They sold their homes. They said goodbye to their families. After paying recruiters $20,000 for visas to take part in this nation’s H-2B guest worker program, they traveled from India to Pascagoula, Miss. There, the Indian welders and pipe fitters were promised good jobs at the Signal International shipyard and the chance to bring their families here.

In Lafayette Park, just in front of the White House, more than 70 guest workers rallied in the cold rain to demand fundamental changes in the nation’s guest worker program, which President Bush is trying to expand. They also want a congressional investigation of their former employer, Signal International, a marine construction company they say held them in modern-day forced labor in its Pascagoula, Miss., shipyard.

The workers, who traveled to Washington, D.C., carried signs stating: “I Am A Man.”