More than 100 foreign fishermen who work on Hawaii longline vessels that bring in tuna and swordfish to Honolulu piers have been sent back to their countries by U.S. Customs and Border Protection over the past decade for offenses such as drinking alcohol, performing work that they are not authorized to do, or straying too far from the piers.

Some of the workers were sent home at the request of vessel owners, others by Customs officials, according to Frank Falcon, a spokesman for the border protection agency.

While it’s not unusual for workers to lose their job because of misconduct, some fishermen are at risk of losing a lot more than future pay if they are repatriated before the end of their contracts, which can last two to three years. They can also be on the hook for the cost of their plane ticket home and other fees that can amount to several months of wages, according to employment contracts provided to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser by Kathryn Xian, executive director for the Pacific Alliance to Stop Slavery.

Fishermen can be paid as low as $350 a month. Meanwhile, airline tickets to Southeast Asian and Pacific nations can cost more than $1,000.

Xian said she’s concerned that the circumstances could lead to situations of debt bondage, in which a fisherman becomes indebted to a recruiter to work off the costs of being sent home.

Hawaii’s longline fishing industry has been under intense scrutiny since the publication of an Associated Press investigation in September, which raised serious concerns about conditions onboard the vessels and lack of labor protections for the workers, who can remain confined to the ships for years.

The data on repatriations, provided to the Star-Advertiser last week by Customs and Border Protection, underscores just how tenuous labor protections aboard some of the vessels can be and how limited the fishermen’s freedom is once they dock in Honolulu.

There are about 140 active vessels in the Hawaii longline fleet, which employs more than 600 foreign workers from countries such as the Philippines, Indonesia, Kiribati and Vietnam. The fishermen don’t have visas and generally aren’t allowed to leave their boats when they dock in Honolulu every three weeks or so, though federal officials allow them in a small area off one of the piers that has bathroom facilities. The fishermen can be docked for a few days to several weeks.

“Basically, we are giving them a humanitarian parole by letting them get off the boat and walk on the pier and visit friends on other boats, giving them a shower and use of toilets,” Falcon said.

If they stray beyond the area, they can be sent home, as was the case for 10 fishermen, according to Customs data dating back to 2005.

Falcon said that border protection officials didn’t suspect that these workers were trying to abscond — a more serious offense. Rather, they were likely caught “breaking the rules and going outside of the dock area.”

“If one of the guys says, ‘Hey, I’m going across the street to the bar’ or ‘I’m going shopping downtown,’ and he is discovered, well, that is a violation,” he said. “Well, you have broken the rule and we can’t have you there.”

Another 37 workers were repatriated because they were unaccounted for during “musters,” meaning they weren’t present on a vessel during a surprise inspection by border protection officials, which occurs several times a week, Falcon said.

Eight workers were sent home for lying to Customs officials; 18 for drinking; seven for drugs; one for gambling; 14 for doing unauthorized work; and six because the owner requested that they be sent home — no specific reason was provided.

Another two workers asked to be sent home after their vessel sank.

As for “unauthorized work,” foreign fishermen can be ordered home if they are caught doing tasks such as painting the boat or doing other maintenance work while in port. Their jobs are generally limited to fishing — doing other tasks while they are docked could violate laws aimed at protecting American workers’ jobs.

“The captain can’t say, ‘Get off the boat and paint the boat’ and some things like that,” Falcon said. “It is normally going to be something that the captain told them to do, and the captain is going to get in trouble, too.”

Owners’ responsibility

While Customs officials sometimes send workers home because of violations, Falcon said in many cases it is the vessel owner who has the worker repatriated.

“You have a job … and you do something bad or something that the boss is not happy with, the boss can turn around and say, ‘Look, you are fired,’” Falcon said. “So what do you do if you are fired? You can go find another job. But these guys can’t.”

Thus, they are repatriated. The workers are escorted by federal agents to Honolulu Airport and put on a plane home. Falcon says that as far as Customs and Border Protection is concerned, the vessel owners are responsible for the costs. But if a worker’s pay is withheld or they are later held responsible for the costs by an agent, they can’t step in.

“There is nothing that we can do about it,” Falcon said. “If it is something in a contract, that is between the crew member and the captain and vessel owners. So we would not have any control over that.”

He added, “I don’t think any of the vessel owners take it very easy to kick someone off their boat, because it is not easy to find crew.”

Jim Cook, a leader in the Hawaii longline industry who owns six vessels, didn’t respond to specific questions from the Star-Advertiser about how common it may be for workers to have to pay for the costs of being sent home prior to the termination of their contracts.

But in a statement he said that the Hawaii longline fleet has sought guidance from the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of International Labor Affairs and “is working collaboratively to provide a safe workplace for both foreign and domestic crew.”

“We are not familiar with the number of fishermen repatriated or the specific circumstances,” he said by email. “However, if U.S. Customs and Border Protection sends a foreign crew member home, we have no jurisdiction over their actions. When a contract is completed, the boat owner will pay to return the crew member to his home country.”

In one contract between a Kiribati crew member and a vessel called Cap Million 3, the fisherman would have to pay repatriation costs if they were sent home for offenses such as making noise and fighting, being unsuitable or incapable of work, consuming alcohol, being lazy and being careless.

“Also in the event of employee leaving the ship or requesting for repatriation before completion (of the) contract, all charges, air ticket, parole and escort fees, and replacement costs will be borne by the employee,” according to the contract.

While Customs says it doesn’t get involved in contract disputes, it has stepped in to clarify situations.

In one case a vessel owner appeared to be trying to recoup the costs of sending two workers home from the agent that recruited them.

“The two crewmembers were caught leaving the pier to purchase from a nearby store and was ordered for immediate repatriation,” Reagan Nguyen, president of a vessel called Quynh Vy, wrote in a July 2013 letter to Pacific Island Marine, which acts as an agent for foreign workers. “The seaman has to pay all fines according to U.S. immigration penalty and expenses according to what is in the contract they signed with the employer.”

However, Ferdinand Jose, a supervisory Customs officer, wrote Nguyen saying that in the case of at least one of the workers, it was not Customs that sent him home for a violation.

The worker “requested to return home … as he was not happy with the working conditions on your vessel,” Jose wrote.

Nguyen did not respond to a request to comment on the documents.

Falcon said that the letter from Customs “is merely a clarification of the facts.”