Once victims of labor trafficking were properly identified, connected to the specialized service providers in our study, and informed of their immigration options, some decided to move forward with the immigration process in the United States. This process can involve applying for a T visa, as well as continued presence and work authorization pending a T visa. Immigration assistance for labor
trafficking survivors was important, not only in remedying their immediate immigration status, but also in allowing them the ability to move on with their lives and get an ID, a job, rent an apartment, and so on.
Survivor: Well, after they gave me a place to . . . food to eat and a place to stay, of course, the other thing that I also wanted to make things easier was to have legal documents to stay here
and to pretty much level up to people. I wanted to level up to everybody living here and that was the one that I was lacking, that I would really like . . . love to have.
Interviewer: What does that mean to you? Why is it so important?
Survivor: Because there was a lot of things that I needed to do but I could not have done it because I did not have any documents, legal documents. I wanted to live at a place on my own. I could not do that because I did not have any legal documents to stay. I wanted to start working. I could not do that because I did not have any legal documents to stay. I wanted to start working and make a living. I couldn’t do that because I didn’t have legal documents. So those are big things, you know? (site 3, survivor 6, female, domestic servitude)
Although in theory and on paper a victim of labor trafficking can apply for continued presence and a T visa, service providers are careful to explain to clients that there is no guarantee their case will be approved. A barrier to obtaining these forms of relief for survivors is the requirement that law
enforcement signs off on the paperwork. A condition of applying for CP or a T visa is victim willingness to cooperate in a law enforcement investigation. This can sometimes be a barrier for survivors who may be afraid of retribution from a trafficker or afraid they may be deported for being unauthorized, but the survivors in our interview sample were all willing to cooperate. Nevertheless, service providers across all sites reported that it was very difficult to obtain CP. Attitudinal barriers were reflected in survivors’ accounts of their experiences with immigration and law enforcement officials, who sometimes
perceived them as criminals for being unauthorized immigrants. One service provider in site 2 [South] explained the challenges she faced, even as a former member of law enforcement, obtaining the required signatures for immigration paperwork from police and the tactics she used to overcome attitudinal barriers and biases:
And they [survivors] do want to go on with their lives. A lot of them don’t know they have services coming to them; they don’t understand the T visa, the U visa. Law enforcement doesn’t understand that. That’s another challenging thing with law enforcement. I explained to them U visa, T visa. For them cooperating with you, and doing what they said they would do, and what you want them to do, they get services that could include money, that could include a chance to stay in this country legally. They don’t get citizenship; they don’t get a gold medal. They are not going to eat your dinner. They are not going to take your job. That’s where they get this hiccup. And I’m like that little piece is one paper out of 400. We really should start bringing in a binder for the T visa. There’s no lying going on. It’s checked and double-checked. For someone to pull the wool over your eyes, our eyes, and the government’s eyes, it just doesn’t happen. (site 2, victim service provider 1)
Site 3 [Southwest] advocates reported similar challenges obtaining continued presence for their labor trafficking clients. It is significant that the whim or dominant attitudes of investigators or differing priorities of federal agencies may be the difference in whether a labor trafficking survivor is granted CP. As a result, justice for survivors of labor trafficking and the enforcement of their rights under law varies by location across the United States.
A willingness to support CP obviously is an issue. It’s still pretty rare. Overall there is a sense they’re going to see somebody as a perpetrator before they are going to see them as a potential victim. (site 3, attorney 1)
A service provider in site 4 [rural North] expressed similar frustrations:
And I want this very much on record: This is the first CP that we’ve received in three years for every single, any case that we’ve worked with. Like it’s appalling. And it took 11 weeks. So it took 11 weeks from the day. All we asked for out of that meeting was a reinterview [of the victim by federal law enforcement]. So we got a reinterview and it was like, “Wow, he sounds really coached. He sounds really prepared.” And we were like, “He is. He’s smart and we prepared him for this meeting.” (site 4a, victim service provider 1)
The victim service provider quoted above was not alone in describing how service providers
sometimes faced the challenge of law enforcement thinking that victims were not credible because they had received assistance or coaching in what to say from the service provider. And as the attorney quoted below further explains, there may be individuals whom a specific federal law enforcement agent believes are labor trafficking survivors, but they will still refuse to grant CP due to a perception that their headquarters would not approve it. This attorney also commented that federal law enforcement officials from different agencies (Department of Homeland Security, Homeland Security Investigations (HSI)54versus FBI) may differ in their willingness to support CP, particularly in cases when it is unclear that a suspect is identified and will be prosecuted.
In my [city] case we tried to renew the CP, and the agent would literally not return any of my phone calls. Maybe he was unhappy with me in that case because he said, “I’m not signing the supplement B because we can’t find the trafficker and headquarters won’t support it.” And I’d sent him a letter saying, “We had the following conversation; if this isn’t true, call me.” That might have ticked him off. That was my only theory in that case, or he was just sick of that case because it wasn’t going anywhere. (site 4a, outside attorney 1)
This attorney went on to explain the detrimental effects delays in granting or not granting continued presence can have on victims and their families. Below she references a case involving a farmworker shot at by a trafficker. When police responded, the victim was jailed for being
unauthorized.
Interviewer: So from the point of first submitting the application [for CP] until when you get it, on average how long does that take?
Service provider: Three or four months, and that’s not counting any time we’ve spent debating with ICE whether and how we’re going to do that. Which cost them more time. The farmworker who was shot at, we learned about him in July, got him out of the detention center early August, and then finally got okayed for CP September [or] October, and were told that it had been filed in November. And then a few days ago there was an email that [said], yeah, “The work permit should be coming sometime in the near future, we don’t know when.” That’s way too much time
in the client’s point of view. His family in his home country have been going into debt all of the time. (site 4a, outside attorney 1)
Already saddled by significant debt and the stolen wages of their labor trafficked employment, sometimes the burden of forgoing work while awaiting CP or a T visa (which they are never guaranteed) is too high for the survivors. As a result, they may take the chance of working under-the-table during this time or forgo immigration relief altogether and move to wherever they are able to find work, thus remaining unauthorized. For example, in one of the cases in our sample, a victim rescued from a massage parlor where she was being forced to work to pay off snakehead debt ended up going to another massage parlor operated by an associate of the trafficker due to delays with CP.
Not surprisingly, given the challenges and difficulties service providers reported in trying to obtain CP from federal law enforcement officials on behalf of their clients, CP was rarely granted to survivors in our study. However, service providers in our sample reported high success rates obtaining T visas, although this route was lengthier and burdensome on survivors unable to legally work during this time.
A T visa, which is valid for four years, is not a permanent form of immigration relief. After three years, T visa holders can apply to adjust their status to permanent residency (also known as a green card). To successfully adjust to permanent residency, a survivor must meet certain criteria, including having remained physically present in the United States for a continuous period of at least three years before their application for adjustment. This requirement placed a significant burden on some survivors in our sample. Below is the experience of a single, 28-year-old female from Sri Lanka who had been labor trafficked as domestic servant for six years. She escaped by jumping from a window and hiding in a garage; she was found by a neighbor who was alerted by her barking dog. Although this survivor was connected to a specialized service provider almost immediately after her escape and received a T visa, she still reflected sadly on the length of time she was away from her family, an absence increased by not being able to travel outside the United States with a T visa.
Everybody in Sri Lanka, I hope I can bring somebody here, so this, I not be alone. So I’m almost now eight years I didn’t go to visit my families. So I really miss them, I want to go see them, all my family and my sisters. My mom, she’s very very sick, so she telling me, “I won’t see you, I’m missing you, come to,” so I thought yeah, I will come so when I fix my green card. (site 2, survivor 3, female, domestic servitude)
For some survivors, the cost of not being able to return home for three years (on top of the length of time they had already been labor trafficked and/or living under the radar after their escape) was too great to bear. In one case, farmworkers had been making their living coming in and out of the United States on H-2A agriculture visas for migrant farmwork before one of their jobs turning into labor trafficking, which caused them to overstay their visas. Although they were offered T visas, the visa
requirements meant they would have had to forgo working until their T visas and employment
authorization documents were issued (which could take months to years) and then remain in the United States for three years after the T visa was issued. With families back home relying on their income, facing hardships compounded by their labor trafficking,55 and with few viable options for employment, they decided against the T visa.
And that case, basically, they did not want to stay here, they wanted to go home to Mexico and they wanted to keep coming back and forth doing their seasonal thing. So, it was really nice that we rescued them, they appreciated that, but they had things to do. . . . And you know, when we told them about the T visa they were like, “Yeah, that’s great, but we want to live in Mexico and come for six months a year and what we want from US legal representatives is that not to be problem.” And our solution ended up being contacting ICE and getting them to put some sort of notes in the DHS file [saying] their visa overstay was not their fault because of the [labor trafficking] situation, in hopes that that wouldn’t make problems for them in the future if it was explained. (site 4a, attorney 1)
Because our sample of survivors was biased toward those who received immigration relief from service providers, we do not know how many labor trafficking survivors are identified, but choose to forgo immigration relief for reasons similar to the reasons cited above. The requirement that survivors assist in a law enforcement investigation and prosecution against traffickers, with no guarantee the traffickers (and more importantly any international associates back home) will be apprehended, may also prevent survivors from moving forward with a T visa.56