For many of us, summer festivals are associated with fond memories: riding the carousels, riding bumper cars, and eating corn dogs, funnel cakes, and cotton candy. But for the people who run the rides and work the concession stands, the experience may be anything but pleasant.

As the founder and executive director of the Centro de los Derechos del Migrante (CDM), I have worked with migrant workers from all sectors and visa categories who face wage theft, discrimination, unsafe working conditions and human trafficking. The sector in which I have seen the most abuses by far is the fair and carnival industry.

As part of our work, we have spoken with hundreds of migrant workers in the fairground and carnival industry and represented many of them in federal lawsuits against abuses.

Their stories follow a gruesome pattern: they were recruited in some of Mexico’s poorest communities and forced to pay illegal recruitment fees, then arrive in the U.S. with debt saddled with them by their employers. Many workers report working 18-hour shifts assembling and operating rides with no training or protective equipment. They are paid a flat weekly wage – regardless of the number of hours worked – which is sometimes less than a few dollars an hour.

Although the H-2B visa they were recruited under offers some labor protections, it ties workers to their employer, making it difficult for them to leave exploitative working conditions. Workers often face the impossible choice of either putting up with the abuse or losing their income and immigration status and returning home with unpayable debt.

In 2013, CDM and the Immigrant Justice Clinic at American University Washington College of Law documented these abusive working conditions in “Taken for a Ride,” a report that sheds light on the inhumane working conditions faced by migrant workers in the carnival and fairground industry.

Conditions for workers are little better today than they were when the report was published over a decade ago. One reason for the persistence of abuses is that fairs and carnivals do not stay in the same place for long, making it difficult for state and local authorities to monitor and address abuses. And the fair and carnival industry has powerful lobbyists who have fought every effort to create fair working conditions.

Now the fairground and carnival industry has once again activated its impressive lobbying machine to get the migrant workers out of the fairground and carnival program and assigned them the P visa. This visa offers fewer protections for workers, is intended for outstanding athletes, artists and entertainers and is minimally regulated by the Department of Labor.

Two bills with this nefarious goal are currently being considered in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate: HR 1787 Carnivals Are Real Entertainment Act, introduced by Democrat Zoe Lofgren of California and now with 60 co-sponsors, and S. 4040 RIDE Act, introduced by Senator Thom Tillis of Carolina and co-signed by Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota.