PTI

Washington, Apr 1: Braving a steady drizzle and the cold, nearly 65 Indian workers, who claim they were lured to move to the US by false promises of permanent jobs, have protested before the White House against the ''abuses'' in the H2B visa system, which was used to traffic them here.

The workers, who complain they underwent ''slave-like treatment'' at a Mississippi shipyard, demonstrated outside the White House for more than an hour calling for dignity of the employees.

Towards the end of their protest, the workers, in a symbolic rejection of the H2B visa system or the guest worker programme, ripped up the a enlarged xeroxed page of their passport in which their visas had been stamped.

The workers, from among a group of over 100 who walked off their jobs at a Signal International Plant in Pascagula, Mississippwere, were joined by their supporters from several organisations based in Washington DC.

The workers are demanding Congressional investigation of their former employer Signal International, a Northrop Grumman subcontractor that allegedly held them as forced labour, and is already the subject of a criminal human trafficking investigation by the Department of Justice.

As many as 500 Indian welders and pipe-fitters had forked out about $20,000 apiece to US and Indian recruiters for false promises of permanent residency in the America, organisers of the protest said.

''Instead they were held in forced labour by Northrop Grumman subcontractor Signal International on 10-month temporary H2B guest worker visas in Gulf Coast shipyards under deplorable conditions,'' the organisers said.