A federal agency appears to have collaborated in an effort to silence foreign workers who claimed they were lured here under false pretenses and abused by the company they worked for. The role of Immigration and Customs Enforcement  reported in The Times by Julia Preston  is being investigated by the Department of Homeland Security and the Justice Department.

This is the latest twist in a sad tale of human trafficking and another reason why Congress, as part of its immigration reform efforts, must solve a problem that dates back to the Mexican bracero program: how to accept guest workers in this country while preventing their exploitation.

In 2006, a company called Signal International hired 500 skilled metalworkers from India, under the H-2B temporary guest worker program, to repair oil rigs after Hurricane Katrina. The workers say they were promised green cards for themselves and their families. Some paid recruiters as much as $20,000 to make the trip to Mississippi, often taking on crushing debt or selling their homes.

The workers quickly learned that they had no hope of green cards. They could not work for anyone else and were told they would be fired and deported if they left their isolated labor camps. They were trapped as surely as if they were shackled.