Colorado bars Brighton farm from H-2A foreign-worker program for failing to pay laborers

Colorado’s labor department has barred a Brighton farmer from hiring seasonal foreign workers after an investigation found the employer did not pay his laborers for months and obstructed state investigators.

The Colorado Department of Labor and Employment on Nov. 12 permanently banned Star Farms and its owner, Angelo Palombo, from bringing in workers under the H-2A program, a federal work visa that allows U.S. employers to hire foreign workers for agricultural jobs, according to a state order obtained last week by The Denver Post.

The state also assessed more than $1.7 million in back wages and penalties. Investigators determined 63 workers are owed more than $388,000 from missed paychecks and underpayments in 2024 and 2025.

The department, in its order, found that delaying action “would cause substantial harm to affected workers” by allowing an employer found to have engaged in “significant wage payment violations and interference with state enforcement processes” to continue to hire foreign laborers.

Palombo can appeal the decision. In a brief interview Wednesday, he said he quit the H-2A program and that it had nothing to do with the state’s actions. He said he “pretty much” paid his workers on time last year, a characterization he’s used in prior interviews with The Post.

“I didn’t do nothing, so what do you want?” Palombo said.

The state has rarely used this avenue to block problematic employers from hiring workers through the H-2A program, The Post found in a three-part investigation in 2024. At that time, Colorado labor regulators had only issued such orders twice before, the newspaper found, despite one in six employers who used the visa program having violated federal labor laws.

Since September 2024, when The Post published its series, the labor department has barred three additional Colorado employers, including Star Farms. The other two were reinstated after agreeing to probationary periods and additional compliance checks, according to labor officials.

Palombo has a well-documented history of failing to pay his workers on time.

In 1998, 2000, 2001, 2006 and 2010, the U.S. Department of Labor found Palombo failed to pay his seasonal workers their wages when due, according to investigation records previously obtained by The Post through a Freedom of Information Act request.

Federal investigators also determined that Star Farms’ owner charged employees to receive cash instead of checks, and found Palmobo was “willfully violating migrant housing requirements.”

Palombo acknowledged in 2023 bankruptcy filings that he hadn’t paid workers more than $231,000 they were owed for over a month, prompting the federal Department of Labor to initiate another investigation. The following year, attorneys for Star Farms workers said Palombo continued to exploit his laborers while refusing to pay them. They called on Colorado authorities to investigate the Brighton employer.

This time, the state listened.

The state labor department launched its investigation in the fall of 2024, visiting the farm multiple times and speaking with employees and Palombo himself.

State investigators found Palombo to be noncompliant and evasive throughout the process, according to citation orders. He provided misleading information and failed to provide complete responses to inspectors, the state found.

The farmowner failed to pay wages for seven pay periods between May and September 2025, investigators determined. He also paid non-H-2A workers less than their visa-holder counterparts, which is a violation of the program.

Palombo admitted to labor officials that he was late paying wages, explaining that “some of our customers were very slow in paying, which caused some delay in paying employees,” investigation records show.

One worker told investigators that late payment is typical at Star Farms, but that 2025 was worse than usual.