On July 23-24, a large group of federal, state, and local law enforcement officers and officials, researchers, service providers, and representatives of foreign governments gathered in Houston for the third annual Conference to Combat Human Trafficking, which the Center for Immigration Studies co-sponsors with the Borders, Trade, and Immigration (BTI) Institute in Houston and the Harris County Department of Education.
This year’s agenda featured speakers giving cause for optimism that effective tools exist, and others can be developed, to address trafficking. Nevertheless, obstacles remain, including the continuing crisis at the border and accessible data to support sound research and policy development. Many participants expressed the view that additional attention and resources should be devoted to tackling labor trafficking, in addition to sex trafficking.
Among the highlights of the conference:
T Visa Trends and Policy Changes. I gave a presentation on concerning new developments in the issuance of visas to victims of human trafficking (T visas). Applications for T visas have grown from about 700 in 2008 to well over 13,000 in 2023, and they are on track to approach 20,000 applications in 2024. This explosion in applications reflects not only increased incidents of human trafficking due to loose border policies and the dismantling of interior enforcement, but also new policies on administering these visas adopted in 2021.
Between the lenient new rules and existing concerns and problems in the T visa program, it is fair to ask whether the program is actually helping.
To make matters worse, the Biden-Harris administration is implementing new regulations at the end of August that will further incentivize fraudulent and frivolous applications. These include stretching the definitions of eligibility far from the letter of the law and also allowing applicants to obtain a work permit immediately upon application, before eligibility is determined.
Between the lenient new rules and existing concerns and problems in the T visa program, it is fair to ask whether the program is actually helping address the problem of human trafficking and aiding in the prosecution of severe forms of trafficking. I encouraged law enforcement agencies to consider using the ICE Continued Presence program, which provides swifter access to victim benefits, instead of the T visa program, which is likely to become even more bogged down and fraud-prone. My presentation is available here.
New Trafficking Data Warehouse. Mateo Langston Smith spoke about the Human Trafficking Data Research Project housed at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, where Smith is the Research Technology Director. With funding from the Department of Justice, Smith and project director Beth Paramo-Wheaton have established a clearinghouse of data on human trafficking that is available to researchers, law enforcement agencies, and policy makers. Vetted users of the data warehouse can set up a dashboard to assist in accessing and analyzing the data, and work with the project staff on research problems. Smith’s presentation, with much more information about the data warehouse, is here.
How Has AI Been Used to Fight Trafficking? Thao Ngoc Do, a doctoral candidate at the University of Bath in England presented the findings of her research on how artificial intelligence (AI) has been deployed to fight human trafficking. Her work is a useful compendium of the various types of AI applications, from social media data-mining to language processing to chatbots, and how they have been used in different ways to detect, prevent, and investigate human trafficking. She also explores the ethical and privacy considerations in using such tools. Do found that in each year since 2010, an average of three new AI tools have been introduced that aimed to fight human trafficking, with the majority (53 percent) focused on sex trafficking and only 14 percent focused on labor trafficking. Most of the tools are intended to help prosecute human trafficking, with much smaller numbers focused on prevention or on protecting victims. Her presentation is here.
Using Code Enforcement to Address Human Trafficking. The most fascinating presentation came from a senior Vice Officer in the Human Trafficking Unit of the Houston Police Department. He described how the city has effectively used existing city business licensing, health, safety, and building code regulations to target illicit businesses where trafficking is suspected to be occurring, such as illicit massage parlors, strip clubs, and other similar establishments.
Specially trained city regulatory officers can enter the property without warning to perform an inspection. This inspection enables the officer to determine if crimes are happening at the business, identify those involved, and levy fines and other penalties for code violations, which apparently are routine in these illicit establishments. These violations include failing to display business licenses, employing unlicensed “massage therapists,” failing to maintain the required employee records, violations of health and sanitation laws, failing to display mandatory signage for health and safety procedures or the required human trafficking hotline poster, failing to install certain interior doors, and much, much more. The inspector can take photographs and demand identification from anyone on the premises, and even lock down or close the site on the spot if warranted.
Nuisance abatement and eviction lawsuits should also be considered against properties being used as stash houses or migrant shelters.
The fines that can be issued to the property owner and the manager of the business can be surprisingly significant and financially painful to the criminal enterprise. In addition, the inspector can collect valuable evidence for future prosecution. In addition, in the state of Texas, prosecutors (and citizens) have the option of filing a civil lawsuit against the business for nuisance abatement or eviction, if certain crimes are happening at the site, such as human trafficking, firearms violations, or drug-dealing. Nuisance abatement and eviction lawsuits should also be considered against properties being used as stash houses or migrant shelters. Such actions against property owners and those who supervise or harbor illicit businesses that involve human trafficking are the most appropriate target for law enforcement, as opposed to the victims (who are in reality a mere product for sale) or even the customers.
Characteristics of Successful Prosecutions Involving Uncooperative Victims. Psychology researcher Rachel Dianiska, who is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of California, Irvine, presented the results of her research on the most effective ways to identify and obtain evidence from suspected victims of human trafficking. Dianiska performed a content analysis on more than 150 recent human trafficking and adolescent sex abuse cases in the California appellate court system. One of her main findings was that these cases were prosecuted successfully despite the fact that they typically involved minors who did not cooperate with authorities. In the human trafficking cases, the most critical evidence in the case was either electronic evidence (in 78 percent of cases) or prosecution experts (in 68 percent of cases). Defendant confessions or defense experts also contributed to successful prosecutions in about one-fourth of the cases.
While none of these cases involved non-citizens, still the results challenge the notion that victim cooperation is the most important ingredient to prosecuting a human trafficking or adolescent sex abuse case, and that sanctuary policies supposedly adopted for the purpose of increasing immigrant trust of authorities may not be as relevant or helpful to solving and prosecuting crimes as claimed.
Dianeska also analyzed a sample of transcripts of trafficking victim interviews conducted by local law enforcement agencies and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, and compared the officers’ success in applying best practices to gain rapport and elicit information from the victim. She found that the ICE agents were significantly more likely to use victim-focused techniques than local police and encountered less reluctance from the victims in providing information. Her presentation is here.
Center of Research Excellence to Counter Human Trafficking. Kevin Clement, director at the BTI Institute and our senior partner in this conference, gave a briefing on the mission and organization for our collaborative research and conference activities, which earned the Institute designation as a “Center of Research Excellence” by the Department of Homeland Security in December. It is an honor for me to participate in this project, and with additional funding, we hope to expand our activities in the coming years and continue to support those working to eradicate the scourge of human trafficking from our midst. Clement’s presentation is here.
Call for Papers in 2025. The dates for the next conference are set for July 22-24, 2025, again in Houston, Texas. Anyone interested in offering a proposal for a presentation should send a one-page synopsis to Kevin Clement at [email protected], or get in touch with me at [email protected].