This summer I worked at the Anti-Trafficking Program, a division within Safe Horizon, a non-profit organization in New York City. Safe Horizon's motto is "Moving victims of violence from crisis to confidence," and working with their Anti-Trafficking Program, I saw this occur throughout the summer.
Victims of human trafficking have experienced force, fraud or coercion in their work. While most people have heard the term sex trafficking, labor trafficking is much more common, with three labor trafficking victims for every one victim of sex trafficking. I was able to handle many labor trafficking cases as well as a sex trafficking case this summer, providing immigration relief and criminal justice advocacy for clients.
Traffickers create an environment of isolation. When a survivor of human trafficking first escapes from a trafficker, their immediate needs include shelter, food and medical assistance, as well as legal assistance. For most foreign nationals who have been trafficked into the United States, immigration relief is a primary concern. The Trafficking Victims Protection Act, now known as the Trafficking Victims Protection Re-authorization Act (TVPRA), provides a Visa specifically for these victims. This immigration relief not only allows a survivor to obtain legal status in the United States, it also makes a survivor eligible for public assistance. For trafficking victims who have come from working incredibly long hours for little to no pay, these benefits begin to create a system of stability and support. This is a main benefit of the T-Visa, which is not available under other types of immigration relief (such as the U-Visa for crime victims).
After three years in T-Visa status while continually present in the United States, or after the investigation and prosecution of a trafficking case is closed, T-Visa holders can adjust their status to that of permanent resident. This allows them to travel outside the US and return to their home country to visit family and friends, while maintaining status in the United States. After 5 years as a permanent resident, trafficking victims can nationalize and become US citizens. Many clients I worked with this summer were in the process of adjusting status to become permanent residents. This involved filing forms with US Customs and Immigration Services, after meeting to draft an affidavit, obtain a police good conduct certificate and a medical exam performed by a civil surgeon.
What I found most rewarding this summer was working directly with clients. After suffering through so much, trafficking survivors deserve immigration relief and a chance to build a life in the United States, free from fear of re-victimization or deportation. Furthermore, a developing trend in trafficking victim services is pursuing civil remedies, such as back pay from their traffickers for all their unpaid labor. These civil suits provide victims with further support and should be pursued more widely. Since the creation of the right for civil suits for trafficking victims 10 years ago, only 90 suits have been filed. Learning about the lack of civil suits this summer emphasized the need for more attorneys in the anti-trafficking field.
To read about a large labor trafficking case, check out this website, describing the bust of a labor trafficking ring in Kansas City, Missouri. Crystal Management, the company responsible for trafficking so many individuals, used recruiters in victims' home countries to convince them to come to the United States for a better job and a better life. Unfortunately, those who came were shocked to learn that after paying large sums of money in their home country (sometimes as much as $30,000), they would not be working in the promised jobs in the US. Instead they were forced to live in overcrowded apartments, work more than 40 hours a week with no overtime pay, and have all their paychecks come and show almost no compensation, as they were subject to "deductions" for rent, transportation and other services, all of which was supposed to be covered by their original deposit.
http://www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/stories/2009/05/25/daily15.html?page=all
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