The recruitment of guestworkers is a lucrative business for the companies that help U.S. businesses obtain cheap foreign labor.

A deposition in a lawsuit filed by the Southern Poverty Law Center provides a glimpse into this world, in which workers pay thousands of dollars to recruiters in their countries for the right to work in low-wage jobs in the United States.

The lawsuit, filed in 2006, contends that Decatur Hotels and its president, F. Patrick Quinn III, violated the Fair Labor Standards Act when the company failed to reimburse guestworkers for the exorbitant fees paid to aggressive labor recruiters working as agents of the hotel chain.

When Decatur Hotels, which owns 15 luxury hotels in New Orleans, decided to import up to 290 guestworkers to fill hotel jobs vacated by Hurricane Katrina evacuees, the company hired a Baton Rouge-based company called Accent Personnel Services Inc. Accent advertises on its website that it helps businesses obtain government approval to employ guestworkers and also recruits them.

Virginia Pickering, president and owner of the company, testified in a deposition that Accent earned $1,200 for each person recruited to work for Decatur Hotels — $300 each from Decatur Hotels and another $900 each from recruiters working in Peru, Bolivia and the Dominican Republic. That means that if Decatur imported the full 290 workers for which it was certified by the Department of Labor, Accent would have earned nearly $350,000. Accent did not have to pay for travel or visa costs out of those fees.

Each of the workers paid between $3,500 and $5,000 to cover recruiting fees, travel and visas. Like many other guestworkers, they plunged their families into debt to raise this money. For most workers, it was more than a year's salary.

The guestworkers soon found out they could not earn enough to make ends meet — much less pay back their debts. The recruiters had promised a minimum of 40 hours of work per week and plenty of overtime. Instead, they found themselves working about 25 hours a week, sometimes far less.

Even though desperate for wages, these workers are prohibited by law from seeking alternative employment.

"It is modern-day slavery," said Daniel Castellanos Contrera of Peru.

Another worker, who did not want to be identified because of the possibility of being blacklisted, said, "People came with debts and children to support — and the illusion that this would help their future. In the end, we have only bigger problems and deeper debt."