Human Trafficking in the United States: Strengthening Protections

 Human Trafficking in the United States: Strengthening Protections

Background

Human trafficking is a horrific crime against the basic dignity and rights of the human person.Defined as the recruitment, transportation, harboring or receipt of persons by means of force, fraud, or coercion, human trafficking is a multi-billion-dollar-a-year growth industry.[1]An estimated 800,000 persons are trafficked annually within or across international boundaries, half of whom are children.According to the State Department's 2010 Trafficking in Persons (TIP) report, 12.3 million adults and children are currently held in modern-day slavery, including forced labor and prostitution.Millions more are trafficked within their own national borders for a variety of purposes, including forced labor, bonded labor, sexual servitude, and involuntary servitude.

Human trafficking is not a problem that exists merely on faraway shores and in developing countries.It is estimated by the U.S. State Department that between 14,000 and 17,500 human beings each year are trafficked into the United States to work in the sex trade or as slave labor[2].However, it is very difficult to gauge the actual prevalence of trafficking in the United States, due to the covert nature of the crime and a lack of adequate data collection on trafficking in the United States.About one-third of foreign born victims trafficked into the country are children[3].U.S. citizens are also trafficked within the United States, although estimates of how many are not readily available.

Issues

Services to victims

In the United States, foreign national trafficking victims throughout the country are eligible for services through a program of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which is administered by USCCB in partnership with local NGOs.Support programs provide for medical and mental health care, housing, employment referral and other services.Currently, pre-certified victims are limited to nine months of services, while the service period for certified victims is a mere three months.Participation in the criminal investigation and trial often delays self-sufficiency, and the lack of a familial and social support network makes it more difficult for the client to become immediately independent.USCCB recommends extending the service period from three months to twelve months so that victims are able to become productive members of society and make a better life for themselves after suffering unimaginable hardship.

Under current law, trafficking victims who are granted a U visa as a victim of crime are not eligible for trafficking victims' services or work authorization.In fact, they cannot access any benefits at all until they are finally granted Legal Permanent Resident (LPR) status.Family members of trafficking victims must wait until they receive T visa derivative status, which can take over a year, to be eligible for trafficking victims' services and work authorization.

In order to meet all victims' basic needs and prevent their further exploitation, U visa recipients and trafficking victims' family members who are paroled into the United States should receive work authorization and should be eligible for benefits to the same extent as trafficking victims.

Victim identification

Considering how many victims are estimated to be trafficked into the United States each year, it is surprising that so few are identified.This fact points to the biggest challenge and area for improvement with respect to human trafficking in the United States: victim identification.In addition to the training of law enforcement personnel, more needs to be done to educate the general public on this issue.This is especially needed in the case of teachers, medical professionals, clergy, and others who regularly come into contact with, and often have the trust of, people outside of their homes.However, training of law enforcement should be the highest priority.

The Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008 (TVPRA) mandated that, before return, a determination be made that any unaccompanied child from a neighboring country is not a victim of a severe form of trafficking or at risk of being trafficked upon return and does not have a fear of return to their home country.To date, very few potential victims have been identified and many border patrol staff are not familiar with the TVPRA mandates.

USCCB is concerned that the screening may not be effective and training in its use may not be widespread or comprehensive.Because children have particular needs and may be reluctant to share their stories with immigration enforcement officers, non-governmental organizations, particularly those with trafficking and child welfare expertise, should assist in the development and implementation of these screening mechanisms.If government and civil society work together to accomplish this important task, more children at risk of trafficking and abuse will be identified and protected.

Protection of Unaccompanied Children

The TVPRA of 2008 took steps to strengthen the protection regime for unaccompanied alien children, who are often prey for human traffickers.The law upgraded the care and custody of these children, but more needs to be done.USCCB makes placement recommendations for and provides post-release services to unaccompanied children in HHS custody who are being reunited with family.This ongoing support to children and families makes it much less likely that children will fall prey to traffickers or enter the local child protective system because of abuse or neglect.The law now states that these services must be provided throughout the duration of the child's immigration court proceedings if a placement follows a home study.HHS should also be required to conduct post-release services for all children who are released from their custody.This will ensure that children who may fall victim to traffickers do not slip through the cracks after they are released from the custody of HHS.

The fact that children with a Special Immigrant Juvenile (SIJ) visa are now eligible for services in HHS' unaccompanied refugee minor (URM) program is a huge step forward.The URM program provides culturally appropriate in-home foster care and support services to some orphaned and abandoned children from other countries who are legally present in the United States.However, children who obtain a U visa as a victim of crime are not currently eligible for unaccompanied refugee minor foster care, even if they are a victim of trafficking.Adding this category of children to the list of those eligible for benefits under the URM program would allow this very small number of unaccompanied children, who are in the country legally, to access needed basic services, and would help them integrate into local communities.

Additionally, children with SIJS, while now eligible for URM foster care, are not able to receive all the benefits to which other unaccompanied refugee minors are entitled.Federal law requires that all legal permanent residents wait five years until they can access certain public benefits.Certain lawfully present children are exempted from this wait period, but this does not include children who are granted SIJS.The intent of the TVPRA of 2008 was to allow children who have been granted SIJS to be eligible for refugee benefits, including medical care services.However, HHS has interpreted the law more narrowly than Congress intended, leaving those children without access to medical care.The law should be changed so that children with SIJS are entitled to all refugee benefits and these highly vulnerable children can get the care they so urgently need.

Situations of mass displacement, such as refugee crises, present an opportunity for vulnerable individuals, especially unaccompanied children, to fall prey to traffickers.The TVPRA of 2008 directed the United States to work with UNHCR to prevent refugees from being trafficked, identify unaccompanied minors at risk of being trafficked, and ensure that Best Interest Determinations are conducted for these children.The law further directed the United States government to facilitate resettlement of unaccompanied trafficked children if resettlement were identified as the durable solution in their best interest.However, we have to date seen no evidence that assessment of this population is underway, and no immigration status mechanism currently exists in the United States which would allow resettlement of these children to take place.This aspect of the law should be fully implemented so that these orphaned or abandoned children can be removed from dangerous situations and receive the protection to which they are entitled.

Recommendations

While much progress has been made to protect foreign national trafficking victims in the United States, the following actions still need to be taken:

• Services should be made available to victims from the point they are rescued until they are in good health;
• More funding should be made available to victims of human trafficking;
• U visa recipients and paroled family members of trafficking victims should be eligible for trafficking victims' services and work authorization;
• More resources should be devoted to victim identification, especially through the use of task forces and training of state and local law enforcement officials;

·DHS should contract with NGOs with child welfare expertise to screen unaccompanied alien children for trafficking at United States borders and ports of entry;

·Post-release services, including periodic home visits, should be provided to all unaccompanied children who are released from HHS custody;

·Children who have obtained U visas should be eligible for the URM program;

·Children who have received SIJS should be eligible for all refugee benefits;

·The U.S. government should work with UNHCR to identify trafficked children in need of resettlement and ensure that Best Interest Determinations are conducted for URMs;

Actions

·Support the inclusion of the above proposals in the TVPRA of 2011;

·Re-introduce H.R. 5575 (S. 2925), the Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking Deterrence and Victims Support Act of 2010;

·Re-introduce H.R. 2723, (S. 3184) the Child Protection Compact Act of 2010; and

·Give high priority to funding for trafficking victims.Provide, for FY12, $17 million for the Office of Refugee Resettlement for trafficking victims, of which not less than $12 million should go directly to victims' services. 

[1] "Human Trafficking Has Global Reach", Catholic Relief Services.http://crs-blog.org/human-trafficking/

[2] 2009 Trafficking In Persons (TIP) Report.http://www.state.gov/g/tip/rls/tiprpt/2009/

[3] Based on estimates by the U.S. government of the numbers of all trafficking victims and comparingthose figures with widely cited figures of foreign-born children in the sex trade in the United States, MRS/USCCB estimates conservatively that about one-third of foreign born victims trafficked into the country are children.