Colorado bars Brighton farm from H-2A foreign-worker program for failing to pay laborers
Colorado’s labor department has barred a Brighton farmer from hiring seasonal foreign workers after an investigation found the employer did not pay his laborers for months and obstructed state investigators.
The Colorado Department of Labor and Employment on Nov. 12 permanently banned Star Farms and its owner, Angelo Palombo, from bringing in workers under the H-2A program, a federal work visa that allows U.S. employers to hire foreign workers for agricultural jobs, according to a state order obtained last week by The Denver Post.
The state also assessed more than $1.7 million in back wages and penalties. Investigators determined 63 workers are owed more than $388,000 from missed paychecks and underpayments in 2024 and 2025.
The department, in its order, found that delaying action “would cause substantial harm to affected workers” by allowing an employer found to have engaged in “significant wage payment violations and interference with state enforcement processes” to continue to hire foreign laborers…
The state in February barred Mountain Vista Sod in Weld County from hiring H-2A workers after finding the job duties for the laborers were different…
In September, the labor department barred Williams Orchards in Cedaredge after the employer sent H-2A workers contracted for Colorado to Texas…