September 20, 2016 — A human rights outrage that has quietly simmered below the public consciousness in recent years exploded on the national scene just days ago when the Associated Press disclosed near slavery conditions for foreign workers on American fishing boats in Honolulu and San Francisco.

A six-month investigation by Pulitzer Prize winners Martha Mendoza and Maggie Mason corroborated what has been known by senior U.S. officials and the Hawaii restaurant industry, among others, for years: U.S. flagged boats employ undocumented men, confining them to the ships sometimes for years because they lack the required visas to permit them to come ashore.

They’re paid as little as 70 cents an hour and often work 20 hours a day at backbreaking, sometimes dangerous tasks with the approval of the U.S. government but none of its legal protections.

As Civil Beat’s Washington, D.C., columnist Kirsten Downey reported Friday, the report has prompted the U.S. Department of Labor to investigate, with U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz and Rep. Tulsi Gabbard pushing for immediate action to provide protections for the workers. Congressional candidate Colleen Hanabusa called for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to investigate, as well — it is home to the Coast Guard and Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

According to the AP report, Sen. Mazie Hirono sought to provide some help through legislation that would permit the fishers to fly into the United States. That would expand the transit visas already allowed the men, who are permitted to fly home from the Honolulu airport, despite technically never having legally entered the United States. But even that modest assistance did not pass.

Hanabusa and Schatz both made the point that, thus far, the matter consists of media findings that must be officially investigated. That’s of course necessary and appropriate, as well as long overdue.

Read the full editorial at the Honolulu Civil Beat