Estructura del sujeto 1 El núcleo

Visa type Percentage (n = 58)

P3 1.7 B1/B2 24.1 A3 5.2 J1 3.4 H-2A/H-2B 58.6 C1D 1.7 E2 1.7 G5 3.4

Note: For a list of all visa classifications, descriptions, and the numbers of visas issued for fiscal years 2006 through 2010, see US Visas, “Report of the Visa Office 2010: Statistical Tables,” US Department of State, accessed October 2, 2014,

http://travel.state.gov/content/dam/visas/Statistics/FY10AnnualReport-TableXVI_B.pdf.

The use of legitimate visas as a common method of entry was discussed during our interviews with victim service providers. Below, three caseworkers describe their experience with survivors:

We think that most kinds, most labor trafficking clients at least, like come to this country either . . . don’t just cross the border, like come with some sort of status, maybe it’s not on the up and up. So yeah, so I think that is something that we always talk about, that most of our clients don’t want to be illegal. (site 1, caseworker 1)

I have about three clients who came in on false documents, who ended up doing domestic work. I have about four or five who came in on legitimate documents to do domestic work, or ended up doing domestic work whether or not the documents were . . . either they had tourist visas or some other kind of visa. And then a number of clients, probably the majority of the labor trafficking clients, came in on legitimate work visas, like H-2B or other types of visas. (site 1, caseworkers 2 and 3)

Given the motivations of many of the survivors interviewed, their desire and recruitment to pursue lawful employment in the United States, and the role played by recruiters in advertising job positions and assisting victims with obtaining visas, the use of valid documents to facilitate movement should not be surprising. In fact, in our victim case record database, only one individual traveled to the United States with fraudulent documents, and this approach was referenced by only a few survivors who participated in our interviews. The traffickers of one survivor of domestic servitude from Africa, for example, created a false identity for the victim, who was a minor at the time, and brought her to the United States. Although one of the caseworkers quoted above stated that most of the survivors she

worked with had entered the United States legally, other service providers noted that a pattern had emerged of victims using someone else’s documents:

And I would say also, in terms of false documents, they’re usually not forged documents, they are somebody else’s documents. So there is somebody else who has legitimate visas to the United States or whatever, and then those documents are provided to somebody else. And just as like an anecdote or whatever, I would say most of those cases are with African women, and it’s just something to note or think about, how is it that border control people after 2001, can’t tell the difference between different African women? There are no changes at all. These are like somebody else’s documents with somebody else’s picture who kind of look maybe the . . . generally the same facial structure, like probably. But we’re not talking like identical twins or anything here at all. And we have, I mean just here, we have like half a dozen probably who’ve come in on that way. (site 1, caseworkers 2 and 3)

In addition, even if victims entered the United States with legal documents, fraud may have been involved during the visa application process. As discussed previously, some survivors participating in our interviews had received training and coaching before their interview with embassy or consulate officials. However, it was not always clear whether victims knew that the visas they were instructed by recruiters and/or traffickers to apply for (e.g., tourist visas or business visas) legally allowed them to work for the jobs they were being recruited for.

Although the majority of labor trafficking victims entered the United States with a visa, 29 percent of individuals in our case records entered the United States without authorization, and 27 percent were smuggled into the country.31 _{Of the victims smuggled in, 94 percent paid a smuggling fee that cost} $6,430 on average.32 _{Individuals smuggled into the United States typically came from Mexico or South} American countries and crossed the US–Mexico border. In some instances, the smugglers (or coyotes) had relationships with the traffickers, but in other instances there was no nexus between the two groups. One law enforcement officer discussed these patterns in a labor trafficking case he had investigated:

And the case that we had where they were bringing them up from Mexico, they actually had, and it was out in [site 3]. There was a ranch out there and so they were bringing people up from Mexico and they were working on this farm . . . they were just smuggled over. Oh, well, that was actually arranged by the owner of the farm. It was kind of a package deal where, “You come over. I’ll get you here.” And I don’t remember the exact route that they were taking, but I do know that it was just a typical kind of smuggling route into where they walked across the border. You know, found a vulnerable entry point. So they were not coming in with any kind of visa or status. They just kind of made their way up from Mexico. (site 3, law enforcement 2)

For one survivor participating in our interviews, the relationship between the trafficker—her aunt— and the coyotes hired to smuggle her and other victims across the border was far more contentious. The survivor described her experience:

We crossed the border and we got to Nogales, Arizona.33 We stayed there another week in a house and they [the smugglers] treated us well there. From there, they took us to another house, a house in, what’s the name—Phoenix. And we stayed there another week and that is where the problem started. . . . When we arrived in Phoenix, it was only some of [us] girls, it wasn’t all of us and it had been a week and my aunt was not communicating with the people who had us. And they didn’t want—they wanted more money for us than what—like there was a problem because of the money and the girls would give me bad looks because they thought I was her family, well because she is my aunt, I don’t know. They thought I knew what my aunt was doing. (site 3, survivor 5, female, restaurants)

The survivor would eventually be picked up by her aunt and uncle and driven to the city and state where her victimization took place. From acquiring legitimate visas to hiring coyotes, these examples highlight the various methods of entry that facilitate the victims’ travel from their origin countries to the United States. In the next section, we further detail the common forms of transportation and migration patterns used during the movement process.

BOX 5.1