Last week, federal prosecutors arrested and arraigned the student, Colonel Arif Mohamed Saeed Mohamed Al-Ali, who is from the United Arab Emirates, for one count of committing fraud in foreign labor contracting and one count of making false representations to Immigration and Customs Enforcement:
he plaintiff, a citizen from the Philippines, worked as one of the domestic workers for the couple and their five children for several years in the U.A.E. before they asked her to provide child care for their younger children in the United States. The plaintiff arrived in Rhode Island in mid-2010, believing that she would work five days a week and receive her pay in U.S. dollars as agreed to in their written contract. Instead, former Col. Al-Ali and Samah Alharmoodi did not allow her any days off, forbade her from speaking to anyone outside the household, withheld her passport, sent her wages in dirham currency to her family in the Philippines, and subjected her for three months to involuntary servitude, forced labor, peonage, debt bondage, and slavery as a domestic worker in their home.As a recent immigrant with little knowledge of her rights, little familiarity with her surroundings and no family or friends in the United States, she was basically exploited and forced into servitude. For more information on the case, read AALDEF's full press release here.