON, Miss. — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has ordered an “extensive and thorough review” of a foreign-exchange program that has been used by U.S. businesses as a source of cheap labor and exploited by criminals to import women to work in the sex industry.
In the latest debacle for the J-1 Summer Work Travel visa, a federal indictment unsealed last week accuses the mafia of using the cultural-exchange program to bring Eastern European women to work in New York strip clubs.
The House Judiciary Committee’s immigration subcommittee also has been gathering information on the J-1 visa.
The State Department has made several changes since an Associated Press investigation last year uncovered widespread abuses, including living and working conditions that some participants compared to indentured servitude.
The Associated Press
