To be careful and to know for sure before you go travel abroad. You need to make sure what your situation is going to be, whether you will be provided with food and shelter. Don’t just repeat the same mistake that I did: stayed quiet. Right away, run away and report it to people. (site 1, survivor 4) That there is hope. That there is a way that everything is definitely going to be, maybe not okay, but better than they are in the trafficking, than they were with the traffickers. That . . . that there is . . . the government is really going to help them get back on their feet and get their freedom back. That there’s still hope. That there is hope. (site 3, survivor 1)
I would go to immigration and police no matter what because even though they would find something wrong in your papers, I don’t think they would go ahead and deport you right away. (site 3, survivor 3) The one thing that I say to my experience is that even though we don’t speak the language, or some of us in this case, we have our native language. But we should not be afraid. We should be able to tell the police if there’s something that’s gonna harm us. Not to be afraid. (site 3, survivor 4)
The advice that I will tell them that they have to be brave. They have to be aware of what’s going on for the employment that they will have. They have to be vigilant. They have to know and they have to be aware of the employer that they will have. They have to seek advice from legal counsel or whoever. If there’s a red light already, they have to seek help. Because for me, I just kept quiet. (site 1, survivor 5) I would ask them to speak [to] the police, they would really help. Cause even though when we come everybody says, they threaten, they tell you if you ever say, it’s you who will be in trouble. In the end they have nothing to lose, they have, they have confidence and because most of the countries where,
with this, people who are here, most of the countries policeman are really corrupt. They go, “What did you give them?” So we are always afraid, even maybe American policeman are like, if you give them something then you be on the safe side even if you are wrong. (site 4, survivor 2)
I think investigating for oneself, to not become close minded, because I think when one is poverty and one wants to—what one wants is to get ahead, so, I think one takes very quick decision and act like—I accepted to come here because I wanted to help my family without knowing the consequence. So then, the more one investigates, the more one believes if it true what they promise or because there are times—there are very bad people who only think of themselves. It is happening, it is happening but there has to be a way one can—how do I say it—investigate and to have time to see how the people are. (site 2, survivor 6)
Conclusion
Through our case data analysis and interviews with survivors and service providers, we learned that labor trafficking survivors often went for months or years after their escape before being connected to service providers. During this time, they were commonly unauthorized. Some survivors sought
assistance from immigration attorneys and were turned away owing to a lack of attorney knowledge and awareness of human trafficking and available forms of immigration relief. Other survivors remained hidden and lived under the radar, afraid of being found unauthorized. Some survivors were placed in immigration detention and deportation proceedings.
When survivors were connected to service providers, their greatest needs were immigration assistance, short-term and long-term housing, physical and mental health care, and employment authorization and assistance. Shelter needs were acute, and continued presence was rarely granted by federal law enforcement. Survivors had a strong need to begin working again as soon as possible, but funding streams did not cover advanced career assistance. As a result, many survivors returned to work in low-wage, low-skilled industries regardless of their previous levels of education.
T visas were an important form of relief for survivors; service providers did not report significant barriers to obtaining these visas. However, survivors reported numerous challenges accessing services they qualified for after they received T visas, primarily owing to a lack of services agencies’ awareness of human trafficking and T visa qualification. Many survivors moved on after their trafficking without monetary compensation for their trafficked labor as civil damages; back pay was rarely awarded. Removing restrictions on service provider funding streams to allow for filing of civil relief would help. Some survivors went on to further education or training and joined advocacy groups, while others
struggled with the physical and mental health effects of their trafficking. Survivors expressed concern over their ability to adjust their status to permanent resident. The few survivors in our sample who achieved permanent resident status did so with great difficulty. Although our study provides a rich glimpse into the lives of labor trafficking survivors after their escape, additional research is needed to fully assess long-term outcomes. In the following chapter, the criminal justice response to labor trafficking is explored.
Chapter 9: Criminal Justice Process
Research questions addressed in this chapter
How do law enforcement officials in local communities define labor trafficking? How is this
definition distinct from smuggling or other forms of labor exploitation?
What is the role that law enforcement plays in investigating labor trafficking cases?
What are the cultural and structural factors that promote the identification and investigation of
labor trafficking cases, and what factors inhibit the identification and investigation of labor trafficking cases?
Main findings
Labor trafficking investigations were not prioritized by local law enforcement agencies.
Local and federal law enforcement agencies had difficulty defining labor trafficking and separating
labor trafficking from other forms of labor exploitation and workplace violations.
Law enforcement struggled to investigate labor trafficking cases that they believed had little
evidence to corroborate victim statements. Dependence on victim testimony necessitates interview techniques, including the use of culturally competent forensic interviewers, designed to promote victim well-being, reduce trauma, and promote honest disclosure of information.
When involved in cases, law enforcement sometimes played a critical role in securing victims and
facilitating victim services. This role was most common in domestic servitude cases.
Local law enforcement was reluctant to pursue immigration relief for various reasons, including
anti-immigration sentiment, lack of belief of victim statements, and challenges of working collaboratively with Homeland Security.
Previous research confirms that law enforcement faces numerous difficulties identifying and investigating human trafficking (Farrell et al. 2012). These difficulties are exacerbated in the case of labor trafficking. Even when local law enforcement agencies are aware of human trafficking and commit resources to identifying victims and holding offenders accountable, they identify very few labor
trafficking cases. Research has posited various potential explanations for the low number of labor trafficking cases identified by the police. First, local police do not understand what human trafficking is (Newton, Mulcahy, and Martin 2008). They are unsure how to identify labor trafficking and do not believe it is something they would encounter in the normal course of their duties. When they do
recognize human trafficking, they define the problem as sex trafficking and focus on sex trafficking of minors (Farrell and Pfeffer 2014). This practice is exacerbated by the location of investigatory
specialization within units that deal with sex crimes and vice. Second, local law enforcement do not see enforcement of labor code violations as part of their mission. They believe that the responsibility for investigating labor trafficking lies with other agencies, such as regulatory agencies or federal law enforcement. Finally, the local police do not receive calls about labor trafficking. Although they believe it may occur in their jurisdiction, they take a reactive approach to these investigations (Farrell et al. 2012; Barrick et al. 2013).
Studies that have used law enforcement as the starting point to examine human trafficking have encountered challenges. Researching the extent of labor trafficking in agricultural industries in North Carolina, Barrick and colleagues (2013) found that across 17 study counties nearly all the local law enforcement agencies contacted for interviews either declined requests to answer questions about labor trafficking, claiming that no labor trafficking existed in their jurisdiction, or failed to respond completely to requests for information. In the three counties where Barrick and colleagues were able to conduct interviews, local law enforcement officials indicated that they had never investigated a case of labor trafficking, despite the fact that surveys with migrant farmworkers and interviews with service providers and legal advocates suggested a large number of human trafficking victims in the area. Farrell and colleagues (2012), who examined the barriers to police investigation and prosecution of human trafficking, found that in 12 study counties in the United States no labor trafficking cases were prosecuted in state courts, and local law enforcement had very little experience investigating labor trafficking cases.
If law enforcement identifies very few cases of labor trafficking It is difficult to learn much about the nature of labor trafficking or truly understand if and how the police are missing labor trafficking occurring in their communities. it is difficult to know the extent to which the few cases that come to law enforcement attention are representative of the universe of labor trafficking cases. Unlike previous studies that rely on the police for primary information about labor trafficking, the research described in this chapter comes from data collected in four communities in the United States where numerous labor trafficking cases had been identified by victim service providers and legal advocates who work with trafficking victims. In-depth interviews with 28 victims, 36 victim service providers and legal advocates, and 24 state, local, and federal law enforcement agents across the four study sites inform our findings. Law enforcement agencies in all four study sites were currently participating or had recently
participated in federally funded human trafficking task forces. As a result, they were likely more educated about human trafficking and had more organizational support to investigate human
trafficking cases than a traditional law enforcement agency. Interviews with local and federal law enforcement officials in each of the study jurisdictions were intended to provide additional information about the nature of labor trafficking that might be unknown to victim service providers or victims. Law enforcement interviews also helped us evaluate the degree to which police were aware of the labor trafficking cases identified in their jurisdiction and understand the challenges they faced investigating these cases.