Case: 19-50638 Document: 00515680084 Page: 1 Date Filed: 12/21/2020 United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit FILED December 21, 2020 No. 19-50638 Lyle W. Cayce Clerk Ruben Molina-Aranda; Jose Eduardo Martinez-Vela; Juan Gerardo Lopez-Quesada, Plaintiffs—Appellants, versus Black Magic Enterprises, L.L.C., doing business as JMPAL Trucking; Carmen Ramirez; Jessie Ramirez, III, Defendants—Appellees. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas USDC No. 7:16-cv-376 Before Owen, Chief Judge, and Dennis and Haynes, Circuit Judges. Haynes, Circuit Judge: Plaintiffs allege that Carmen and Jessie Ramirez brought them to the United States under the H-2B visa program to work as construction workers. Once Plaintiffs arrived in the United States, however, the Ramirezes allegedly made them work as truck drivers, who typically receive higher wages and for whom H-2B visas are consequently harder to obtain. But Plaintiffs never saw those higher wages; instead, they claim they were paid worse than either truck drivers or construction workers, with the Ramirezes Case: 19-50638 Document: 00515680084 Page: 2 Date Filed: 12/21/2020 No. 19-50638 unlawfully deducting from their paychecks, denying them overtime pay, and sometimes failing to pay them entirely. Plaintiffs sued Carmen and Jessie Ramirez and their company, Black Magic Enterprises, L.L.C. (“Black Magic”), claiming, as relevant here, that the Ramirezes violated (1) the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (“RICO”), and (2) the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”). The district court dismissed those claims for failure to state a claim, declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over Plaintiffs’ related state law claims, and denied Plaintiffs’ later-filed motion for leave to amend the complaint. For the following reasons, we AFFIRM the district court’s dismissal of Plaintiffs’ RICO claims and the district court’s denial of Plaintiffs’ motion for leave to amend, REVERSE the dismissal of Plaintiffs’ FLSA claims, VACATE the dismissal of the state law claims, and REMAND for further proceedings. I. Background Plaintiffs are former employees of the Ramirezes who were brought to work for Black Magic in Texas under the United States Department of Labor’s H-2B guest worker visa program. 1 H-2B visas allow employers to bring foreign workers to the United States for temporary non-agricultural work if (1) “qualified workers in the United States are not available” and (2) “the alien’s employment will not adversely affect the wages and working conditions of similarly employed United States workers.” 8 C.F.R. § 214.2(h)(6)(iv)(A); see 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(15)(H)(ii)(b). To obtain an H- 1 Black Magic filed for bankruptcy and has since been dismissed from the case. 2 Case: 19-50638 Document: 00515680084 Page: 3 Date Filed: 12/21/2020 No. 19-50638 2B visa for an employee, the employer must first apply for and obtain a labor certification with the Department of Labor. 8 C.F.R. § 214.2(h)(6)(iii)(C). Plaintiffs alleged that the Ramirezes “systematically defrauded the federal government to obtain” the visas that brought them to the United States by misrepresenting to the Department of Labor the type of work Plaintiffs would perform. According to Plaintiffs, the applications the Ramirezes ...
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