Posted on 07/14/2004 10:08:15 AM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
WASHINGTON - The trafficking of human beings constitutes a ''growth industry'' in the United States, with more than 15,000 people forced into bondage each year as sex slaves or captive laborers, according to testimony before a Senate panel on Wednesday.
Although federal laws enacted over the past three years have enabled prosecutors to crack major trafficking rings, two U.S. attorneys and leaders of victim advocacy groups warned that ''modern-day slavery'' is spread across the nation and appears to be growing.
''It seems like we're just touching the tip of the iceberg,'' said Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, who presided at Wednesday's hearing. ``Clearly we need to be doing more than we're doing now.''
Anti-trafficking task forces are now operating in Philadelphia, Atlanta, Phoenix and Tampa, and Cornyn is pressing for the creation of one in Texas, which shares a 1,200-mile border with Mexico. The Justice Department also plans a three-day conference next week in Tampa as part of a campaign against the trafficking of women and children.
U.S. attorney Johnny Sutton of San Antonio called the trafficking of human beings an ''abhorrent offense'' that constitutes a top priority for the Justice Department.
Thousands of men, women and children are lured into the United States each year with the promise of good jobs and a brighter future, only to become ''commodities'' who are forced to live in deplorable conditions, often under the threat of death, witnesses said.
''At the end of the journey, they find coercion, abuse, entrapment and exploitation in a brothel, a massage parlor, an illicit factory or an agricultural outpost,'' said Sister Mary Ellen Dougherty, an immigration expert with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
The problem in the United States is part of an illicit global enterprise in which an estimated 800,000 human beings are bought, sold and forced across international borders each year. At least 15,000 people are held against their will in this country, say officials, and some believe the number could be 50,000 per year.
Many of the victims involve children who are forced into prostitution and pornography rings, witnesses testified.
Cornyn cited one high-profile case in Texas in which traffickers with a ring known as the Molina organization lured scores of young women from Honduras to the Fort Worth area with the promise of good jobs as waitresses or housekeepers.
Authorities said the women were transported along dangerous smuggling routes for fees of up to $10,000 each. After the women arrived in Fort Worth, they were forced to work off their fees as nightclub waitresses or prostitutes, authorities said.
A West Texas ring operated by a university researcher and his wife in El Paso used similar tactics, Sutton testified, recruiting women from Uzbekistan with the promise of modeling jobs. After their arrival in the United States, the women were forced to work in strip clubs.
Prosecutors broke up the ring in 2002.
Just another reason to tighten the borders and make sure ALL iilegals return home...Big case of this happened in Berkeley Calif a couple of eyars ago...but the men involved in this awful activity brought women here from India...and none of them were legal to be here
"It's Bush's fault".
What they fail to address is that, most likely, the "Molina" group is a bunch of illegals who are thugs, importing cheap labor.
This story smells.
What they fail to address is that, most likely, the "Molina" group is a bunch of illegals who are thugs, importing cheap labor.
This story smells.
This will go away the second a democrat gets elected to the White House.
FR is moving very slow today......lots of multiple posts showing up.
Just goes to show that the age old tradition of waiting until summer when the Rio Grande is almost a trickle in Texas is the best way to hop across the border. Or claim you're importing used tires and drive your old junker across the bridge as it pumps out black clouds of toxic fumes. Either way, you're your own boss and can come and go as you wish.
But maybe not. National Geographic had a story on this some months ago and I was certainly convinced. Unfortunately, some of the organizations that have formed to combat it are pretty shady too. I did an internet search at the time and had a hard time finding additional good materials on the subject.
There will always be crime rings of this sort.
I agree. That's what made the story seem credible to me. But it's so awful and given the fact that our country was founded to allow people to live in freedom, it's a particular slap at us. I want to see it irradicated.
As long as the State Dept., Customs, Border Patrol and Immigration are not pressured and paid by Congress to do the job these departments were formed to do.
This is a different story from the one from Washington State. This stuff is everywhere and its due to lax immigration control. Just a few months ago a group was busted in New York City for running a prostitution ring of imprisoned pre-teen girls. Last year, in the state where the President's brother is in charge, agents had to bolt-cut a lock off an unventilated steel shed to free slaves used for agriculture.
It's not just here. England is having great difficulty with Chinese slaver gangs known as "snakeheads" who think nothing about killing their cargo when anything goes wrong. Some of these gangs are gaining a foothold in San Francisco and Seattle.
"Diversity" is our friend?... Open borders allow the importation of savagery, ignorance, disease and dependence. Our so-called "leaders" need to wake up.
I think I can correct your post. It is our "elite" that is having the problems being that at any one time half of them are in the grips of delusion and the other half are profiting from these delusions.
Chinese snakeheads who smuggle over 10,000 eager immigrants each year into the United States and other Western countries are getting rich. In order to recruit their customers, the snakeheads often offer money-back guarantees if the immigrants are caught and returned to China. Other snakeheads lure their customers by lying about high-paying job opportunities or amnesty provisions. Ying Chan, a smuggling analyst at Hong Kong University, stated "It's getting more entrenched. Law enforcement has not been able to catch up."
And news of the deaths of 58 immigrants found dead in an airtight truck near Dover, England has angered the families of those who fear the deaths of their family members, but it has not slowed the snakeheads' business. A Chinese newspaper reported that those Chinese who feared the deaths of their families destroyed furniture and broke windows of the lavish homes of Chinese smugglers located in the Fujian province.
Last year, around 870 snakeheads were arrested by the Chinese authorities, and some of the snakeheads faced imprisonment of up to 11 years. Cheng Chi Ping, a snakehead accused of packing immigrants into unseaworthy vessels and holding 105 immigrants hostage until smuggling fees were paid, is currently being held in a Hong Kong jail awaiting possible extradition to the United States. She could face life in prison without parole if convicted of all charges.
http://www.usvisanews.com/articles/memo1009.shtml
There is no homeland security, and there won't be until this administration or the next gets serious about border security and illegal immigration.
Maybe the significant other ain't giving you any? LOLOL
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