By admin 
As billionaire Republican Rick Jackson blanketed Georgia’s airwaves this spring with ads vowing a crackdown on undocumented immigrants if elected governor, a company in his healthcare empire was in the throes of a costly legal battle over the treatment of its immigrant workforce.
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A lawsuit filed by foreign-born nurses accused Avant Healthcare Professionals of luring them to the United States with the promise of the American Dream, only to pay them substandard wages and trap them in rigid contracts for years. According to their lawsuit, when they tried to quit, Avant threatened to contact Immigration and Customs Enforcement and sought to charge them five-figure fees for leaving.
“Avant’s ‘employment’ is essentially indentured servitude,” the plaintiffs wrote in their complaint.
Avant denied wrongdoing. But on June 22 — days after Jackson became the GOP nominee for governor — the company agreed to a settlement that would give more than 5,000 current and former immigrant workers a share of a $3 million payout and waive unpaid fees.
Until now, the case against Avant has received scant attention and has not previously surfaced in Georgia’s race for governor. But it exposes a striking contrast between the business practices of a company Jackson owns and the hardline immigration agenda of his campaign.
Avant, which specializes in recruiting foreign nurses for jobs at US hospitals, has faced legal scrutiny over its business model and has at times clashed with the Trump administration over its immigration policies. Jackson, meanwhile, is campaigning to help President Donald Trump tighten the immigration system his company relies on.
At times, Jackson’s campaign and his business have struck different tones on immigration. For example, in a campaign ad that helped fuel his political rise this spring, Jackson looks directly at the camera and says, “I don’t care if you’re a Muslim or a Mongolian. You don’t have the right to force your culture on our country.”
But in a corporate guide to navigating culture shock in the US, Avant tells its foreign workers, “You don’t have to choose between the culture you came from and the one you’re adapting to. Finding harmony between the two creates a well-rounded, multicultural identity that enhances both your personal and professional life.”
Jackson’s primary victory stunned his party by toppling the state’s Trump-backed lieutenant governor. He now faces Democratic nominee Keisha Lance Bottoms, the former Atlanta mayor, in one of the most anticipated gubernatorial contests of the year. (Bottoms is a former CNN contributor.)
In a statement to CNN, campaign spokesman Garrison Douglas said that Jackson’s focus is on “criminal illegal immigration and following the law.”
“Avant nurses come to America legally, waiting several years, learn English, pay taxes and save lives,” he said. “Avant entered into the settlement to avoid the cost of litigation, allowing the company to focus entirely on bridging critical nursing shortages by connecting the U.S. healthcare system with qualified nurses.”
Jackson’s campaign did not answer questions from CNN regarding his views on legal immigration, including whether he supports additional visas for foreign workers.
Jessica Lacy, a spokeswoman for Avant parent company Jackson Healthcare, emphasized that the court in this case did not find that the company’s business practices were unlawful and the settlement dismissed the claims against Avant with prejudice.
Similar to Jackson’s campaign, Lacy said, “Avant entered into this settlement to avoid the cost and distraction of continued litigation and to remain focused on our mission of supporting healthcare organizations, healthcare professionals and the patients they serve.”
A swift political rise
Jackson, 72, is a titan in the booming healthcare staffing industry, a business centered on supplying hospitals and clinics with medical workers. He founded Jackson Healthcare in 2000, and it now sits atop a network of roughly 20 companies that specialize in recruiting and placing hospital and clinic positions ranging from nurses and physicians to administrators and front desk staff.
Jackson Healthcare has amassed powerful allies. Its advisory board includes ex-Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Tom Price, the former Georgia congressman who served as Trump’s first Secretary of Health and Human Services. The company became a key player in Georgia’s response to the Covid-19 crisis, racking up about $1 billion in no-bid nursing contracts, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Jackson’s business success is central to his pitch to voters. His campaign website traces his path from growing up in Georgia’s foster care system to leading a $3 billion healthcare conglomerate that works in all 50 states.
“Rick doesn’t share that to brag — he shares it because his life has always been about action and impact,” the site says.
Florida-based Avant Healthcare Professionals is a relatively recent addition to Jackson’s sprawling business portfolio. Jackson Healthcare called Avant “a pioneer in the field of international recruitment and placement of healthcare professionals” when it acquired the company in 2018. Business records filed in Florida list Rick Jackson as Avant’s manager.
Even before it was purchased, Avant faced legal scrutiny over its preference for foreign labor.
The US Department of Justice alleged in 2013 that Avant discriminated against American workers through job postings that expressed favoritism toward foreign workers, a potential violation of the Immigration and Nationality Act. In a settlement that year, Avant vowed to change its hiring practices and paid a $27,750 fine.
The legal costs Avant would incur after Jackson Healthcare took over would prove far more consequential.
Allegations of trafficking foreign nurses
Nurses Latoya Lewis and Lucinda Byron saw Avant as a ticket to new lives in the United States. Lewis arrived in 2021 from Jamaica; Byron, originally from St. Vincent and the Grenadines, began working at a South Dakota hospital in 2022.
Both signed multi-year contracts with Avant. According to a lawsuit first filed in 2023, they soon found themselves in an inflexible arrangement where they could take little time off, were paid less than colleagues employed directly by the hospitals and had little opportunity for advancement. They struggled to get by on their wages, the complaint said.
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When they tried to quit, Avant warned them they would face fees to recoup the costs of bringing them to the US, the complaint said. Staff allegedly threatened to contact Immigration and Customs Enforcement and misled them into believing that leaving could jeopardize their immigration status. Like many foreign nurses, they arrived on EB3 visas, which come with a green card that generally doesn’t require them to stay with the company that helped bring them to the US.
Avant wanted $41,832 from Byron when she left and had 30 days to pay, the complaint said.
Lawyers for Lewis and Byron argued these contracts and Avant’s efforts to enforce them violated the Trafficking Victims Protection Act and the Fair Labor Standards Act. Lewis and Byron were not available to speak to CNN, their lawyers said.
Avant argued there were substantial costs to recruiting foreign nurses and ensuring their immigration compliance. In seeking to dismiss the case, the company countered that the contracts Byron and Lewis signed were straightforward employer compacts, that they had a right to be made whole and the fact that nurses could — and did — leave Avant was itself evidence that Byron and Lewis were not the victims of forced labor.
A federal judge, however, declined to dismiss the trafficking claims. Last year, the case moved to state court in Florida, where a class action lawsuit took form.
In November, the two sides reached a preliminary settlement after identifying 5,219 current and former Avant health care workers who qualified for the class. Under the agreement, each would be eligible for a chunk of a $3 million payout.
A judge approved the terms of the agreement in July.
Lacy noted that “those who will receive monetary relief, most will receive approximately $500 or less.” Others will have fees waived but no additional payout.
Avant is not the only company to face similar allegations. In 2024, Bloomberg Law identified at least 10 class action lawsuits filed by nurses challenging agreements that required them to repay employers if they quit. Last year, New York Attorney General Letitia James payout from the firm Advanced Care Staffing for forcing foreign nurses into contracts her office called “exploitative.”
Some labor attorneys have characterized contracts like the ones used by Avant as “stay-or-pay” agreements. States including California and New York have banned them, arguing they often take advantage of the most susceptible workers.
The immigrants that work for these healthcare staffing companies on these contracts are almost exclusively from developing countries, said Rachel Dempsey, a lawyer representing the plaintiffs in the case against Avant. She is also associate director of Towards Justice, a nonprofit law firm that specializes in protecting workers and has handled multiple cases involving immigrant healthcare workers that claim they were mistreated by the companies that brought them to the US.
While Dempsey declined to address the case against Avant, citing the settlement agreement, she said that the salaries generally offered to foreign nurses look attractive on paper for immigrants who have little experience with the cost of living in the US or how much nurses typically make.
“When they get here, they realize it’s not enough to support their families,” she said.
Running as an immigration hardliner
In February, as the settlement by Avant took shape, Jackson jumped into the race for governor. He had just 105 days to make his case to Republican voters in Georgia and spent tens of millions of dollars of his own wealth trying to get recognized.
A provocative anti-immigration commercial helped him stand out. It first aired in March and appeared almost 9,000 times on Georgia television stations, according to AdImpact, which tracks campaign advertising. Staring directly into the camera, Jackson promises that immigrants who break the law on his watch will leave the state “deported or departed.”
His credibility on his immigration stance was challenged during the primary by his opponents after the New York Post published the details of a separate lawsuit filed by a Mexican national injured while working at Jackson’s 47,000-square-foot Georgia mansion. When asked by one of his GOP rivals at a debate whether he has hired immigrants who came to the US unlawfully, Jackson responded: “I don’t know.”
Avant has built its business by recruiting foreigners to move to the US and helping them navigate America’s thorny immigration system. And while Jackson has aligned himself with Trump’s immigration overhaul, Avant has pushed back against it at times.
In 2020, Avant sued the Trump administration over visa delays for workers it was trying to bring into the US from the Philippines. The case was ultimately withdrawn after the visas were approved. Earlier this year, Avant’s leadership described the difficulties it has faced under Trump’s new visa policies and expressed optimism that a lawsuit challenging a new $100,000 fee on H-1B visas would be successful.
“That is a lot of money if we were to bring in the volume of nurses this year under the H1B that we brought in last year,” Lesley Hamilton, Avant’s senior vice president of global operations, said in a March video. “Money that … my brain can’t calculate right now at this minute.”
Jackson’s campaign didn’t respond when asked how he could effectively partner with Trump on immigration when his company is at odds with the administration over some of his visa policies.
Avant argues it’s filling a need. Hospitals across the country are bracing for a workforce shortage in the coming decades. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates there will be about 190,000 openings for registered nurses each year over the next decade.
“Avant supports policies that preserve and strengthen legal immigration pathways for qualified healthcare professionals as an important part of addressing the shortage of U.S. nurses,” Lacy said.
Filling nurse openings with foreign labor recruited by healthcare staffing companies is attractive for hospitals because those workers are typically paid less, Demspey said. But that means American-born and educated nurses are increasingly competing against cheaper labor, she added.
“It brings down wages for everybody,” Dempsey said.
CNN asked Jackson’s campaign whether his company helped US hospitals fill jobs with foreign workers that could go to American nurses at higher wages.
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His campaign did not respond.
CNN’s David Wright contributed to this report.