Human Trafficking: The Bad, The Ugly, and The Unthinkable

Human trafficking is one of the most egregious breaches of human dignity and humanity yet it remains endemic and relatively understudied in the US. With Joe Biden in the White House, the institution of human slavery on the nation’s porous southern border had taken new shape. The overwhelming majority of modern slavery illegal immigrant victims are  women, girls and boys. These slaves aren’t just forced into sweatshops and factory jobs; too many of them are also sold as sex slaves…even children.

Open Borders and Human Trafficking: What Is the Connection?

The border between the United States and Mexico is the locus of human trafficking, with criminal gangs exploiting the despair of illegal immigrants to perhaps steal away women and children from border towns. Traffickers, who woo clients with promises of security and employment, trade them into solitary confinement or sexual slavery, according to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

In 2022, ICE arrested over 2,300 people for human trafficking. These were, for the most part, illegal immigrants dragged or bulwarked into the United States across our porous borders, and no one dared to question them.

In 2023, the National Human Trafficking Hotline found that almost 30 per cent of trafficking victims in the United States were illegal immigrants, many from Central America. These victims are linguistically debilitated, isolated and terrified of the police, making them especially prone to abuse.

Illegal Immigrants and Forced Labor

According to the International Labor Organization, 24.9 million people worldwide suffer from forced labor, and almost 3 million are employed as forced labor in agriculture, household and industry each year. Most of these victims are illegal immigrants in the United States.

Sweatshops and Farming: The Urban Institute’s labor trafficking report on farms and factories in the US (2020) indicated that about seven out of 10 suspected labor traffickers in the farms and factories are illegal immigrants. Some of these people toil savagely for subsistence wages and are beholden to threats, remittances and deportation.

Domestic Slavery: In 2023, according to a Polaris Project report, over half of domestic slave survivors were illegal immigrants. These people are frequently subjected to physical and psychological abuse.

What Happens to Women, Girls and Boys?

The overwhelming majority of traffickers are women and children who live in horrific conditions. One major anti-trafficking group, Polaris Project, reports that children are sold into prostitution, and they have to go see multiple “clients” every day. Nor are illegal immigrant boys – many of them forced into sex, or crime.

For instance, one raid in 2021 netted 47 women and children from Texas traffickers, many of whom had been transported across the border. The victims, some as young as 13, recounted violence and filth no human being should endure. Those stories are horrifically common, but seldom garnered the national attention they deserve.

The Sex Trafficking Epidemic

Sexual slavery is among the most appalling types of trafficking. The National Human Trafficking Hotline estimates that 72 percent of all trafficking in the US in 2022 was sex trafficking and that many of the victims were illegal immigrants.

Women and Girls: In 2021, women represented almost 90 percent of all victims of sex trafficking, with illegal alien women and girls representing a substantial portion of them, according to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). Many were sold into sexual servitude in brothels, massage parlors and even private homes under the pretext of legal work.

Kids: The DOJ recorded an equally troubling increase in the number of child sex-traffickers, many of whom had illegally crossed the border. In 2022, the FBI estimated the number of children sold for sex in the United States at almost 10,000, many of them illegal immigrants.

Missing Children: As of fiscal year 2019-23, approximately 448,000 unaccompanied children had transferred from (ICE) to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Yet, as of mid-2024, 32,000 children have not attended their immigration court appearances, making it unclear whether they are safe and healthy. Even ICE has not given NTAs to some 291,000 minors, making it difficult to monitor their progress or ensure they aren’t being hacked and trafficked. And, let’s face it, nobody who looks after or treats these unaccompanied children brought to the US knows where they are or whether they are fed, clothed or sexually exploited.

Rescue Efforts by Law Enforcement

Putting politics and funding in the rear view mirror, ICE has spearheaded some of the trafficking victims’ rehabilitation.

FBI Information (2023): Over the past five years, FBI rescue teams have rescued more than 6,000 individuals from trafficking, including more than 2,000 children. Many of these victims were illegal immigrants.

ICE and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI): In 2022 alone, HSI identified and assisted nearly 1,200 trafficking victims, more than 60% of whom were illegal aliens.

Operation Reclaim and Rebuild (California, 2022): Through this cross-agency partnership, 65 trafficking victims including 11 children were saved, including many illegal immigrants sexually slaved.

Texas Human Trafficking Task Force: Between 2020-2023, this unit rescued over 800 women and children from trafficking rings, of whom nearly 70 percent were illegal immigrants.

Operation Cross Country (2022): The FBI partnered with the police in communities to arrest and save over 200 trafficking victims as part of a nationwide investigation. They consisted of 84 children, many of whom had come to the US under a fake name.

South Florida Human Trafficking Task Force (2023): This collaborative team arrested 26 traffickers and rescued 9 women and children, many of whom were trafficked from Latin America.

Border Interrogations: Border Patrol agents arrested over 500 trafficking victims at the southern border in 2023 alone, often after they’d been coerced to submission by unimaginable conditions.

Conclusion

These numbers all illustrate how horrible the abuses of illegal immigrants in the US, from the sweatshops and fields to sexual slavery, are — and are little known. The police are trying to save victims and bring traffickers to justice, but the scope of the problem calls for bolder measures – and a safe border.

Trafficking is a disgrace to our species and each new victim underscores the fight that must be waged. It’s up to us to deal with those facts and attempt to create a nation in which freedom and dignity are not fripperies but daily realities.