Posted on 09/25/2004 7:58:48 AM PDT by FITZ
Victims of human trafficking may be sent to El Paso after they are rescued, thanks to a new federal program.
And those sent to the city will be eligible for an array of government assistance, including medical care, Food Stamps, housing and immigration assistance.
A seminar recently taught nearly 300 law-enforcement and social service workers about the new program, Rescue & Restore Victims of Human Trafficking.
Attendees learned that foreigners who dance in adult clubs, work as housekeepers or beg for money on the street could be human-trafficking victims.
"I had no idea until the seminar that human trafficking was such an extensive problem, and that it goes on here as well," said Adriana Jimenez, an outreach advocate for Sexual Trauma and Assault Response Services. She learned to identify and help victims.
"We learned the signs ... that could tip us off on whether someone is a human-trafficking victim. We learned that even people we see selling trinkets on the street could be victims. We were also told that law enforcement was looking into a few cases in El Paso," she said.
Johnny Sutton, U.S. attorney for the Western District of Texas who testified in July before a Senate committee, said by phone that President Bush has made human-trafficking a priority. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, had the hearing to discuss efforts to battle human trafficking.
"Smuggling is different from trafficking," Sutton said. "Trafficking is a modern form of slavery. Traffickers prey upon the most vulnerable and desperate of victims. During the past three years, we have seen an increase in the number of cases in the Western District of Texas. They are difficult to investigate and prosecute because the victims are reluctant to contact authorities. They have been threatened ... that if they contact the police they will be arrested and deported, and sometimes they threaten them or their families."
Human trafficking is defined as the recruiting, harboring, transporting or obtaining a person through the use of force, fraud or coercion to subject a person to involuntary servitude, debt bondage or slavery. The law covers the sex trafficking of youths younger than 18.
Human smuggling is the illegal and voluntary movement of undocumented immigrants. Some trafficking victims begin as voluntary immigrants and end up being held against their will. Traffickers can come from all walks of life. A trafficking operation can be run by one person or organized crime.
One case Sutton's office prosecuted involved women brought to the United States by a UTEP research assistant and his wife. They lured young women from Uzbekistan with promises of modeling jobs and a chance to bring their families. Once here, officials said, the women were forced to work in local strip clubs.
Soon, the U.S. attorney's office will announce the forming of a local human-trafficking task force.
El Paso may be one city where victims could be sent to live. Under the Torture Victims Relief Authorization Act, organizations that provide medical, psychological, social and legal services can get federal grants.
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services experts say victims suffer physical and psychological health problems due to inhumane living conditions, poor nutrition, physical and emotional abuse, dangerous workplace conditions and no health care.
Dr. Wade Horn, assistant secretary for the Administration for Children and Families in the department, and Steven Wagner, director of the department's human-trafficking program, said a nationwide network of service providers for victims will be created.
Wagner said law enforcement considers El Paso a human-trafficking gateway. Immigrants are taken to places like California, Oregon, Illinois, New York and Florida.
The federal campaign prompted El Paso to create a coalition of law enforcement and social service organizations to deal with immigrant smuggling, said Ouisa Davis, executive director of the Diocesan Migrant and Refugee Services.
"The way these organizations and law enforcement have come together is historic," she said. "The fact that many trafficking rings are being discovered in other communities, and that many of these people are transported through El Paso, has helped to make this an important issue.
"It's an issue here, too, and it needs a coordinated response. There are areas in El Paso County where people are being held, but we don't know where yet. Some cases we've had in the past involved forced prostitution and young women working as domestics."
Two factors spurred the national campaign, which includes a toll-free hot line and an information kit for groups that want to help, Horn said. Texas had many hot line calls from April through August. Half of the callers spoke Spanish.
"First, we had the new (law) that defined victims as victims as opposed to illegal (immigrants)," Horn said. "Second, when we found that only 240 of the estimated 14,000 to 16,000 people trafficked in the United States each year had been identified, we determined that that wasn't good enough."
Horn said the agency decided to spread information about such immigrants to people they might come in contact with.
Before the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 passed, human-trafficking victims were arrested and deported. Now, eligible victims may qualify for a special T-visa to stay in the United States.
"This international criminal market (generates) an estimated $9.5 billion in profit for criminal organizations worldwide," John P. Torres, deputy assistant director of smuggling and public safety for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, told Congress in May. Torres also said traffickers and smugglers can be exploited by terrorists seeking U.S. entry.
Last year, Bush signed the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2003, which enabled trafficking victims to sue traffickers in federal court.
Mosaic Family Services in Dallas-Fort Worth already helps trafficking victims. Program director Irina Nguyen said "human trafficking is a lucrative business, and every case is different. We can't take a cookie-cutter approach."
Mosaic is helping 26 women from Honduras who were taken to Fort Worth in a sex-trafficking scheme, and another group that was trapped in forced labor by a Korean factory operating in American Samoa.
Generally, they used up all of their resources to get here to pay the scamsters, so they don't have much to go back to. They are often told that legal matters are being properly taken care of (like passports, visas, etc) and may be asked to fill out lots of official looking forms. Unlike most illegal immigrants, they are not intentionally violating the law. They probably have no reason to think otherwise, especially since it is difficult to get information on US immigration regulations from The-Middle-of-Nowhere, Ukraine.
In general, though certainly not always, they think they are going to come here legally and get a legit, if boring, job. Considering their good intentions, as well as what they were put through by the slavers, it seems the best route to go. Survivors of slavery warrant this treatment at least as much as Cuban boat people, one would think.
Believe me, there are easier ways to sneak into the country than paying 40K to become a sex slave. :)
There is nothing more than to say, once again, God help you.
(I'm no "Bub.")
I guess we have to agree to disagree then. There are times, IMHO, when we can afford to help people in desparate straights, like the Cubans or North Koreans who escape their respective hell-holes. Mexico isn't a hellhole, and so people who swim across the Rio Grande aren't deserving of the same generosity.
Sexual slavery, though, is AT THE VERY LEAST as bad as living in NK or Cuba. They should get a temporary visa in order to have a chance to recoup their losses, if not full asylum.
That most of them got here looking for legitimate jobs shows they have pluck, and that they see America in a positive light. These are the sort of people we should welcome, especially when they come from situations such as this.
Temporary visas, I could see. I could even see myself donating to charities to help them in that time. I just worry about the ramifications of letting them live here full time. It's kind of the feminine side of the day laborer situation that Victor Davis Hanson sketches out in his Mexifornia.
The thing is, though, that there are only a few thousand of these people, not several million as with the Mexicans. Not to mention the, um, more disturbing experiences. The impact of freed slaves would be compartively tiny. Moreover, it would be harder for them to avoid assimilation in ethnic enclaves, and by all accounts, they are fairly enthusiastic about the American Ideal, rather than simply seeking a sugar daddy in the form of Uncle Sam.
This is the result of unsecure borders. Lawlessness begets lawlessness. It kinda looks like the US is going backwards into slavery. So much for the century 2000.
"Coerced" can mean many things --- it's really not likely any of the illegals coming in from Mexico were exactly forced --- loaded up in semi trailers after being handcuffed. I doubt there are any from Asia that are here as slaves except of their own volition. The article mentions the street beggers selling trinkets can be viewed as some kind of victim ---- but a street begger with no handcuffs? No ankle chains? Nothing at all stopping them from fleeing back home to Mexico actually.
Yeah, the same way someone trying to buy drugs gets ripped off by the dealer. They were both doing something ILLEGAL.
If being 'reactionary' includes getting p.o.'d about your (and MY) tax dollars going for more BULLSH*T then I guess I'm 'reactionary'.
Anyhow --- if the bleeding hearts want to give these people the best we have to offer --- let them do so out of their own wallets --- this massive level of Socialism is starting to kill this country. It shouldn't be up to me to pay for their free medical care, free housing, food stamps and all the rest. The government really has no right to confiscate my money to support some used up prostitute no longer capable of turning her tricks who doesn't want to go back home. Or --- maybe a even better solution --- start confiscating the assets of all the masters of this exploited labor --- including the assets of middle class housewives too lazy to sweep their own floors --- and use that money to provide a nice living for their former servants and slaves.
Maybe people think Vicente Fox is capturing his citizens and dragging them kicking and screaming into box cars and semi-trailers --- in leg chains and all.
You are "reactionary" because you are either too lazy or ignorant to understand what "trafficking" means and the problem this bill addresses.
I'll repeat: this measure passed the House of Representatives 422-1 (yeah, just nutjob Ron Paul in opposition). Tancredo voted for this measure.
You folks are the bottom feeders of FR.
One of the cases was a choir group from Africa who were enticed over to the States with the promise of education for the boys. Instead, they were used as part of a scam and weren't schooled.
Some of the people covered by the law are convinced they will be killed,especially if they try to return to their homes. Or that the homes that they left are worse than the conditions they are living in now.
Most are told that the local law enforcement will not help them no matter what and some just don't know any better.
These are not people who are looking for a handout, they are people who are starved, imprisoned, very young, or ignorant of any sort of justice.
In the long run, they're probably some of the more hardy of their countrymen to have survived. I bet they make good citizens.
BTW, have you ever heard of the Stockholm syndrome?
Change the law. Call your Congressman and Senators.
Where were you when the law passed in 2000? One of the concepts of the law is the very suggestion that you make: make the acts of trafficking illegal and subject to fines and prison.
You two would have made Joseph an illegal alien in Egypt.
Another ploy to re-name illegal immigration to try to make it acceptable to America. What the sympathizers don't care about is that WE (Americans) are the victims. If this BS continues, America as we knew it will disappear. Some parts of California and other border states already have.
I already said these people should be rescued and sent home immediately to their own neighborhoods and family --- I would not have made Joseph an illegal alien in Egypt where the Jews were slaves --- I would have sent him back to his own people.
I'm not saying don't rescue these people --- but at the same time don't put them on welfare here in this country --- just send them back where they came from --- if I was kidnapped and enslaved in some foreign country --- all I would want is to come back home.
It's one thing to claim we need self-reliant strong types of immigrants to come to this country --- but quite another to claim we need the most victimizable, ignorant, helpless people to come here. It's nice to have a bleeding heart and think we can save the world by bringing everyone here so we can take care of them --- but we can't afford it. Immigration policies should be based on what benefits our nation.
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