Workers from India who say they were exploited marched Tuesday in Atlanta to bring attention to their cause.

About 64 workers from Mississippi and several dozen activists walked along Moreland Avenue in Atlanta.

The Rev. Timothy McDonald, chief pastor of First Iconium Baptist Church in Atlanta, supported the workers.

"It's human slavery, plain and simple," McDonald said.

The workers were among 500 who came from India last year after paying $20,000 each to labor recruiters for an H-2B visa, activists say. The workers were promised a green card in the future, which would mean permanent legal residency in the United States.

Instead they lived 24 to a room, paying $1,050 each for monthly rent, which included bad food, said Stephen Boykewich, media director for the New Orleans Workers' Center for Racial Justice, which helped organize the workers.

The men worked as pipe welders and fitters for Signal International, a subcontractor of Northrop Grumman. The company's main business is to repair and maintain oil rigs.

Signal issued a press release saying it is outraged and did not know that recruiters Global Resources and its principal, Michael Pol, and New Orleans immigration attorney Malvern Burnett, had charged such high fees to its workers to come to the United States.

Signal pays the average Indian temporary worker $19.69 an hour plus overtime, as well as health and other benefits, the company said.

Indian workers pay a $35 per diem to live in Signal-provided housing, which includes lodging, three meals per day, laundry service, satellite television, internet access and local transportation. Signal currently employs more than 100 H2B temporary workers from India, the company said.

The workers who are protesting had visas that were good for 10 months, Boykewich, said. He acknowledged that some may not be here legally anymore because they came a little more than a year ago. They left their jobs and are on their way to Washington, D.C. to call attention to the bad working conditions and the scam.

"I think this might spur some other exploited workers to come out," McDonald said.