2 Mississippi catfish farms settle suit alleging immigrants were paid more than local Black workers

abcnews.go.com:

Attorneys say two Mississippi catfish farms have settled a lawsuit over using immigrant workers and paying them more than they paid local Black farmworkers

JACKSON, Miss. — Two Mississippi catfish farms have settled a lawsuit alleging that they brought workers from Mexico to the U.S. and paid them significantly more than they previously paid local Black farmworkers for the same type of labor, plaintiffs' attorneys said Tuesday.

Southern Migrant Legal Services and Mississippi Center for Justice sued Jerry Nobile, his son Will Nobile and their farms in August on behalf of 14 Black farmworkers. The federal lawsuit said the Black workers were “systematically underpaid and denied job opportunities for years in favor of non-Black foreign workers" at Nobile Fish Farms, which also raise corn and soybeans.

The plaintiffs' attorneys said the lawsuit concluded on “mutually agreeable terms” under a confidential settlement.

Court records show the lawsuit against Nobile Fish Farms was settled in February. Mississippi Center for Justice attorney Rob McDuff told The Associated Press that the deal was announced Tuesday because “all the terms of the settlement have been fulfilled.”

“We hope our legal efforts will make clear to farmers in the Delta, and across the U.S., that they need to pay fair wages to local workers,” McDuff said in a statement Tuesday.

An attorney for Nobile Fish Farms was out of town Tuesday and did not immediately respond to a phone message from the AP.

It was the eighth settlement on behalf of Black farmworkers who said they were pushed aside after higher-paid immigrants were hired at farms in the Mississippi Delta, one of the poorest parts of the United States. Five of the settlements were reached without lawsuits