A lawsuit filed Tuesday accuses the luxury Grand America Hotel in Salt Lake City of luring workers from the Philippines to a program that promised training and cultural immersion but instead forced them to work long hours doing menial jobs for low pay.
The hotel misused a type of visa similar to an internship program and instead treated participants like normal workers to avoid travel costs and other fees, according to the lawsuit filed by four workers represented by Asian Americans Advancing Justice and other organizations.
"This conduct is a blatant, greed-driven and illegal perversion of this country's immigration laws," David Seligman, executive director of Towards Justice, a Denver-based nonprofit law firm helping with the lawsuit, said in a news release.