A pair of Haitian immigrants have been indicted in Tigard, Oregon, on charges of forcing their migrant relatives to work in near-slave conditions at their negligent adult home daycare center.
The U.S. Department of Justice reported that Marie Gertrude Jean Valmont, 67, and her daughter, Yolandita Marie Andre, 31, were indicted in Oregon on forced labor charges centered around three Haitians that the pair imported into the U.S. to serve as staff for their fraudulent home daycare business.
The three Haitian migrants — one of whom was a teenager — were members of Valmont’s family from back in Haiti. Prosecutors say that the three were forced to work 17-hour days for $2 a day and had to sleep on Valmont’s living room floor. Valmont allegedly constantly threatened them with deportation and confiscated their legal documents and IDs.
The pair could get up to 20 years in federal prison for each count of human trafficking.
Along with the forced labor charges, federal prosecutors also say the pair defrauded the Oregon Department of Human Services (ODHS) and Medicaid by “by falsely claiming they needed to pay additional and current employees for more hours for foster care residents with exceptional care needs. Instead of paying the three victims a proper hourly wage, the defendants instead kept the money they obtained from the ODHS and Medicare by paying them little or nothing.”
The two have also been charged with neglecting their patients in the adult day care operation, which was licensed by the state in December of 2022, according to The Oregonian.
State records show that at least one patient was neglected and Valmont and her daughter were cited with a violation in September of 2023. The patient, who had dementia, reportedly fell and broke his hip, had bed sores, and was mistreated. State officials cited the business for being understaffed and for not properly tending to patients. And one patient required hospital care after staying with Valmont and Andre.
Valmont and Andre last appeared before a judge on January 28, and their trial date has been set for May 11.
The Trump administration moved to end Temporary Protected Status for 350,000 illegal-migrant Haitians after the Biden administration expanded the program. But Biden-appointed Judge Ana Reyes, a Uruguayan immigrant, ruled that Trump did not have the power to end the program and blocked his policy decision.
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