Guestworkers who come to the United States are routinely cheated out of wages; forced to mortgage their futures to obtain low-wage, temporary jobs; held virtually captive by employers who seize their documents; forced to live in squalid conditions; and denied medical benefits for injuries, according to a new report released by the Southern Poverty Law Center today.

A jury trial in the Center's lawsuit on behalf of Billy Ray Johnson, a mentally disabled black man who was taunted, beaten and left unconscious beside a road by a group of young white men, will begin April 17 in Linden, Texas.