Billionaires who have been buying up farmland across the country are using a controversial immigration program linked to labor abuses and human trafficking to find low-wage workers for their agricultural investments.

The visa program, which is allowing a growing number of employers to pay rock-bottom wages, has been at the heart of recent modern slavery cases — and one in three workers in the program say the arrangement has limited their ability to leave their jobs.

While the industry claims the immigration program is necessary to help family farms find seasonal workers, companies affiliated with billionaires like Bill Gates, Rupert Murdoch, Stan Kroenke, Philip Anschutz, and John Malone have used the H-2A visa program to staff their expanding agricultural holdings throughout the United States, according to records reviewed by the Lever.