[House Hearing, 117 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
OVERSIGHT OF FEDERAL EFFORTS
TO COMBAT HUMAN TRAFFICKING
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIME, TERRORISM,
AND HOMELAND SECURITY
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEETH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
----------
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 27, 2022
----------
Serial No. 117-63
----------
Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary
Available via: http://judiciary.house.gov
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
48-399 WASHINGTON : 2022
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
JERROLD NADLER, New York, Chair
MADELEINE DEAN, Pennsylvania, Vice-Chair
ZOE LOFGREN, California JIM JORDAN, Ohio, Ranking Member
SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas STEVE CHABOT, Ohio
STEVE COHEN, Tennessee LOUIE GOHMERT, Texas
HENRY C. ``HANK'' JOHNSON, Jr., DARRELL ISSA, California
Georgia KEN BUCK, Colorado
THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida MATT GAETZ, Florida
KAREN BASS, California MIKE JOHNSON, Louisiana
HAKEEM S. JEFFRIES, New York ANDY BIGGS, Arizona
DAVID N. CICILLINE, Rhode Island TOM McCLINTOCK, California
ERIC SWALWELL, California W. GREGORY STEUBE, Florida
TED LIEU, California TOM TIFFANY, Wisconsin
JAMIE RASKIN, Maryland THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky
PRAMILA JAYAPAL, Washington CHIP ROY, Texas
VAL BUTLER DEMINGS, Florida DAN BISHOP, North Carolina
J. LUIS CORREA, California MICHELLE FISCHBACH, Minnesota
MARY GAY SCANLON, Pennsylvania VICTORIA SPARTZ, Indiana
SYLVIA R. GARCIA, Texas SCOTT FITZGERALD, Wisconsin
JOE NEGUSE, Colorado CLIFF BENTZ, Oregon
LUCY McBATH, Georgia BURGESS OWENS, Utah
GREG STANTON, Arizona
VERONICA ESCOBAR, Texas
MONDAIRE JONES, New York
DEBORAH ROSS, North Carolina
CORI BUSH, Missouri
AMY RUTKIN, Majority Staff Director and Chief of Staff
CHRISTOPHER HIXON, Minority Staff Director
------
SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIME, TERRORISM, AND HOMELAND SECURITY
SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas, Chair
CORI BUSH, Missouri, Vice-Chair
KAREN BASS, California ANDY BIGGS, Arizona, Ranking
VAL DEMINGS, Florida Member
LUCY McBATH, Georgia STEVE CHABOT, Ohio
MADELEINE DEAN, Pennsylvania LOUIE GOHMERT, Texas
MARY GAY SCANLON, Pennsylvania W. GREGORY STEUBE, Florida
DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island TOM TIFFANY, Wisconsin
TED LIEU, California THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky
J. LUIS CORREA, California VICTORIA SPARTZ, Indiana
VERONICA ESCOBAR, Texas SCOTT FITZGERALD, Wisconsin
STEVE COHEN, Tennessee BURGESS OWENS, Utah
KEENAN KELLER, Chief Counsel
JASON CERVENAK, Minority Counsel
C O N T E N T S
----------
Wednesday, April 27, 2022
Page
OPENING STATEMENTS
The Honorable Sheila Jackson Lee, Chair of the Subcommittee on
Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security from the State of Texas 2
The Honorable Andy Biggs, Ranking Member of the Subcommittee
Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security from the State of
Arizona........................................................ 30
The Honorable Jerrold Nadler, Chair of the Committee on the
Judiciary from the State of New York........................... 39
WITNESSES
Evelyn Chumbow, Greater Washington, DC Area
Oral Testimony................................................. 46
Prepared Statement............................................. 48
Jessica M. Vaughan, Director of Policy Studies, Center for
Immigration Studies
Oral Testimony................................................. 54
Prepared Statement............................................. 56
Shamere McKenzie, Greater Washington, DC Area
Oral Testimony................................................. 66
Prepared Statement............................................. 68
Cristian Eduardo, Greater New York City Area
Oral Testimony................................................. 71
Prepared Statement............................................. 73
Sherriff Mark J. Dannels, Cochise County, AZ
Oral Testimony................................................. 77
Prepared Statement............................................. 79
Terry FitzPatrick, Director, Alliance to End Slavery and
Trafficking (ATEST)
Oral Testimony................................................. 128
Prepared Statement............................................. 130
Jacquelyn Aluotto, Co-Founder, No Trafficking Zone
Oral Testimony................................................. 136
Prepared Statement............................................. 138
Martina E. Vandenberg, Founder and President, The Human
Trafficking Legal Center
Oral Testimony................................................. 149
Prepared Statement............................................. 151
LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING
Materials submitted by the Honorable Sheila Jackson Lee, Chair of
the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security
from the State of Texas, for the record
Statement from James L. Dold, CEO & Founder, Human Rights for
Kids......................................................... 6
Statement from Michelle Guymon, Probation Director, Los Angeles
County Probation Department and Kate Walker Brown, Senior
Director, Collaborative Responses to Commercial Sexual
Exploitation Initiative, National Center for Youth Law....... 18
Statement from Courtney Litvak, a Member of the United States
Advisory Council on Human Trafficking........................ 29
Materials submitted by the Honorable Andy Biggs, Ranking Member
of the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security
from the State of Arizona, for the record
A letter from the Republican Members of the Subcommittee on
Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security to the Honorable
Sheila Jackson Lee, Chair of the Subcommittee on Crime,
Terrorism, and Homeland Security, dated March 18, 2021....... 32
A letter from the Republican Members of the Subcommittee on
Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security to the Honorable
Sheila Jackson Lee, Chair of the Subcommittee on Crime,
Terrorism, and Homeland Security, dated February 16, 2022.... 35
A sign entitled, ``Visitor Information Update: Smuggling and
illegal immigration may be encountered in this area''........ 42
Materials submitted by the Honorable Sheila Jackson Lee, Chair of
the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security
from the State of Texas, for the record
An article entitled, ``Father of woman who vanished after
leaving Houston strip club says she's a victim of human
trafficking'' FOX 26, Houston................................ 184
An article entitled, ``Kidnapped California baby found, 3
suspects detained'' AP News.................................. 187
An article entitled, ``DPS Arrests 35 in Joint Human
Trafficking Operations,'' DPS News........................... 189
A press release entitled, ``Nine Members and Associates of
Nationwide Sex Trafficking and Prostitution Enterprise
Indicted on Racketeering and Related Charges,'' U.S.
Attorney's Office, Eastern District of New York, Department
of Justice................................................... 191
A press release entitled, ``Sex Trafficking Conspiracy Member
Sentenced to Nine Years in Federal Prison,'' U.S. Attorney's
Office, District of Maryland, Department of Justice.......... 195
A document entitled, ``Man Sentenced to 10 Years for Offering
to `Break' Sex Trafficking Victim,'' U.S. Attorney's Office,
Northern District of Texas, Department of Justice............ 197
An article entitled, ``6 Truths About Human Trafficking in
Texas,'' Upbring............................................. 199
APPENDIX
Materials submitted by the Honorable Sheila Jackson Lee, Chair of
the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security
from the State of Texas, for the record
The National Human Trafficking Hotline--Texas.................. 206
A report entitled, ``2020 Federal Human Trafficking Report:
Texas State Summary,'' Human Trafficking Institute........... 211
Document from Linda Smith, Shared Hope International........... 213
Statement from Shared Hope International, Institute for Justice
& Advocacy................................................... 213
A report entitled, ``Responding to Sex Trafficking: Victim-
Offender Intersectionality,'' Shared Hope International and
Villanova Law Institute to Address Commercial Sexual
Exploitation................................................. 216
A report entitled, ``Report Cards on Child & Youth Sex
Trafficking, State Action. National Change, 2021 Toolkit,''
Shared Hope International.................................... 280
Statement from Landon Starbuck, Founder, Freedom Forever and
Jennisue Jessen, Survivor Leader, Subject Matter Expert,
Freedom Forever.............................................. 325
Statement from Kristi Wells, Chief Executive Officer, Safe
House Project................................................ 328
Statement from Deborah S. Sigmund, Founder and Executive
Director, Innocents at Risk.................................. 332
Document from Tammy Toney-Butler............................... 336
QUESTIONS AND RESPONSES FOR THE OFFICIAL RECORD
Questions to witnesses from the Honorable Madeleine Dean, a
Member of the Subcommittee Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland
Security from the State of Pennsylvania, for the record........ 338
Response from Evelyn Chumbow, Greater Washington, DC Area........ 340
Response from Terry FitzPatrick, Director, Alliance to End
Slavery and Trafficking (ATEST)................................ 342
Response from Martina E. Vandenberg, Founder and President, The
Human Trafficking Legal Center................................. 348
OVERSIGHT OF FEDERAL EFFORTS
TO COMBAT HUMAN TRAFFICKING
----------
Wednesday, April 27, 2022
House of Representatives
Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security
Committee on the Judiciary
Washington, DC
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:08 a.m., in
Room 2141, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Sheila Jackson
Lee [Chair of the Subcommittee] presiding.
Members present: Representatives Nadler, Jackson Lee, Bass,
McBath, Scanlon, Lieu, Correa, Escobar, Jordan, Biggs, Chabot,
Gohmert, Steube, Tiffany, Massie, Fitzgerald, and Owens.
Staff present: Aaron Hiller, Chief Counsel and Deputy Staff
Director; John Doty, Senior Advisor and Deputy Staff Director;
Moh Sharma, Director of Member Services and Outreach & Policy
Advisor; Brady Young, Parliamentarian; Cierra Fontenot, Chief
Clerk; Merrick Nelson, Digital Director; Keenan Keller, Chief
Counsel for Crime; Mauri Gray, Deputy Chief Counsel for Crime;
Natalie Knight, Counsel for Crime; Veronica Eligan,
Professional Staff Member/Legislative Aide for Crime; Jason
Cervenak, Minority Chief Counsel for Crime; Ken David, Minority
Counsel; Michael Koren, Minority Professional Staff Member;
Andrea Woodard, Minority Professional Staff Member; and Kiley
Bidelman, Minority Clerk.
Ms. Jackson Lee. The Subcommittee will come order. Without
objection, the Chair is authorized to declare a recess of the
Committee at any time.
Good morning and welcome to today's hearing on the
Oversight Hearing on Federal Efforts to Combat Human
Trafficking. I would like to remind Members that we have
established an email address and distribution list to circulate
exhibits, motions, or other written materials that Members
might want to offer as part of our hearing today. If you would
like to submit materials, please send them to the email address
that has been previously distributed to your offices and we
will circulate the materials to Members and staff as quickly as
we can.
I would also ask all Members, both those in person and
those attending remotely, to please mute your microphone when
you are not speaking. This will help prevent feedback and other
technical issues. You may unmute yourself any time you seek
recognition.
We look forward to moving quickly and let me, as I
recognize myself, acknowledge today of the funeral services for
our late former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright with whom
we have the great respect and honor for her service to this
nation. She was a great American and a great patriot.
I now recognize myself for an opening statement.
Today's hearing will focus on Federal efforts to combat
human trafficking. At the onset, I must stress that human
trafficking and human smuggling are two different crimes. Human
trafficking involves the victimization of adults, youth, and
children for the purposes of performing labor, commercial sex
acts, and other services. It can happen anywhere in America, in
rural communities, in the form of agricultural labor; in urban
communities, in the form of massage parlors; and suburban
communities, in the form of domestic labor or in any
combination.
The public perception of human trafficking is dangerously
flawed. While we may be tempted to believe human trafficking
happens only in foreign countries where people are grabbed off
the street and thrown into a car, or victims are moved from one
place to another under the cover of night, the reality is that
human trafficking can occur anywhere in the United States,
including in a victim's own home.
Human smuggling is a business of transporting people
illegally across an international border. Human smuggling,
unlike human trafficking, does not involve coercion. The people
smugglers bring from one place to another, illegally, generally
have chosen to make the trip sometimes under false pretenses,
but they made that decision themselves for any number of
reasons. Some are fleeing violence or poverty. Human
trafficking, by contrast, is involuntary.
Smuggling people across international borders is an equally
troubling crime, but distinct from human trafficking. With
human smuggling, the victim is of the United States and with
human trafficking, the victims are the women, men, youth, and
children who are treated like modern-day slaves. Human
trafficking and the scourge of human trafficking and the
eliminating of human trafficking is close to my heart.
This is a very important hearing for me, very important for
the Witnesses that are here. I know the sacrifice that
survivors are making to even testify. My commitment to you that
we are working to ensure that we are seen as a country that is
fighting to eliminate the scourge of human trafficking.
As I said, human smugglers are people who come for justice,
business, economic opportunity. We understand that. Human
smugglers ignore and evade our immigration laws. They must be
prosecuted, and the exploitation of their victims must not go
unpunished.
I am sure we will hear from our Witnesses today, human
traffickers are typically subtle and charismatic. They may
sometimes be our family Members or acquaintances. They befriend
their targets and coax and coerce them into signing up for work
or selling their bodies. Although some populations are at
greater risk than others, human trafficking spans all races,
ages, genders, and every socioeconomic status.
Take for instance, the honorable Courtney Litvak, a
courageous young woman from my State of Texas who is here with
us today. Courtney, this is her story. She has the
understanding of a very deep and important message. Courtney
has made it her mission to tell her story and speak out, spread
awareness about human trafficking, help shape policy to protect
other young people from falling victim to the schemes of human
traffickers, and to hold traffickers accountable.
Courtney first became entangled in sex trafficking when she
was still in high school. Despite what some believe about
victims of human trafficking, she grew up in a loving church-
going family, in a safe neighborhood, and attended an upscale
suburban high school in Texas. By the age of 18, she was being
sold for sex on websites like backpage.com. Courtney was a
junior in high school when a series of traumatic experiences
occurred, leaving her emotionally susceptible and in a downward
spiral. Like so many victims of human trafficking, she began
participating in high-risk behaviors driven by the traffickers
including using drugs and alcohol.
A trafficker with ties to her high school used fellow
students to prey upon her and use her vulnerability to their
advantage, offering her friendship and support when they felt
she had none, meanwhile, drawing her gradually into the life.
How tragic for so many of our young people.
A groomer chatted with her through social media and other
apps for almost a year. She grew to trust this person who was a
friend of a friend. He picked her up from school one day and
Courtney soon realized that this person she thought she loved
meant to pass her on to a trafficker for a finder's fee. It is
tragic that this goes on every single day around schools.
Because of stories like Courtney's, last week I introduced
a Stop Human Trafficking in School Zones Act, a bipartisan
bill, which will create a sentencing enhancement of up to five
additional years imprisonment for commission of the offense of
child sex trafficking on or within a thousand feet of a school
or premises in which a school-sponsored activity is taking
place to ensure that schools are a safe haven for students.
That trafficking bill is H.R. 7566.
Eventually, Courtney would be transported from Texas to
California, then Las Vegas, passing from the clutches of one
trafficker to another. Coercive tactics of her captors varied
from subtle to overt, physical to psychological, from violence
to caring. On occasion, when she attempted to reach out,
officials treated her like a criminal, convincing her that the
safest place for her might be with the trafficker. Traffickers
can make themselves like their family or friends and deceive
people.
States made great strides in curtailing the criminalization
of human trafficking victims in various measures. The State of
Texas has been one of them, even though Houston has been the
epicenter of trafficking, such as ending the practice of
arresting children for prostitution and enacting safe harbor
laws, vacating adjudications and convictions, offering
expungement, or sealing of arrest records and codifying
affirmative defenses for certain offenses. This goes across
many States in the United States.
It is time for the Federal government to catch up and do
the same. We must correct past wrongs that have left victims
bound to criminal records they never deserved. I am glad my
Ranking Member has even indicated that we should do this in a
bipartisan manner.
People who have been trafficked, whether for labor or sex
are not criminals. They are victims who deserve victim-focused,
culturally-informed responses that direct them towards services
critical to sustaining them as they heal and are able to get
away from the criminal justice system.
Fortunately, Courtney escaped her final trafficker in 2018,
a cause of celebration, but the pain almost never leaves. She
sought counseling, started a nonprofit with her mother, and in
2020 she was appointed to the U.S. Advisory Council on Human
Trafficking.
I would like Courtney Litvak to please stand up.
Thank you. In that same year, Texas had the second highest
reported cases of human trafficking. An estimated 25 percent of
human trafficking victims in the United States are in Texas.
While we tend to focus on sex trafficking, we must do more to
shine a light on the incidents of labor trafficking and victims
of forced labor. This begins with gathering better data.
There are a reported 234,000 victims of labor trafficking
in Texas at any given time. We need to know who these victims
are, where they are, and what they need, not only in Texas, but
across the country. We must continue to shape legislation to
help answer these questions to better understand the problems
we are trying to solve which leads me to the central purpose of
today's hearing.
I am confident that our Witnesses today will provide
insightful recommendations for how we can improve upon the
Trafficking Victims Protection Act, or the TVPA, the
cornerstone of the U.S. anti-trafficking response, as well as
other legislation and programming aimed at preventing human
trafficking, protecting victims and survivors, including the
Anti-Trafficking in School Zones Act, just indicated earlier.
I am sure we can agree that we must better support victims
of labor and sex trafficking. I want to continue having
legislation that enhances treating those victims and continuing
with them for a period of time, ensure that they are not
revictimized or stigmatized, and provide them with services
that help them successfully reintegrate into society.
I look forward to hearing from each of our Witnesses and
thank our survivor experts for their bravery and your
willingness to share your story. I cannot thank you enough. I
am certain that our discussion today will lead us to solutions
that will help more survivors reach a place of healing that we
find these courageous people before us today.
Without objection, I will submit into the record the
following documents: The written testimony of James L. Dold,
CEO and founder of Human Rights for Kids; joint written
testimony of Michelle Guymon, Probation Director for Los
Angeles County Probation Department, and Kate Walker Brown,
Senior Director of the National Center for Youth Law; and a
statement from Courtney Litvak to be subsequently,
respectfully, submitted without objection.
[The information follows:]
MS. JACKSON LEE FOR THE RECORD
=======================================================================
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. Jackson Lee. I now recognize the gentleman from
Arizona, Mr. Biggs, for his opening statement.
Mr. Biggs. Madam Chair, thank you. Thank you for holding
this very important hearing on this critical topic and I
appreciate all the Witnesses being here, particularly those who
have been victimized by human or sex trafficking.
This hearing is titled ``Oversight of Federal Efforts to
Combat Human Trafficking,'' but I feel we are missing one
element and I hope that we recover that maybe in a subsequent
hearing because we don't have a government Witness today and I
think we should have someone from the Federal government today
to testify because we need them to participate. We need to hold
their feet to the fire in overseeing this important topic.
I believe every other Republican on the Subcommittee would
welcome an opportunity to interact with a Biden Administration
official so we can do that proper oversight. In fact, I have
sent several letters to the Chair, and I would ask that they be
included into the record without objection, if that is okay,
Madam Chair.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Without objection, so ordered.
[The information follows:]
MR. BIGGS FOR THE RECORD
=======================================================================
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Biggs. Thank you. Human trafficking is a terrible crime
and should be taken very seriously. The estimated annual global
profits from human trafficking are approximately $150 billion a
year. In one of the areas where human trafficking and human
smuggling is the most prevalent is on our southern,
southwestern border. The failed policies of this administration
encourage and facilitate Mexican drug cartels, transnational
criminal organizations, and other malevolent actors to engage
in human trafficking and smuggling across our southwestern
border.
Every single day, traffickers from cartels and criminal
organizations exploit our southwestern border. According to
CBP, a report they made February of last year, traffickers made
a total of $411 million in the month of February alone. Cartels
and other criminal organizations charge up to $5,000 to smuggle
children across the border and more than $10,000 to smuggle
adults. The traffickers will often promise migrants a better
future and a better-paying job, but in reality they are
deceiving them into a life of indentured servitude, sex
trafficking, or forced work to pay off their debts.
Last year, the Department of Justice's Human Trafficking
Prosecution Unit opened investigations to locations in Alabama
and Oregon due to concerns of labor trafficking. The DOJ's
Human Trafficking Prosecution Unit Director stated, ``some of
these situations appear to involve dozens of unaccompanied
minors, all being released to the same sponsor, and then
exploited for labor and poultry processing or similar
industries.''
One couple in Alabama has already been convicted of money
laundering and conspiracy to transport illegal aliens. At the
border, our Federal law enforcement is simply out numbered.
They don't have the resources necessary to address the problem
that has been created in this administration.
After HHS placed the UAC with a sponsor, case managers are
supposed to call with a--it is called a well-being, follow-up
call to determine if an unaccompanied child who has been placed
by Health and Human Services is safe and if the sponsors are
complying with their responsibilities. This February, HHS
informed me that ``there are 19,726 sponsors who could not be
reached.'' Think about that. That means that HHS cannot verify
the safety or well-being of nearly 20,000 children who have
been placed in the charge of this government. We don't know
where their sponsors are. That means we don't know where those
children are.
Because of a loophole created by the TVPA, DHS is required
to turn over unaccompanied from noncontiguous countries to HHS
so they can place these unaccompanied children with sponsors,
and yet we can't keep track of 20,000 of them. We have lost
track of 20,000. This particular policy is a magnet that leads
to parents sending their children to the U.S. alone knowing
that they will be released.
In a recent trip to the border, and I am giving you numbers
and I am giving you dollar amounts, but everything that I am
talking about includes a face of some innocent victim. So, on
one recent trip to the southern border, I met with an agent,
and we talked about this particular issue of children being
trafficked. The agent took from his pocket, and he said,
Andy, here is a four-year-old who came across yesterday. Here
is a three-year-old. Here is a seven-year-old with a three-
year-old.
The seven-year-old was responsible for the three-year-old.
This happens every day on this border, every day. It is
inhumane and it is a failure, a failure of this government.
So, I have introduced legislation that will close the
loophole and I hope all my colleagues on this Subcommittee will
join me in closing that loophole.
In March of this year, there were 221,303 illegal alien
encounters at the southwestern border, the highest monthly
total in 22 years and that number is expected to get worse. If
title 42 is rescinded, even DHS has said that is 18,000
encounters daily. That will a floor, not even a ceiling.
In February of this year, 8,565 individuals were paroled,
and an additional 55,000 individuals were released into the
United States. When I was in Yuma, on one of my border trips,
they related to me an incident that took place. They had
discovered looking into their database and tracking that at one
particular address in Charlotte, excuse me, Charleston, South
Carolina, was the sponsor for just a numerous amounts of
individuals coming to that address. So, they would apprehend
these folks and then they would release them, but a lot of them
were going to the same address in South Carolina which seems
suspicious because that is not usual. Usually, you have
different sponsors. They conducted an investigation and what
they found was using cross State, multiple State and Federal
agencies, they found in a mobile home in Charleston, South
Carolina a young girl of approximately age 11 or 12 caring for
two younger boys in a mobile home. Those children, her job--
they made her stay in there and care for those two children.
Those children were then returned to Yuma repeatedly to create
a false family unit for quicker release from the border. They
were being trafficked and used as chattels instead of human
beings and not being properly cared for. This is an ongoing
problem.
Detroit, FBI office in Detroit just last week released an
important report warning us about increased threat of
sexploitation, an online exploitation. This is in Detroit just
last week. This is an ongoing crisis. It is a criminal crisis,
criminal justice crisis. It is a humanitarian crisis as well.
Today, our Witnesses that I have invited are Sheriff Mark
Dannels from Cochise County, Arizona. Sheriff Dannels is on the
border. It is a huge county about the same size as the State of
Rhode Island. He and his deputies are dealing with the impacts
of this border crisis on a daily basis. They are overwhelmed by
the cartels that transport drugs and traffic human beings
across that border. Sheriff Dannels is operating and taking it
upon himself to act when the Federal government has failed to
act, and he will share with us what they have done to interdict
human trafficking, drug trafficking, and sex trafficking in
place of the Federal government and how Cochise County is
making a difference.
Jessica Vaughan is the Director of Policy Studies at Center
for Immigration Studies. She is an expert in immigration
enforcement policy and public safety and will help explain how
the current policies implemented by Secretary Mayorkas have
created the worst border crisis in our history, which includes
the exploitation and trafficking of hundreds of thousands of
individuals in the last 15 months.
I also want to introduce for the record and coming from
Arizona, I have multiple pictures of signs like this. It
indicates again a failure of the Federal government and I don't
point to any administration in this case because it is a huge
problem in Arizona.
This particular sign says, ``Smuggling and Illegal
Immigration May Be Encountered in this Area.'' An additional
sign, which I won't submit for the record, but I would submit
that for the record, Madam Chair.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Without objection, so ordered.
[The information follows:]
MR. BIGGS FOR THE RECORD
=======================================================================
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Biggs. Thank you. An additional sign which is placed
there in a different area in Arizona's desert is this, active
drug and human smuggling area. Visitors may encounter armed
criminals and smuggling vehicles traveling at high rates of
speed. Stay away. If that is the best we can do, we are an
abject failure.
Madam Chair, I look forward to working with you and
continue our efforts to eradicate human smuggling and human
trafficking and sex trafficking and I yield back.
Ms. Jackson Lee. I thank the gentleman. I think it is
important to just make note of the fact that relatively few
trafficking victims are taken across an international border
into the United States. Most of them are U.S. citizens and San
Diego, for example, found that 80 percent of those that were in
the area, 450 of them were in the United States. We know that
we will be addressing this question. We are not ignoring it. We
will be addressing this question with the pending hearings that
will be coming going forward. I want to make sure as well as I
described human trafficking that the United States is front and
center when ending that scourge here in the United States and
the many victims all over the nation.
Thank you. I look forward to you looking at H.R. 7566.
The Chair now recognizes the Chair of the Full Committee,
the gentleman from New York, Mr. Nadler, for his opening
statement.
Chair Nadler. Thank you, Madam Chair, for holding this
important hearing on human trafficking. Too often, we think of
human trafficking as something that happens somewhere else, in
other cities and in other countries, and not in our own
communities. An unfortunate reality, however, is that human
trafficking touches many more of our communities than we might
suspect from major cities to quiet suburbs. Our inability to
see the harms of human trafficking allows it to persist and
leaves victims vulnerable, sometimes even as they think that
they have found those who have helped them escape.
It is important for us to be clear at the outset about the
scope of this hearing. We are here today to discuss human
trafficking, recruitment, harboring, transportation,
provisioning, obtaining, patronizing, or soliciting of a person
for the purpose of forced labor or forced commercial sex. This
is a distinct crime from the no less serious crime of human
smuggling in which people are brought across international
borders through the deliberate evasion of immigration laws.
Human trafficking can and frequently does occur without
crossing any borders. When human trafficking does involve
border crossings, we must take care not to punish victims for
their trafficker's disregard for both criminal and immigration
law.
When we discuss human trafficking, the headlines often
focus on sex trafficking and ignore the significant harms
caused by labor trafficking. Labor trafficking occurs in the
United States across many different industries including
domestic work, traveling sales crews, food services,
agriculture, health and beauty services, construction,
hospitality, landscaping, and many others. Further, the
distinction between sex trafficking and labor trafficking is
not always clear.
As you will hear from the survivors and experts here today,
those who are forced into sex trafficking may also find
themselves forced to do labor in furtherance of their
trafficker's criminal activities. Meanwhile, those who are
trafficked for labor are often in vulnerable situations that
leave them at risk of sexual abuse.
Finally, we must develop a better understanding of who is
being trafficked. As you will hear from our Witnesses,
trafficking can victimize the young and old alike. It is not
confined to one gender, race, sexual orientation, or
immigration status.
I hope we will hear today about how our laws can better
serve the needs of all people who experience trafficking so
that we can be sure all victims and survivors get the
assistance that fits their individual needs. This hearing is
especially important as we examine proposals to reauthorize the
Trafficking Victims Protection Act. I hope our Witnesses can
help us understand how the TVPA is helping to support the needs
of victims and survivors, as well as how it can be improved.
We must take appropriate steps to improve how our criminal
justice system treats trafficking survivors including ensuring
that they are treated as victims of crime, rather than as
perpetrators. For example, we must consider whether there are
sufficient avenues to correct past injustices such as
mechanisms to clear the records of those who are charged as
criminals when they were, in fact, victims of trafficking. Such
measures are essential to the restoration and healing process
for victims who should not be saddled with a criminal record as
they seek to build a new life.
I thank our Witnesses for being here, especially the
survivors who are here to share their personal harrowing
stories of survival, escape, and hopefully healing. I hope that
we can learn from their experiences so that fewer people face
what they have endured and so that we can assist the many
victims and survivors not before us today.
I look forward to their testimony and I yield back the
balance of my time.
Ms. Jackson Lee. The gentleman yields back the balance of
his time. The gentleman's time has expired.
It is now my pleasure to introduce the Witnesses in today's
hearing.
Ms. Evelyn Chumbow is a survivor of child labor turned
anti-trafficking activist and public speaker. She was brought
to the United States from Cameroon at the age of nine and
forced to cook, clean, and care for her trafficker's children.
She escaped after years of captivity. Welcome. She earned a
bachelor of science from the University of Maryland University
College, was appointed by President Obama to serve on the U.S.
Advisory Council on Human Trafficking, and is now the
Operations Manager and Survivor Advocate for The Human
Trafficking Legal Center and a member of the Board of Directors
for Free the Slaves.
Ms. Jessica Vaughan is the Director of Policy Studies for
the Center for Immigration. She is also an instructor for
senior law enforcement training seminars at Northwestern
University Center for Public Safety. She was formerly a Foreign
Service Officer with the State Department. Ms. Vaughan earned a
bachelor of arts in international studies from Washington
College and a master of arts from Georgetown University.
Welcome.
Ms. Shamere McKenzie is a consultant, activist, subject
matter expert on human trafficking and public speaker. She is
the Chief Executive Officer for Sun Gate Foundation. She also
serves as a training manager for the National Human Trafficking
Hotline, Co-Chair of the Victim Services Committee of the
Maryland State Human Trafficking Task Force. Welcome. She
received a bachelor of science in criminology and criminal
justice from Loyola University.
Mr. Cristian Eduardo is a survivor leader at Sanctuary for
Families and a member of ECPAT-USA Survivors' Council. He is an
advocate, speaker, and educator for immigrant and LGBTQ+ rights
and anti-trafficking initiatives, including the Equality Model.
Welcome.
Sheriff Mark Dannels has been elected sheriff of the
Cochise County, Arizona since 2012. Sheriff Dannels is a 38-
year veteran of law enforcement. He holds a master's degree in
criminal justice from Aspen University and is a certified
public manager from Arizona State University. He began his law
enforcement career in 1984 after serving in the United States
Army. Welcome, Sheriff.
Mr. Terry FitzPatrick is the Director of the Alliance to
End Slavery and Trafficking, often referred to as ATEST. He has
been involved with ATEST in various capacities for more than a
decade, including service as a co-chair prior to becoming
director. He previously served as the Communications and
Advocacy Director at Free the Slaves. Welcome.
Ms. Jacquelyn Aluotto is a human rights activist, anti-
trafficking specialist, victims' advocate, and producer, and I
might add my constituent in Houston, Texas, working very hard
on these terrible issues in the State and around the nation.
She is the co-founder of the No Trafficking Zone and founder of
Real Beauty Real Women. In 2020, she received the United
Nations Ambassador's Pin in recognition of her service and
dedication to the tenets and values upheld by the National
Council of Women of the United States founded by Susan B.
Anthony. Welcome again.
Ms. Martina Vandenberg is Founder and President of The
Human Trafficking Legal Center, which she established in 2012.
She has represented victims of human trafficking pro bono in
various legal arenas, testified before several congressional
committees, and trained more than 5,000 pro bono attorneys
nationwide to handle human trafficking matters. Ms. Vandenberg
previously served as a partner at Jenner & Block, a Rhodes
Scholar, and a Truman Scholar, and graduate of Columbia Law
School. She has toured as an adjunct faculty member at the
American University Washington College of Law. Welcome.
We welcome our distinguished Witnesses. We thank you for
their participation.
I will begin by swearing in our Witnesses. I ask our
Witnesses in person to rise and our Witnesses testifying
remotely to turn on your audio and make sure that I can see
your face and your raised hand while I administer the oath.
Raise your right hand. Do you swear or affirm under penalty
of perjury that the testimony you are about to give is true and
correct to the best of your knowledge, information, and belief
so help you God?
Sheriff, I can't hear you. I can't hear you, Sheriff. All
right. There is something wrong with your system. You will get
it right. You may be seated. We will hear from you, and I am
sure you will adhere to that.
Let the record show the Witnesses answered in the
affirmative. Thank you and please, as you have already done, be
seated.
Please note that your written statement will be entered
into the record in its entirety. Accordingly, I ask that you
summarize your testimony in five minutes. To help you stay
within that same timeframe, there is a timing light on your
table and on your screen. When the light switches from green to
yellow, you have one minute to conclude your testimony. When
the light turns red, it signals that your five minutes have
expired.
I now recognize Ms. Chumbow for five minutes. You are
recognized.
STATEMENT OF EVELYN CHUMBOW
Ms. Chumbow. TThe Members of the Subcommittee, I am honored
to be here today to testify about the oversight of Federal
efforts to combat human trafficking. In communities across the
United States of America and throughout the world, tens of
millions of people are exploited in forced labor. Labor
trafficking is a heinous crime that inflicts lasting physical,
psychological, emotional, and financial harm on its victims. I
am a survivor of labor trafficking. I will share with you today
how the U.S. government can be part of the solution.
My journey as a survivor of child labor trafficking started
with a dream about coming to America. I was 10 years old. The
image I had of the U.S. was from the television shows I saw,
The Cosby Show, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, and 90210. When I
was told that I was coming to the United States to be adopted
and get a better education, I was excited. I thought I could
marry Will Smith. No kidding.
What I did not know was that my uncle in Cameroon had
actually sold me to a woman in Maryland. I became a modern-day
slave just miles from the U.S. Capitol. I cooked and cleaned
and cared for her children. I would go days without eating. My
trafficker beat me. She said I was so dirty that I was not
allowed to sleep on a bed. I slept on the floor. I was never
paid.
I begged to be able to go to school. My trafficker refused.
Years later, I found out that it was my legal right to go to
school. I went into foster care and finally got to attend
school. In fact, I got my degree in homeland security from the
University of Maryland University College.
I now work at The Human Trafficking Legal Center. I had to
fight to get to where I am today. I am an exception. Many human
trafficking victims cannot rebuild their life. I am here to
share ideas on how the U.S. government can help. There are nine
recommendations in the document I have shared with you. I will
briefly mention four.
Recommendation 1. Improve the U.S. immigration process. I
entered the country on the same passport and a visa as four
other children. My trafficker used the same passport to bring
five children over a period of one year.
Recommendation 2. Provide trauma-informed, victim-centered
investigations. After I escaped my trafficker, I met with
Federal investigators. One of them accused me of fabricating a
story to get a green card and remain in the country. When
investigators wanted to document the abuse I had endured, they
forced me to take my clothes off in a room full of people to
take pictures. This was the opposite of victim-centered,
trauma-informed practice.
Recommendation 3. Provide trafficking survivors with legal
representation. Trafficking survivors need pro bono attorneys
to work them through the entire process of their case. Too
often victims do not have their own lawyers during the criminal
case.
Recommendation 4. Understanding the role of racism in human
trafficking. Yes, trafficking can happen to anyone. When people
are vulnerable, they are more at risk. Marginalized
communities, communities of color are more likely to have this
vulnerability because of systematic racism. Racism is present
at all stages for survivors of color. Even after they escape
their trafficking situation they continue to face racism.
Please find details of the final five recommendations in
the document provided.
In conclusion, I would like to ask everyone here today
working to end human trafficking to keep these recommendations
in mind. Prevention, protection, proper investigation are
important when addressing all forms of trafficking. Forced
labor must be on the agenda alongside sex trafficking.
Survivors' voices like mine here today are essential in this
policy discussion. Thank you.
There are nine recommendations.
[The statement of Ms. Chumbow follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you. The Witness has yielded back. I
now recognize Ms. Jessica Vaughan for five minutes.
STATEMENT OF JESSICA M. VAUGHAN
Ms. Vaughan. Thank you for inviting me to testify today.
Since April is National Child Abuse Prevention Month, this is
an appropriate time to draw attention to the horrific crime of
human trafficking as a particularly insidious form of child
abuse. My heart goes out to those survivors who are here today.
I salute them and admire the courage of their advocacy and
thank them for being here.
While obviously not all human trafficking is connected to
illegal immigration, there can be no doubt that the current
chaos at our border is actually facilitating human trafficking
both for commercial sex trafficking and also forced labor
trafficking. The chaos is caused in part by the TVPRA, which
the Chair mentioned, but also from the Biden Administration's
ill-advised dismantling of border and immigration enforcement,
catch and release policies, the dysfunctional system for
handling families and unaccompanied minors, and lax oversight
of temporary visa programs.
Just yesterday, Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas
released the new plan to deal with the escalation of the crisis
that is forecast to occur in the next month due in part to
ceasing use of title 42 expulsion authority. Anyone concerned
about human trafficking should be further alarmed because this
plan makes it clear that the Biden Administration intends to
remain a full-fledged partner in migration-related human
trafficking schemes.
The overarching goal of the Mayorkas plan is to more
efficiently manage, really accommodate, the enormous and
growing flow of illegal border crossers into the United States
and its communities. Mayorkas has set up tent cities with the
capacity to process 18,000 illegal border crossers a day. He
has hired more staff, secured more buses, and readied $150
million in new funding to pay NGO contractors to support and
transport the migrants.
The emphasis is on swifter processing to the point where
they'll actually be doing it on CBP buses as the migrants are
transported. This is not a recipe for effective screening,
vetting, or detecting human trafficking. Apparently, all
migrants will have the opportunity to either make a quick
asylum claim or enter the country with a Notice to Appear in
immigration at some point far in the future. Either way most
will get to enter.
Unaccompanied minors will be fed into the same
dysfunctional system we have now, in which the trafficking of
children for labor and commercial sex occurs right under the
noses of the government agencies and contractors who process
these kids.
The Mayorkas plan barely even acknowledges that trafficking
is a problem. The phrase human trafficking is only mentioned on
page 17 of a 20-page document along with other crimes. The plan
maintains the exact same policies that the traffickers are able
to exploit, that enable them to tempt and coerce migrants into
their clutches, that enable them to rely on the U.S. government
to assist in taking advantage of and abusing vulnerable
migrants.
The traffickers know that Border Patrol will be waving in
illegal border crossers by the tens of thousands a day and that
they can move their bodies as part of the rest of that flow
without attracting attention. They know that the shelters and
service providers will be overwhelmed and overflowing with
other vulnerable people who will be easy marks for the
traffickers to help. They know, though many Americans may not,
that minors will be released to sponsors with few questions
asked, no background checks, no post-release monitoring. They
know that there will be no work site enforcement to bust
illegal or exploitative employment or detect identify theft.
They know that they can make a lot of money at the expense of
the victims and that the Biden Administration is in denial
about the scale of the problem or that their policies are
aiding the traffickers.
What the Mayorkas plan lacks, but which Congress must do,
is stop incentivizing illegal immigration. It's wrong to have
policies that entice migrants to turn over thousands of dollars
and themselves and their families to criminal organizations to
bring them to cross the border illegally.
The government must end its partnership with the
traffickers, fix the loopholes in the law that the traffickers
exploit, especially focus on the rules on unaccompanied minors,
on the parole of asylum seekers, address the problem of labor
traffickers masquerading as labor contractors who bring in
temporary visa workers.
Services for survivors are needed. It's much better to
prevent the trafficking from happening than to try to
ameliorate the problems that results from it. Thank you very
much.
[The statement of Ms. Vaughan follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. Jackson Lee. The gentlelady's time has expired. I now
recognize Ms. McKenzie for five minutes.
STATEMENT OF SHAMERE McKENZIE
Ms. McKenzie. Can you hear me now?
Ms. Jackson Lee. Yes.
Ms. McKenzie. Chair Jackson Lee, Ranking Member Biggs, and
Members of the Committee, good morning. My name is Shamere
McKenzie, and I'm here to talk to you about our shared
connections as human beings and the horrific crime of human
trafficking.
I want to start off by asking you to think about what you
imagined your life would be like when you were a child. As a
child, I never imagined being forced into commercial sexual
exploitation by a man who used physical and psychological
violence to maintain control over me for his own profit. I
never imagined being robbed of my freedom, first by my
trafficker and then by the U.S. criminal justice system.
For victims of human trafficking, there are severe
consequences for not carrying out your trafficker's demands,
consequences I know all too well. When I refused my
trafficker's orders to drive the other victims he controlled
over State lines, he asked me to choose between death and his
demands. When I refused him, my trafficker responded by placing
a gun in my mouth and pulling the trigger.
Shortly after escaping his brutality, I found myself
victimized again, this time by the legal system that treated me
not as a victim, but as a criminal. Knowing little about the
epidemic of criminalization facing trafficking victims or even
my own rights as a victim of crime, I accepted a plea to
conspiracy to commit violations of the Mann Act as a result of
having driven my trafficker's other victims across State lines.
In addition to leaving me with a criminal record for acts I was
forced to commit, I had to register as a sex offender.
I wish I had more time to tell you about the details of my
story. I want to tell you that my story is not unique. For the
last 11 years, I have dedicated my life to this anti-
trafficking movement. You heard in my introduction about the
things that I do here in the United States. I'm also appointed
the first anti-trafficking ambassador to Jamaica and work on
this issue there. I am also a member of the Just Exits Advisory
Council, along with seven other amazing survivor leaders who
have lived experiences just like mine.
I appear before you today to make clear that the
criminalization of victims is the most pressing issue in our
country's fight against human trafficking. A 2016 study
conducted by the National Survivor Network offers us a glimpse
of the depth and breadth in this injustice with 91 percent of
our survivor members reported having a criminal record. This
study makes explicit the reality that human trafficking
survivors are regularly criminalized. They are also, as I was,
forced to be complicit in their trafficker's operations.
While we have over 43 States that have implemented some
form of criminal relief, there is currently no relief on a
Federal level. As a result, victims of trafficking continue to
be charged as perpetrators alongside their traffickers. Once
they are, they remain burdened with an unjust criminal record
for the rest of their lives.
I have six concrete suggestions of how Congress should
respond to the criminalization of victims. One, support and
pass a comprehensive Federal criminal relief record that will
allow survivors to vacate or set aside their trafficking-
related criminal convictions.
Pass Sara's Law, named in honor of child trafficking
survivor Sara Kruzan, who killed her trafficker and was
sentenced to life without parole at the age of 16. Sara's Law
would allow courts to have greater flexibility in creating a
trauma-informed, age-appropriate response, including
transferring a child victim from an adult criminal system to a
juvenile system for treatment and services.
Of course, we need to reauthorize the Trafficking Victims
Protection Act, which include provisions that allow judges to
deviate from mandatory minimums and suspend sentencing for
child sex trafficking victims who commit crimes. We need to
increase funding for development and delivery of trainings
aimed at advanced human trafficking topics, especially topics
as forced criminality beyond prostitution, trainings on forced
complicity, both on labor and sex trafficking.
The time to act is now. Criminalizing trafficking victims
does not help victims. In fact, it does the exact opposite. My
fellow Just Exits consultant, Joy Friedman, posed the question
when do victims of trafficking stop paying the price. The
answer must be now. We need Congress to lead the way. Thank you
for this opportunity to share my perspective before this
Committee.
[The statement of Ms. McKenzie follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank the Witness for their testimony. Mr.
Cristian Eduardo, for five minutes, you are now recognized.
STATEMENT OF CRISTIAN EDUARDO
Mr. Eduardo. Good morning, Chair Lee and Members of the
Subcommittee. My name is Cristian Eduardo, and I am a survivor
of international domestic sex and labor trafficking. I am a
Latino immigrant originally from Mexico, a member of the LGBTQ+
community, and a person living with HIV, and a human dealing
with the consequences, lifelong consequences of human
trafficking.
Due to the barriers caused by the intersectionality of my
identity, I was sexually and physically exploited when I was
the most vulnerable. I am here today representing not only
myself but the thousands of voices that are often silenced, and
this includes survivors, people of color, immigrants, people
living with HIV, people from the LGBTQ+ community, the voices
of our communities, people exploited by pimps, brothel owners,
and sex buyers that are roaming free without any
accountability.
To be very honest, I sit here doubting whether I should
share my story or not because the consequences of trafficking
do not end when you are free of exploitation. Telling my story
can negatively impact my personal, academic, and professional
path. There is no legal protection from discrimination based on
what I experienced and what I survived. What if a future
employer discovered the meaning behind the blank space on my
resume? What is going to happen if my family and friends learn
today that I was constantly raped? What if my exploiters find
out that I dare to tell the truth about my exploitation? What
if the buyers, the sex buyers who were raping me every day and
all the others who accessed my body want to retaliate against
me? Who is going to protect me? Who is protecting all the
survivors who raise their voices against the system of
exploitation? Human trafficking is real, and I am here to
remind you I survived it and I experienced it on my own skin.
Despite the Trafficking Victims Protection Act being
reauthorized several times, human trafficking is still
classified as a nonviolent crime in many States. Survivors
continue to suffer from the trauma of exploitation until our
last breath on this earth. Meanwhile, pimps, brothel owners,
and especially sex buyers walk free as if the harm they caused
can be erased. Survivors and victims around the country are
constantly criminalized and incarcerated. This is happening due
to the lack of understanding about trafficking and the lack of
empathy toward those engaged in the sex trade, including
prostitution.
We are the ones oftentimes blamed for our own exploitation.
We are the ones being sentenced to jail. We are the ones with
criminal records for our actions committed under conditions of
coercion, fraud, debt bondage, or force from our traffickers,
the brothel owners and sex buyers raping us day after day. If
this is the best that we can do, we are failing.
I was trafficked as an adult. Trafficking is not only
happening to minors. This criminalization of survivors and
people impacted by trafficking also is impacting kids. Under
Federal law, child trafficking victims do not need to prove
force, fraud, or coercion, yet in several States they are the
ones being targeted by police as criminals.
I was trafficked in the United States, the country where
dreams come true. I was trafficked in this country regardless
of the TVPA. Some of the barriers that prevented me from
escaping my situation was a fear of the criminalization of
those engaged in the sex trade. All this is that blame
immigrants for their own exploitation. All these are a form of
victim-blaming that allow exploiters to keep victims and
survivors under control. I was so afraid to ask for help, to
call the police because of the potential consequences. My
choices were being deported as an immigrant, spending my life
in jail, or ongoing emotional, physical, and sexual abuse.
The expansion of required training to better identify
victims of human trafficking is necessary for every single
provider who interacts with marginalized communities and people
in vulnerable situations. When I first approached a shelter
after escaping my trafficking situation, I was asked if I have
ever engaged in sex for food, shelter, drugs, or money. My
answer was yes, which was a strong indicator of trafficking,
yet I was totally ignored. The service providers did not probe
whether I was being criminally exploited. This doesn't happen
one time. This happened when I was looking for resources, legal
immigration, or even a place, a safe place to stay.
This is the reality. We are failing. We are not training
enough. We are not recognizing victims.
The system is particularly weak in the identification of
male victims. I wasn't able to find services for males. I was
denied services just because I am a male. I didn't qualify for
a lot of services because I don't identify as a female.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Mr. Eduardo, can you--we want to hear you.
Can you wrap up and summarize for us?
Mr. Eduardo. Yes.
Ms. Jackson Lee. We want to hear your voice. Thank you very
much.
Mr. Eduardo. If we really want to stop trafficking, we must
stop the demand for the bodies, the normalization of rape, and
acknowledge that sex buyers are violent and harmful. While I
was being exploited in one occasion I was waiting for my
analyst (phonetic), and I didn't know what to do because I was
afraid that service providers, law enforcement were sex buyers.
There is no deterrent. There is no Federal protections to stop
people in position with power, even our politicians, judges, or
law enforcement from being sex buyers. This is stopping us from
looking for help.
To summarize my call of action, I recommend expanding
training around identifying victims and survivors from
marginalized communities, expanding services for adult and male
survivors, ending the criminalization of victims and survivors,
including those engaged in prostitution, and holding sex buyers
accountable. This approach is known also as the Equality Model.
So, please listen to survivors. You have the power to
change. You have the power to save lives. Thank you.
[The statement of Mr. Eduardo follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you very much for your testimony. I
now recognize Sheriff Mark Dannels for five minutes.
STATEMENT OF SHERIFF MARK J. DANNELS
Mr. Dannels. Good morning, Madam Chair. Thank you, Member
Biggs.
Ms. Jackson Lee. I assume, Sheriff, that you adhere to the
oath that was taken.
Mr. Dannels. Yes, ma'am.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you so very much.
You are recognized for five minutes.
Mr. Dannels. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Again, good morning, Madam Chair, Ranking Member Biggs, and
distinguished Members of this Subcommittee.
I appreciate the opportunity to address this Committee
regarding the status of our southern border from the aspect of
a community law enforcement perspective for the good of all our
victims that have been trafficked and smuggled.
I have served our southern border community for 38 years,
and prior to that, a member of the military serving in the U.S.
Army, stationed here at Fort Huachuca, Arizona, located in
Cochise
County.
I've always been a general believer in my oath of office to
protect our country, and now my county, as a duly-elected
sheriff for the past nine years. I'm the current President of
the Arizona Sheriffs' Association, Chair of the National
Sheriffs' Association Border Security, and on the Executive
Board for Western Sheriffs, and Southwest Border Sheriffs.
We share four objectives: Public safety, national security,
humanitarian, and health, due to the current pandemic.
American sheriffs stand united in working with you. I am
proud of our relationships with all our law enforcement
partners that serve our communities.
To begin, I want to thank the Customs and Border Patrol
Officers and agents that work tirelessly to protect this great
nation. I want to thank our governor, Doug Ducey, and our State
Congressional Members for all their support; the men and women
of my office for their dedication and commitment to keeping our
community safe, and to all my fellow sheriffs who stand united
for the rule of law and the good of our American people.
The direct impact to my office, secondary checkpoints have
been shut down over the last year, the last 15 months, due to
staffing issues. The Border Patrol working with my county are
working on a skeleton crew due to agents being deployed out of
my county and out of my State.
My citizens and law enforcement address multiple got-aways
in my county versus those giving up. Between 900-1,000
smugglers and traffickers enter my county to pick up the
migrants and the victims. These smugglers include juvenile
drivers being recruited via social media by the cartels.
My border-related detention costs for State violations was
$1.5 million absorbed by my taxpayers. That equals 777 arrests
just in my county in the last nine months.
Border-related crimes are at an all-time high from death,
murder, aggravated assaults against my citizens, failure to
yield, search and rescue, and recovery for the migrants that
die in our desert, and, yes, assault against law enforcement.
A personal story. A citizen of my county driving towards a
65th birthday party was struck by a 16-year-old driver/smuggler
who ran a red light at 100 miles an hour and killed her.
My fellow sheriffs have tried to partner with this
administration, to include the President of the United States--
with high hopes to share a collective message, a collective
action plan for all our citizens and those being victimized; to
support the rule of law; prioritize our southern border, and
provide updates to reference community impacts and concerns--
with little or no success with these plans.
By allowing our border security mission and immigration
laws to be discretionary, these criminal cartels and
transnational organizations continue to be the true winners.
Their exportation of mankind is simply modern-day slavery,
allowing thousands of pounds of illicit drugs into our country
that continue to erode the core value of families, schools, and
subsequently, killing Americans on an average of 270 every day.
It's completely unacceptable at any level.
Experiencing migrant deaths without a reasonable process
while the U.S. Congress and the administration intentionally
avoids reality is gross negligence. Our voice of reason has
been buried during what I call ``intellectual avoidance'' here
on the southern border by this administration and, yes, certain
Members of the U.S. Congress.
Communities have neglected and abandoned--have been
neglected and abandoned, relying on our own local and State
resources to address border crimes and trafficking. Our
southern border--against all public comfort statements out of
Washington, DC--is in the worse shape I've ever seen it. When
one looks at public safety, national security, humanitarian,
our southern border is the largest crime scene in this country.
The morale of agents is extremely low, and the collective
frustration is very high among law enforcement at all levels,
to include our citizens that live in the border communities.
With the recent news to cancel title 42, this only serves
to complex a border that needs immediate immigration reform by
the U.S. Congress, but, most important, needs to be secured.
I'm a true believer that Customs and Border Patrol are the
experts on border security, while sheriffs and police chiefs
are experts of the community. Together, this is a recipe of
success for all communities.
I will leave with a final statement. We all serve
priorities of Americans based on our shared oath of office to
keep them safe, enhance their quality of life, and support the
rule of law--absent political affiliation or the concern of
reelection.
Once again, I thank this Committee for the invite and the
opportunity, and now, I stand ready to answer questions by
Members.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
[The statement of Sheriff Dannels follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you, Sheriff.
Now, Mr. Terry FitzPatrick is recognized for five minutes.
You are recognized.
STATEMENT OF TERRY FITZPATRICK
Mr. FitzPatrick. Thank you, Members of the Committee, for
your leadership in combating one of the greatest human rights
challenges of our time, and for this opportunity to recommend
ways the U.S. can fill gaps in that effort.
The Alliance to End Slavery and Trafficking, ATEST, is a
U.S.-based coalition that advocates for solutions to prevent
forced labor and sex trafficking; to hold perpetrators
accountable; to ensure justice for victims, and to empower
survivors with tools for recovery. Our alliance includes
shelter and service providers in more than 30 U.S. cities and
organizations that work in over 100 countries. We advocate for
a whole-of-government approach and bipartisan solutions.
Human trafficking and forced labor are not only crimes,
they are violations of human rights, civil rights, child
rights, women's rights, worker rights, and migrant rights.
Trafficking is an unfair trade practice, a tool of repression.
It is often a result of racial, ethnic, class, and religious
discrimination, and it undermines economic development.
Addressing these root causes helps reduce the vulnerabilities
that makes people easy targets for traffickers.
Now, as some have mentioned earlier, there are two major
things to address in the 117th Congress. One is the
reauthorization of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act. You
may know that three bills have been introduced so far, covering
different aspects of reauthorization, and a fourth is coming
soon, possibly this week. The TVPA is one of the world's most
ambitious and comprehensive pieces of anti-trafficking
legislation. ATEST supports the reauthorization bills, and we
urge you to enact them. In my written testimony, you'll find a
bullet list of many of the new provisions that add new policy
provisions and authorizations for Federal programs within the
TVPA.
The second major issue this Congress is appropriations.
Fighting a problem as large as human trafficking requires
significant investment. Our FY23 appropriations recommendations
total $1.3 billion, and we urge you to support robust funding.
This is throughout the Federal government.
The U.S. has built one of the strongest inter-trafficking
responses in the world, but we don't always live up to our
ideals or our own standards. I have six specific
recommendations today for you to address, to think about
shortcomings in America's response.
Recommendation 1. A prevalence study. You can't cure it, if
you can't count it. Congress needs to know the scale and
dynamics of the problem to prioritize resources. The Justice
Department has been mandated with developing prevalence
methodologies, but it has not yet been done.
Recommendation 2. Victim protocol is: This is working
upstream of Federal vacatur laws. Law enforcement agents often
arrest trafficking victims, in part, because they don't
recognize them as victims. As well, agencies don't often have
referral systems in place for shelters or trauma counseling, or
experts on survivor rights. The Departments of Justice and
Homeland Security have been mandated with developing a victim
protocol, but it has not been done.
Recommendation 3. The criminal records, as many have stated
before me, I think the count might be 46 States now have the
ability for trafficking victims to help clear their records.
It's time for Congress to catch up and pass a Federal vacatur
law.
Recommendation 4. Transparency in the prohibition of forced
labor in government contracts. You may know that U.S.
procurement rules prohibit tax dollars from being used for
products made by forced labor. However, oversight should be
strengthened, to include trafficking compliance officers at all
Federal agencies; publication of reports on the number of
investigations, the number of contracts terminated, and other
steps to ensure compliance. Congress must ensure that
violations are referred to the Justice Department for action.
Recommendation 5. Foreign labor recruiters. International
labor recruitment is a loosely-regulated field which allows
traffickers to trick migrants by posing as legitimate labor
recruiters. Even legitimate recruiters charge exorbitant fees
and usurious interests, trapping migrants in debt bondage. We
urge Congress to strengthen these regulations.
Recommendation 6. Equity gaps. Federal funding increases
over the past decade have been directed largely towards sex
trafficking, leaving labor trafficking, and those programs are
now under-
resourced. As well, there's an emphasis on prosecutions, which
has left gaps in prevention and protection programs. There is a
need to increase attention on labor trafficking and to
rebalance the three Ps of prevention, prosecution, and
protection.
Again, my thanks for your time, and the ATEST coalition
stands ready to answer any questions at any time, now or in the
future, from any of your offices. Thanks.
[The statement of Mr. FitzPatrick follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you so very much for your testimony.
I'm now pleased to recognize for five minutes Ms. Jacquelyn
Aluotto.
You are recognized.
STATEMENT OF JACQUELYN ALUOTTO
Ms. Aluotto. Thank you to the Members of the Subcommittee,
Chair, and the Honorable Sheila Jackson Lee.
I'm honored to be here to testify about the oversight of
Federal efforts to combat human trafficking.
My name is Jacquelyn Aluotto. I serve as a community
awareness coordinator for the Human Trafficking Rescue Alliance
of the Southern District. It is the fourth largest task force
in the nation, created by the Justice Department. I'm also here
representing No Trafficking Zone. I'm the President of this
organization.
In our organization, we study trafficking trends. Among
those trafficking trends, we study life patterns and predatory
behaviors, which helps us to provide information to dismantle
and disrupt this intricate crime.
Among the other things that we do, we advocate for victims.
I wanted to walk you through what victims are going through in
high schools across America. Recently, SB 1831, no trafficking
school laws, passed to protect children in schools, making it a
first degree felony for recruiting and trafficking of a child
while at school or during a school-related event. Over 55
percent of victims were contacted when they were in school in
the State of Texas, which is an alarming number. That is more
than half.
I now want to walk you through what these victims are going
through and what it is really like to be a child victim in the
United States of America. It is not just the atrocities that
predators and organized crime are committing against them. It
is also that our justice system refuses to recognize exactly
what this crime is. We're not educated enough to identify this
crime, nor do we understand the trauma that these victims will
face.
I met Courtney Litvak two years ago. When I first met her,
she was crying on a floor very upset and didn't think that her
life was worth anything. If you know Courtney Litvak, you know
that she serves on the White House panel. She does so many
things for her community, and she's probably the most beautiful
person I have ever met in my life. She will help anyone.
During Courtney's story, when she was trafficked, not only
did her school label her as a bad girl, derogatory behaviors,
they also bullied her parents and her to stop fighting for
their children's rights. I want to explain this to you. This is
a normal occurrence every day across America. If you are a
victim in school and you talk about trafficking, it becomes
very uncomfortable for the schools because we've become more
worried about the liability of the school versus the
accountability.
The reason why is because, when traffickers send in the
recruiters, the recruiters are children themselves who are
grooming the kids. When they introduce the children to drugs,
they, then take them to strip clubs. After they learn to dance,
they are forced to have sex.
Among those, the girls will let you know and tell you that
they were beaten in. So, what does breaking in mean? Breaking
in means, if I do not conform to what you're telling me to do,
I will beat you; I will rape you; and I will have you gang
raped and beat you again, and then, videotape it. After I
videotape it, I'm going to distribute it across all social
media platforms. After I distribute it across all social media
platforms, those victims and their parents have to watch their
children be raped over and over and over again, as our nation
and our government says that it is okay.
CSAM, also known as child sexual abuse material, it is
illegal. We do have to fight for that. Imagine your child being
raped and having to watch that over and over and over again, as
social media platforms are making billions of dollars. Child
pornography in America makes over $20 billion a year. A
majority of those IP addresses comes from this nation. We have
a serious crime. Our nation is really failing our children.
I come here to ask you to please listen to me. I do this
every single day. I've done this for two decades. I'm tired of
seeing victims and their parents suffer. I'm tired of seeing
our system not understand it. We do need training, but we need
specific training. We need scenario-based training. We do need
funding, but we need reallocating of funding because the foster
care system, the more money it gets, the more we are still
hurting children.
So, I ask you to look at--please pass the EARN IT Act.
Please pass No Trafficking Zones. Because the most thing that
we have to do is we have to come together as a nation and
understand the difference between good and evil, so that we can
fight for our children.
Thank you so much for allowing me to talk. I'm very
honored.
[The statement of Ms. Aluotto follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you for your powerful testimony.
I'm now delighted to yield five minutes to Ms. Martina
Vandenberg.
Ms. Vandenberg, you are recognized for five minutes.
STATEMENT OF MARTINA E. VANDENBERG
Ms. Vandenberg. Thank you so much, Chair Jackson Lee, Chair
Nadler, Ranking Member Biggs, and Members of the Subcommittee.
It's an honor, it's an honor to appear before you today.
The Human Trafficking Legal Center provides pro bono legal
representation to survivors of human trafficking. Over the
years we have done this work, we have recognized that survivors
need legal counsel to navigate and fight for justice.
As we survey Federal human trafficking efforts, I'm
reminded of the motto, ``Deeds, not words.'' So, let's start
with criminal prosecution. At the Human Trafficking Legal
Center, the vast majority of cases that we see are cases of
forced labors. Victims of forced labor almost never see their
day in court. In 2020, the last year for which we have official
data, the Department of Justice brought just 15 forced labor
cases in the entire country. In 2019, that number was 12.
Prosecutions of forced labor are barely in the double digits.
The Department of Justice has never prosecuted a perpetrator
for forced labor under the extraterritorial jurisdiction
provisions of the law, 18 U.S.C. 1596.
In cases that are prosecuted, restitution, a form of
compensation to victims, is mandatory. Our own research has
recognized and revealed that just 27 percent of cases that end
in a conviction actually result in mandatory restitution
orders. Even more troubling than the failure to obtain
restitution orders for victims in these cases is the U.S.
Government's failure to collect the money that is ordered. Let
me give you an example.
Jose Alfaro, a survivor of child sex trafficking and a
member of our board of directors, also received a restitution
order in a criminal case against his trafficker. The other
three victims in that case did not receive orders. Federal
prosecutors in the case, U.S. v. Gandy, forfeited more than
$200,000 from the defendant, but that money went to the Federal
Treasury and not to the victims. Only years later, when Jose
had obtained pro bono counsel, did the Federal Treasury,
finally, disgorge the funds to cover restitution and
remission--years later.
For survivors, the failure to receive restitution can be
devastating, but even more devastating than that is when
victims themselves are prosecuted and convicted for crimes
related to trafficking. We are working on a Federal criminal
case in which a victim of forced labor has been charged with
Federal crimes, including fraud, and the prosecutors simply
refuse to acknowledge her status as a victim in the case.
Why does this matter? I think you have heard powerfully
from the survivors on this panel why this matters. Trafficking
victims prosecuted by Federal authorities face lifelong
consequences of conviction. They are barred from employment,
ineligible for professional licenses, unable to rent
apartments, and even unable to chaperone their own children's
field trips at school. The list goes on and on. This is why a
Federal vacatur statute is needed. Survivors must have the
ability to vacate these convictions, and they must have access
to an affirmative defense to avoid these convictions and
prosecutions in the first place.
I'd like to turn for a moment to what I call the
``forgotten P,'' which is prevention. For the last two decades,
the U.S. anti-trafficking policy has prioritized prosecution
and this must now change, and the focus must switch to
preventing these abuses.
So, what would prevent human trafficking? It's not what you
think. One item is housing. It is one of the biggest gaps in
human trafficking policy in the United States.
What else would protect and prevent human trafficking?
Protections for immigrant workers in the United States.
Advocates have long called for greater protections for workers
on A-3, G-5, and H-2A visas. Traffickers abuse these programs
to make enormous profits at the expense of migrant workers.
What else would prevent human trafficking? Enforcement of
U.S. labor laws, including prohibitions on wage theft and child
labor; in other words, fund the Department of Labor.
You've heard today about survivor leadership. I want to
quote Bukola Oriola, a survivor of forced labor from Nigeria,
who said to me recently,
For me, survivor empowerment is key to stopping trafficking. We
can only successfully stop it when we involve those who are
directly affected.
I agree completely and hope that you will continue to listen to
survivors.
I want to add one last point about forced labor, not just
in the United States, but around the globe. We applaud U.S. and
Customs Border Protection's ramped-up enforcement of the import
ban on goods made through forced labor under section 307 of the
Tariff Act. CBP is enforcing the law, and Congress should fund
CBP adequately to carry out its forced labor mandate. With
implementation of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Labor Act
set to commence in June 2022, we want to make sure that there
are sufficient resources.
I've included multiple, multiple recommendations in my
written testimony, but I'll just close with this: We need deeds
and not words. With deeds, we can eradicate human trafficking
and forced labor.
Thank you for this opportunity to testify at the hearing.
[The statement of Ms. Vandenberg follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you for your testimony, and thank
all the Witnesses for their testimony. It has been instructive,
provocative, and insightful, and it is going to insight in the
right direction. Because it is 2022; as we sit here today,
people are being violated and trafficked.
So, it is now time for questioning, and I would like to
begin, recognizing myself for five minutes.
Our time is very short. So, I will ask our Witnesses to
bear with me for short, pointed answers. I am going to start
with Ms. Vandenberg.
Thank you for highlighting the forced labor, as Ms. Chumbow
has done as well.
Let me quickly go to my opening statement.
Human smuggling is horrible. The victim is the United
States. The victim is certainly people who come for many
different reasons. It is important to emphasize what human
trafficking is and the depth of devastation and lack of
protection for the victims of human trafficking.
Can you give us that, so that we are not confused between
human smuggling and human trafficking?
Ms. Vandenberg. Chair Jackson Lee, I'm so glad that you
raised that issue in your opening statement, and I'm so glad
that you've returned to it. Because smuggling and trafficking
are completely different phenomena.
You don't even have to cross an international border to be
trafficked. The distinguishing feature for adults is that
traffickers use force, fraud, or coercion to force someone to
commit an act of labor or a commercial sex act. It is very,
very important to distinguish between these two phenomena.
Thank you.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you so very much.
Now, Ms. Chumbow--and I am going to ask Mr. Eduardo as
well--what are the barriers? We thank you for this pouring out
your heart and your very personal story, which must be very
painful. So, what are the barriers that you found particularly
challenging as a survivor, particularly, Ms. Chumbow, of labor
trafficking?
Ms. Chumbow. Thank you for that question.
One of the barriers, again, is cultural understanding. It
was, like I mentioned in my testimony, I was age 9, and for me
coming to the United States was because of the television show
that I saw on TV. So, I thought America was just like that. I
never knew that I was a victim of modern-day slavery.
When I did get out to get help, and the investigators on my
case are accusing me for wanting a green card. Really, it was
very hard for me to understand what a green card is. Because
coming from another country, we don't know that we need
documents to work in this country. We don't know that you need
green cards. So, I was 9 years old. I just thought I was coming
to go to school.
A lot of the barriers is just having an understanding of
where we come from and not being able to understand the laws
and the rules of this country and what we need.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you. Thank you so very much.
Mr. Eduardo, barriers, concisely, of what you face or what
you think have been overlooked?
Mr. Eduardo. First, it was that I am a male. There are no--
really services for male survivors. There is this idea that
only children of woman are in traffic. Most of the services
receive funding for woman. I understand that the majority of
people identified are women, but we are missing other survivors
because they are male.
The other important piece is that, because I am an
immigrant, we hear a lot of times this idea that immigrants, we
are here to steal loaves, that we are all rapists, that we all
belong to gangs. That was one of the main barriers that stopped
me--like to even contact law enforcement or reach out for help,
because I knew that it was one of the tools that my traffickers
used. They say that outside no one is going to support you; no
one is going to believe you. It was because I was a Latino from
Mexico.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you.
As my time is moving, Mr. FitzPatrick, we found out that,
in 2017, evidence of 53 percent of arrests for child
prostitution were of Black children. The trauma and the
stigmatizing occurs particularly in diverse groups. Mr. Eduardo
mentioned immigrants. Help us understand what should be done as
it relates to trauma and sentencing of child survivors of
trafficking.
Mr. FitzPatrick. Thank you for that question.
I think there's a phrase that trafficking can happen to
anyone, but I think it's important to note that it doesn't
always, or most always, happen to people who are not people of
color. So, some of the vulnerabilities that come with being a
person of color lead to vulnerabilities for traffickers. These
can be problems in the foster care system. These can be things
that happen to all youths, unhoused youths and runaway and
homeless youths. So, you find them are particularly vulnerable
to having to commit crimes of survival--
Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you.
Mr. FitzPatrick. --including those that are forced to
commit by traffickers. These--
Ms. Jackson Lee. I just have a few more seconds.
Mr. FitzPatrick. The trauma--
Ms. Jackson Lee. I need to move to another person.
Mr. FitzPatrick. The trauma that this leaves behind on
someone ``needs'' to be addressed at the point of intervention
at the point of arrest or rescue.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you.
Ms. Aluotto, very quickly, how devastating it is to go to
school and your parents think you're safe, and yet, you're
being trafficked at a school, maybe as young as elementary
school?
Ms. Aluotto. It is extremely terrifying. It is terrifying
to send your child to school where you think your child is
safe, and then, to understand that, at an alarming rate across
this nation, your child is at school being exploited. Many
times, the school is not marking the absences when they're
aware of certain situations, but they are so afraid of how to
handle it. They are really more afraid of the liability versus
accountability. I think it's terrifying for parents, but I also
think it's terrifying for the children, that they're not
getting the help that they really need.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you so very much.
My time has expired. I recognize now Mr. Chabot for five
minutes.
Mr. Chabot. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you to all the Witnesses who have testified here this
morning.
Human trafficking, there is no question, is a serious
challenge facing us both here at home and abroad. In addition
to being on this Committee, the Judiciary Committee, I am also
the Ranking Member of the Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Asian
and the Pacific. In that role, I have spent many years working
on solutions to human trafficking all across the globe.
Over the years, we have had some success in protecting
young girls abroad by helping to improve their circumstances,
so that they become less vulnerable to human trafficking
networks. I sponsored, for example, along with Senator Rubio,
some time back, bipartisan legislation, which was signed into
law by President Obama, to make certain that every child,
especially girls, around the globe are issued birth
certificates. So, many young girls in specific countries, their
birth was never really marked by anything, and they sort of
were lost and particularly subject to human trafficking. So,
that has helped, but it is only one piece of the solution.
Proper documentation for these children would not only
improve their lives by making it easier to access schools and
health services, and other economic, legal, and political
benefits in their home country, but also help combat the human
trafficking child marriage and slave labor practices that
flourish all across the globe.
Here at home, there are additional steps that we can take
to disrupt human trafficking networks. That starts with making
sure that our southern border cannot be used by criminal
trafficking networks to smuggle vulnerable children and women
into the country.
Unfortunately, in that effort, we have got a long way to
go. Because since he took office, President Biden has been busy
reversing just about every one of the Trump Administration's
successful immigration policies. The Biden Administration has
stopped construction on the border wall, for example; ended
catch and release, and has practically abandoned enforcement by
ICE altogether, just to name a few of its misguided policies.
Now, the Biden Administration wants to stop enforcement of
title 42, which currently allows ICE to quickly expel people
trying to enter the United States illegally during a health
emergency. The Biden White House has admitted that it has,
quote, ``every expectation that there will be an influx of
people to the border,'' unquote, when title 42 is eliminated.
That is going to make the problem even worse.
Fortunately, a Federal judge in Louisiana blocked the Biden
Administration from going forward with its plans to stop
enforcement of title 42, although I fear that this could be a
temporary roadblock to the administration's plan.
Simply put, the situation at the border is an unmitigated
disaster, and it is about to get a whole lot worse potentially.
Unfortunately, the massive influx of illegal border crossings
that we are experiencing now will only make it easier for human
trafficking networks to flourish by exploiting our lax border
security.
Ms. Vaughan and Sheriff Dannels, let me just ask you both a
question. Do you agree that the chaos at our southern border,
created by the failed policies of the current administration,
have made it easier for human trafficking networks to smuggle
vulnerable women and children into our country?
Ms. Vaughan first, and then we will go to the sheriff, if
that is okay.
Ms. Vaughan. Absolutely, yes, I agree, because you can
track this in the numbers, but it has overwhelmed of the Border
Patrol and other agencies trying to grapple with this problem
to the point where they are not able to easily detect
trafficking that occurs right under their noses because they
are dealing with huge numbers of families and kids who are
coming unaccompanied, and it is just making it impossible for
them.
Mr. Chabot. Thank you. Sheriff Dannels?
Mr. Dannels. Sure. I echo what Ms. Vaughan has stated, also
the fact that is with the surge coming across our border, the
disarray, the lack of rule of law, and the messaging from the
administration, this administration, it creates a horrible
situation for trafficking in the fact that--I'm talking about
the victims that are being smuggled and trafficked to our
country, that--yeah, you're diluting our resources for
enforcement and that rule of law.
So, yeah, it's a sad situation going on down here. It's an
opportunity for those transnational organizations to exploit it
and that's happening every day.
Mr. Chabot. Then, finally, Sheriff--I don't have a whole
lot of time left--I know that you communicate with a lot of
your colleagues, other sheriffs and people in law enforcement.
Do your views here--are they reflected by those others, and if
so, if you wanted to comment on that?
Mr. Dannels. I will say this. They do, when it comes to
what's going on. We stand for people. We stand for those who've
been victims of crimes as sheriffs. I will say this. One thing
that is upsetting to me as a sheriff--I speak on behalf of my
3,000 sheriffs--is we need to--
Ms. Jackson Lee. If you can answer quickly, Sheriff. Your
time has expired.
Mr. Dannels. Okay. Thank you, Madam Chair. We need the
collective efforts of local, State, and Federal working
together. That's how we're going to solve this problem.
Mr. Chabot. Thank you. Yield back.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you. The gentleman's time--the
Member's time has expired.
I now recognize Chair of the Full Committee, Mr. Nadler,
for five minutes.
Chair Nadler. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Ms. Chumbow, would it have helped you to have an attorney
assigned to you while the criminal case against your trafficker
went on?
Ms. Chumbow. Sorry. Can you repeat the question again?
Chair Nadler. Would it have helped you to have an attorney
assigned to you while the criminal case against your trafficker
was going on?
Ms. Chumbow. Yeah, it would have helped. It did help. So,
there was one attorney that was very helpful, especially she
was helping me to teach me about my rights.
It definitely did help to have an attorney while my case
was being investigated. and also teaching me what I need to
know and what the process was.
So, having an attorney assigned to my case definitely did
help and it definitely can help in other cases.
Chair Nadler. Thank you.
Ms. McKenzie, you pled guilty to trafficking crimes based
on actions your trafficker forced you to take. How often are
victims of human trafficking forced to commit crimes by their
traffickers?
Ms. McKenzie. Traffickers create their criminal enterprise
to evade criminal charges. So, this is a common practice about
among traffickers. They know the laws better than the victims
know the laws. They know the laws better than some of us in
this room. So, they create their enterprise to ensure--there's
even a book that this trafficker wrote that says keep your
hands clean. You have to be seen--you have to use others as cat
paws. So, they're teaching even other traffickers.
Chair Nadler. A trafficker wrote a book on how to be a
trafficker?
Ms. McKenzie. Yes. There are tons of books out by
traffickers teaching others how to be a trafficker.
Chair Nadler. Wow.
Mr. Eduardo, can you expand on the obstacles you faced as
an LGBTQ+ survivor and how can we better support the needs of
LGBTQ+ trafficking survivors?
Mr. Eduardo. Yes. Actually, I think that we have great
examples in the South about bills that are still being
education around LGBTQ+ individuals, and these just fuels
homophobia and transphobia even in--I'm living in New York City
and I have faced homophobia, not only here, also in Mexico, and
that was one of the main barriers for me because I knew that I
wasn't going to be accepted and that there is still homophobia
in this country. That's a big, big barrier because of the fear
of just being denied services for who you are, or not being
seen as a full human being because I identify as a gay male.
So, that needs to change, and if we want to fight against
trafficking we cannot support bills that are stopping rights
for LGBTQ+ community.
I know that we need to stop silencing and we need to
educate ourselves more. It's not about making more gay people
or transgender individuals, but it's recognizing the barriers
that we face, that there are no services for us and we are
denied based on our sexuality or even sometimes our appearance.
Chair Nadler. How can the government better support the
needs of LGBTQ trafficking survivors?
Mr. Eduardo. Recognizing our rights. Recognizing and
creating Federal force to address discrimination or any other
form of stigma, and I think that a lot of times even
politicians they need to be aware of the language that is used.
We are human beings. We are not rapists. We are not--as I
experienced it, like, being part of the LGBTQ+ community has
put me in high risk because of this discrimination and
homophobia and transphobia, that it's a lot of times power of
the narrative that drives a lot of legislation.
Chair Nadler. Thank you.
Mr. FitzPatrick, why is a whole of government approach
necessary to address human trafficking?
Mr. FitzPatrick. Well, in part because you need to work on
prevention strategies and some of those things are best done by
Health and Human Services or you need to integrate anti-
trafficking strategies into international development programs
and that needs to be done through State and USAID.
The U.S. has global leadership in this area through the
JTIP Office in the State Department. So, there's an avenue for
the State Department. We need to prosecute, of course.
I'm not against prosecuting. I just wish we'd see more
prosecutions of labor trafficking and that means we need to
involve the Labor Department and not just the Justice
Department.
So, that's why I think of this as a whole of government--
education programs as well. Inside the TVPRA there's a new
trafficking provision for the Transportation Department. So, I
think it's great that we have this diverse set of actions
happening throughout the Federal infrastructure to work on
different parts of the problem.
Chair Nadler. Thank you. My time has expired. I yield back.
Ms. Jackson Lee. The gentleman's time has expired.
I now recognize Judge Gohmert for five years--not years
but--
[Laughter.]
Ms. Jackson Lee. I don't know if that meant incarceration
or time. In any event, five minutes, Judge. You are now
recognized.
Mr. Gohmert. I appreciate the Chair. Thank you. I
appreciate you all being here, and my heart goes out to those
who have been victimized by human trafficking.
It's just horrendous, and I know my friends across the
aisle are not big supporters of mandatory minimums, but for
children's sake, it seems like that ought to be a place.
Human trafficking, what's been done to children, ought to
bring about some commonality between people on both sides of
the aisle that 6\1/2\ years, as has already been pointed out by
some, that is not enough for someone who is engaging in
trafficking--sex trafficking, human trafficking--for minor
children.
For heaven's sake, they need to be doing some long, hard
time. That is one thing that I appreciate that being brought up
by some of the testimony.
Mr. Eduardo, what you've been through is just
unconscionable. Anybody who would do the things that have been
done to you there ought to be a mandatory minimum where they're
locked up for many years as a general deterrence and specific
deterrence.
You indicate that you feel like your biggest problem is
discrimination and homophobia. It sounds like the hell you've
been through has a lot more to do with the trafficking being
done than any type of homophobia.
I know your testimony--you're a Latino immigrant. Did
someone sell you to somebody in this country from another
country? How did it come about that you were trafficked?
Mr. Eduardo. No. Actually, I experienced twice trafficking
from Mexico to Canada, that's the international trafficking.
Mr. Gohmert. Does that mean somebody, you know--
Mr. Eduardo. Sold me to another person.
Mr. Gohmert. Yeah. So, where was the person that sold you
to Canada?
Mr. Eduardo. The person who first started trafficking--my
first trafficker it was in Mexico. He had connections with
someone in Canada and everything that started as--
Mr. Gohmert. Was this somebody in your family, like Ms.
Chumbow? Didn't you say it was your uncle?
Ms. Chumbow. Yes.
Mr. Gohmert. Yeah. Was it a relative? Who sold you?
Mr. Eduardo. No. Actually, he was part of the--he was
another gay male. That's why I think that a lot of times we
don't understand the--
Mr. Gohmert. So, he was gay, but he had homophobia and
that's how your problem started?
Mr. Eduardo. Yes. No, the problem is that society isolates
us because we are gay. We are denied jobs. We are denied from
opportunities.
Mr. Gohmert. So, somebody in Canada actually paid for you
when you came to Canada. Did the person in Canada sell you to
the United States?
Mr. Eduardo. No. Actually, I escaped because, as I say,
it's when I had the situation when I was bleeding and I just
escaped. The thing was that I didn't want to go back to Mexico,
so I traveled here to the United States.
Mr. Gohmert. Yeah. Because it seems like we do need to
focus on exactly how this gets started and it sounds like--I
know you said that racism was at the base of it. Was your uncle
White?
Ms. Chumbow. No.
Mr. Gohmert. Because it sounds like greed is a bigger
problem, that we're allowing people who are greedy to just
totally disregard the rights of someone like you and send you
into a life of--a childhood of hell, what you've been through.
So, I really want to bear down on exactly how that came about,
like Mr. Eduardo was telling us. How did that actually come
about that your uncle--yeah, go ahead.
Ms. Chumbow. Yeah. So, for my case, again, my trafficker
was also a Cameroonian, but a U.S. citizen that is based in the
U.S. My trafficker has a--their family owns like big businesses
in Cameroon and my uncle worked for a lot of wealthy people in
Cameroon as a driver.
So, I guess this woman just came and stated that she was
looking for someone and my uncle thought I would be the right
person to come to America.
When it comes to race, the reason why I mentioned racism
being part of the problem, again, because a lot of the time,
us, as people of color are trafficked a lot and we don't get to
see ourself in the media talking about this issue of
trafficking.
So, the reason why I say race, because if you Google human
trafficking and you click on images, you get to see that they
don't really show people of color. So, that's why I talk about
race, and it's really hard for us, people of color, to get
services.
Mr. Gohmert. Well, thank you. I appreciate it, Madam Chair.
We really do need to work together to make it as difficult as
possible for people to be sold into this country. It's just
terrible what's going on. Thank you for being here. I yield
back.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you. The gentleman's time has
expired.
I now recognize gentlelady from Atlanta, Georgia, Ms.
McBath, for five minutes.
Ms. McBath. Thank you, Madam Chair, and good afternoon to
our Witnesses, and specifically to our Witnesses before us
today who are survivors of trafficking. I've read your
testimonies, and from the bottom of my heart I really, really
want to thank you for being with us today.
I know that it's not easy to be here sharing your stories,
but I do really admire your strength and your determination and
thank you, once again, for being here today.
The horror of human trafficking, whether that be sexual
trafficking or labor trafficking, is a national plight and it's
affecting each of our districts, all of us, Members of Congress
and, sadly, human trafficking can happen to anyone no matter
their background. Victims of human trafficking
disproportionately tend to be Black, Latino, and indigenous
women and girls.
However, we know that there's also a significant problem of
human trafficking victims who are male, as has been expressed
this morning, and, sadly, are often overlooked and under
counted in these kinds of tragedies.
It's imperative that we do everything in our power to
combat human trafficking, and in addition to increasing
prosecution of human traffickers we must prevent it before it
happens.
We have got to be better at being proactive. That means
protecting vulnerable communities, such as children in the
welfare system, youth who have encountered the juvenile justice
system, runaway and homeless youth, and intervening before
they're faced with exploitative recruitment practices and we
must--it's just essential that we make sure that we're doing
everything that we can through a holistic approach to solving
human trafficking.
My first question is for Ms. Chumbow. When we think about
identifying victims of human trafficking we often do not think
of our healthcare providers and, however, studies have found
that between 68-88 percent of human trafficking survivors in
the United States alone encounter a healthcare provider during
their trafficking but are not recognized as trafficking
victims.
Did you ever encounter a healthcare provider while you were
a victim of forced labor and did that person recognize that you
were a trafficking victim? In what ways can we ensure that
healthcare providers are properly trained to be able to screen
for victims that have been trafficked?
Ms. Chumbow. Thank you for your question, and yes to your
answer. I did encounter a healthcare person when I was in my
trafficking situation.
I'll give an example. My trafficker--again, I had mentioned
my trafficker was very abusive towards me and one time I didn't
do something right in the kitchen. I wasn't able to cook the
food properly for the kids and so my trafficker used a metal
broom to beat me, and my knee broke and it cracked open and I
have the scar here to show that.
So, she took me to the emergency room and she was there
with me, and I remember the nurses and the doctor came in and
asking what happened, and I couldn't really say much because my
trafficker was there and it was really hard for me to tell this
doctor and nurses what happened.
So, I just said, hey, I fell down. It would have been nice
if the nurses or doctor at that time would have asked my
trafficker to go out. Maybe I would have said exactly what
happened or maybe if they just noticed the way I didn't look so
happy.
I looked unnourished, because I really didn't eat a lot
during my trafficking situation, and they didn't ask the right
question and they didn't do the right proper way to say, hey,
get out there. Let me talk to this young lady, and my
trafficker being there really made it hard for me to be able to
communicate of what happened.
So, nurses and doctors, they're doing really well now to
try to get training about this issue, and I will say that it's
been a pleasure to be able to talk to nurses and doctors of how
they can able to identify a trafficking victim when they come
to the emergency room or go to the doctor.
That was my first time ever going to the emergency room
after being with my trafficker for such a long time.
Ms. McBath. Thank you so much for that. I really am grieved
by the things that you've been through.
Mr. FitzPatrick, we know that many trafficked youth
experience a significant amount of trauma prior to their
exploitation, making them more vulnerable to trafficking and
exploitation.
What can we do better to support victims and intervene in
the cycle of abuse, abuse of vulnerable children, that are
often victim to this kind of trafficking?
Mr. FitzPatrick. Well, I think the McKinney-Vento Runaway
and Homeless Youth Act has programs that help with children's
vulnerabilities and funding those programs, I think, is really
important.
Our alliance supports that and the National Network for
Youth is in our coalition as well educating doctors to
intervene. One of our organizations in our coalition is Heal
Trafficking, doctors that train other doctors on what to look
for.
So, just like doctors are trained to look for child abuse
or neglect or domestic violence if someone shows up in their
ER. One recent example is they handed out 20,000 brochures on
human trafficking in India in a trafficking hotspot when people
were getting their COVID vaccinations.
Integrating anti-trafficking interventions into medical
settings is another way. The same thing--we have called for a
comprehensive study on the connection between gender-based
violence and human trafficking and we hope that might get
introduced as part of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act.
So, there are several things we can do on several fronts to
help cope with trauma and root causes that may leave people
vulnerable.
Ms. Jackson Lee. The gentlelady's time has expired.
Ms. McBath. Thank you. My time is expired.
Ms. Jackson Lee. I now recognize Mr. Tiffany for five
minutes.
Mr. Tiffany. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Ms. Chumbow, did I hear correctly traffickers were using
the same passport as much as five times?
Ms. Chumbow. Yes. My trafficker used one passport to bring
five of us into the United States. Again, I didn't know that I
came into the country illegally. So, I didn't know that. I
didn't know any of that. So, but, yes.
Mr. Tiffany. Thank you.
Ms. Aluotto, did I hear you say that grooming is happening
in schools?
Ms. Aluotto. Yes, sir.
Mr. Tiffany. Frequently?
Ms. Aluotto. Yes. Grooming is happening. It's systematic
grooming. It's happening in schools. It's happening on social
media, and if you want me to walk through how simple and easy
it is to groom someone, you study their vulnerabilities. You
understand that a lot of youth do not understand the boundaries
and you start testing them and pushing them. Once you start
testing them and pushing them, the job is to strip them of
their identity, so much that they become what you want them to
become.
Mr. Tiffany. Should we regulate social media in regards to
this?
Ms. Aluotto. I think absolutely, if you're going to allow
CSM, child sex abuse material, on because it is against the law
to create it and distribute it, yes, I do.
Mr. Tiffany. Is it on social media currently?
Ms. Aluotto. Yes.
Mr. Tiffany. You could find it for me readily?
Ms. Aluotto. I probably could. Yeah.
Mr. Tiffany. Thank you.
Ms. Aluotto. Thank you.
Mr. Tiffany. Ms. Vandenberg, you talked about prevention
and I think you mentioned the Uighurs of Western China. Should
we deny products that are made with slave labor for entry into
our country?
Ms. Vandenberg. Absolutely, and we are delighted to see the
passage almost unanimously in the House and the Senate of the
Uighur Forced Labor Prevention Act. It goes into effect June
21st of this year. The details are to be worked out.
Absolutely, those products made with Uighur forced labor,
whether it's in Xinjiang or whether it's Uighur labor from the
labor transfer program it should be barred from entering the
U.S., yes.
Mr. Tiffany. Have you had any American companies that have
fought on that to not allow it to happen?
Ms. Vandenberg. So, Congressman Tiffany, we just had public
hearings on this on April the 8th and a number of companies
testified at that open hearing that was held by the Forced
Labor Enforcement Task Force, which is tasked with enforcing
the Uighur Forced Labor Prevention Act, and many of those
companies asked for delay.
They have been on notice for two years that Uighur forced
labor is not permissible. For two years they have had time to
plan and, yet, they are asking for a phased implementation of
the law that you passed. We think that's extremely troubling.
Mr. Tiffany. Yeah, I agree with you, and I think
companies--I'll name them--like Nike and Apple and some of
them, need to shape up their practices in regard to this. I'd
also point out that many of the solar and wind panels--solar
panels and wind turbines--that have come into this country are
coming in via forced labor being produced by forced labor in
China.
Sheriff Dannels--and by the way, just a gentle correction
for the Committee. It's not Daniels. It is Dannels.
Sheriff Dannels, I visited you two years ago.
Representative Biggs led a tour down there. It was eye
opening--first time for me going down to the Arizona border,
and you said things were getting better, that progress was
being made at that time. It was early June 2020. Is that still
the case nearly two years later?
Mr. Dannels. Good seeing you again, Congressman, and the
answer that is no. In fact, just the opposite. To give you an
example, when you were here two years ago, on our own virtual
camera system we saw illegal entries at a rate of about 400 a
month.
Now, we're up to 8,000 a month and that's just off my
Cochise County Sheriff's Office camera virtual system. Eight
thousand a month compared to 400, and then you multiply that
throughout when it comes to the crime and all the different
aspects of trafficking and smuggling. So, we're in pretty bad
shape here.
Mr. Tiffany. Did you say 400 versus 8,000?
Mr. Dannels. Yeah. Two years ago when you were here, sir,
we at 400 a month. Now, we're approaching--
Mr. Tiffany. So, 20 times as many?
Mr. Dannels. Yes.
Mr. Tiffany. Twenty times as many?
Mr. Dannels. Yes.
Mr. Tiffany. How serious is it that we keep--we're
beginning to hear this story about how American kids are now
complicit in making this happen and that they're being paid to
bring in--especially young American kids that are bringing in
drugs and humans across the border? Have you seen that?
Mr. Dannels. We're seeing a lot of that. Sadly, to say,
we're seeing kids being recruited through social media by the
cartels. We're seeing it every day.
I got a handful kids in my jail right now all the way from
14-17 years of age, and we're trying to get an injunction right
now against social media to stop that recruitment against our
social media sites. So, the question you had earlier, I 100
percent echo. We need to have restrictions on our social media
sites.
Mr. Tiffany. Ms. Vaughan, I'm sorry I can't ask any
questions of you. I wish I could. My time is up. I yield back.
Ms. Jackson Lee. The time has expired.
I now recognize the gentlelady from Pennsylvania, Ms.
Scanlon, for five minutes.
Ms. Scanlon. Thank you, Chair Jackson Lee, for holding this
important hearing, and thank you to our Witnesses for taking
the time to join us as we talk about the complexities of
tackling the impact of human trafficking.
I'd like to get back to the purpose of the hearing,
exploring the ways in which our Federal government can improve
our response to trafficking and, in particular, how we can
better protect survivors of trafficking.
Before coming to Congress, I worked with agencies like the
Human Trafficking Legal Center, Polaris, KIND, and supervised
pro bono attorneys representing survivors of human trafficking
on the range of issues they face.
My team represented survivors lured by the promise of jobs
and trafficked into forced labor and survivors left vulnerable
to trafficking after being let down by our child welfare
system.
Last Congress, Congresswoman Wagner and I led a bipartisan
bill, the Protecting Access to Justice for Survivors Act on
this very topic. The legislation would improve access to legal
representation for trafficking survivors through Department of
Justice grants and allow recipients to use funds for post-
conviction relief proceedings, including vacatur, expungement,
record sealing or other post-conviction relief measures, and of
course, an ongoing issue is to the extent that survivors of
human trafficking are from other countries their lack of status
in our system and the inability of our legal aid system to
provide representation creates more hurdles.
Ms. Vandenberg, in your testimony you talked about the
importance of legal representation for survivors of
trafficking. Can you speak more to the realities that survivors
face in the legal system, whether that cases that don't get
prosecuted, unsatisfactory prosecutions, continued
vulnerability to abuse due to immigration status, prosecution
of survivors themselves and the barriers that having a criminal
record through no fault of their own can pose?
Ms. Vandenberg. I would agree with absolutely everything
that you just said, and thank you for your leadership in this
area.
When trafficking survivors do not have lawyers, they have
tremendous difficulty asserting their rights. They have
tremendous difficulty obtaining restitution. It is impossible
to bring a civil case under 18 U.S.C. 1595 without legal
counsel.
We have enormous problems with trafficking survivors now
getting immigration relief through the T-visa program because
this Vermont service center is moving so slowly that you can
wait as long as almost three years to get a visa. It is almost
impossible to navigate these complex systems without pro bono
legal representation by your side.
Ms. Scanlon. Thank you. Any suggestions on how Congress can
help ensure that representation is available? I mean, pro bono
representation means that we have volunteer lawyers doing it,
but perhaps there should be more and that's what our bill was
hoping to provide.
Ms. Vandenberg. I completely agree. We are now able to find
pro bono lawyers, largely, on the coasts. It's very difficult
to find pro bono lawyers in States that are not California and
New York and, perhaps, Florida.
So, it's very important that legal services receive funding
and that organizations receive funding to provide those legal
services through the nonprofit sector because we cannot depend
entirely on pro bono attorneys, particularly, in places that
are not sort of legal markets that are large.
Ms. Scanlon. Certainly, and many of the cases that the
attorneys I worked with were representing folks, it was nurses
or folks who were working at senior living centers in Arizona,
for example, or someone who had been lured to hotel service in
Colorado. It is, certainly, not a problem simply at the border
or on the coast.
Often, we see that we get justice through lawsuits
involving people's pocketbooks rather than necessarily the
criminal justice system. If restitution is mandatory, it seems
like that could put a dent in some of these practices. How are
traffickers avoiding paying restitution and what could we do
there?
Ms. Vandenberg. One problem that I see is that there is
infrequent forfeiture of defendants' assets and even when those
assets are forfeited, unfortunately, they are absorbed by the
Federal Treasury rather than rerouted to trafficking survivors
through restoration and payment of restitution.
There has to be much, much more attention in the U.S.
Attorneys' offices and in the Financial Litigation Units in
those offices to actually collecting the restitution that is
owed.
At this point, we are at a place where, really, victims
with lawyers are almost always the only ones who actually see
payment of restitution, and even then it's a fraction of the
amount that's owed.
Ms. Scanlon. Well, it sounds like providing more counsel to
folks who are in this situation would be helpful.
I see my time has expired so I yield back. Thank you.
Ms. Jackson Lee. The gentlelady's time has expired, and the
Chair now recognizes Mr. Fitzgerald for five minutes.
Mr. Fitzgerald. Thank you, Madam Chair. I think we should
retitle this hearing ``Close the Border and Close it Now''
because it seems the one thing that's in common with everything
that's been discussed today is there is a steady stream of
victims that have been created as a result of the border being
wide open between Mexico and the U.S.
Ms. Vaughan, I just wanted to ask the other thing that
seems common is there's this area of influence that one
individual has over other individuals. It can be coercion. It
can be addiction. It it can take a lot of different forms.
Can you talk about that, and what's the dynamic that
creates that or how is that viewed, I guess, when you're
talking about whether it's just trafficking somebody across the
border and then them being sold to another trafficker or we see
prostitution rings around the U.S. that also are created under
this idea that someone has control over another human being.
I think that's something that's really hard for many
Americans to kind of relate to. They don't get it. They hear
human trafficking. They don't know what it really means or what
it entails.
So, it's kind of brushed off as a topic that people are
familiar with, but aren't necessarily in tune to what the
dynamic is. Can you talk a little bit about that?
Ms. Vaughan. Sure. Thank you. That is a common thread that
I have seen in a number of the cases that I've tracked over the
years, and it starts with the ability of the traffickers to
tempt people into this arrangement to have themselves brought
to the United States illegal with a realistic expectation that
they're going to be released into the country. At that point,
often the traffickers are able to keep them in their clutches
by threatening them or sometimes at first seeming to be benign,
like telling them that they're going to find them a job. This
can be something that leads into the commercial sex trade or in
other cases, many, many cases it turns out to be labor
trafficking or in a peonage or indentured servitude, like a
case in Illinois where a woman--they paid one of the victims, a
father and his daughter paid $14,000 to be brought to the
border knowing that they were going to be released, as
happened. They gave the name of this woman, Concepcion Malinek,
in Illinois near Chicago, or in Chicago, who then charged them
another $18,000 to be able for, supposedly, the transportation
to her house.
She got them jobs with fake IDs working at a sandwich
factory. She basically stole half of their earnings telling
them it was for bills that they owed her to repay their debts,
threatened to turn them over to Immigration. This happened sort
of with the blessing of our broken immigration system and catch
and release policies that this was able to happen. There were
dozens of others living in this horribly unsanitary house.
In other cases it's kids who come unaccompanied end up in
government-run shelters or foster care placement situations.
They're vulnerable. Sometimes they run away from those. We have
seen--and those are the most vulnerable and those are the ones,
for example, that some of the gangs like MS-13 will draw into
their clutches using the techniques that we've heard described
here.
So, again, the system that we have, that is being allowed
to be perpetuated, is set up to have swift release of kids from
government custody, no follow-up, no home studies, no
mechanisms. These would be--this is a disgrace. They would not
pass muster in any State's foster care placement system.
Yet, the priority, certainly for the current
administration, is to allow people to get through the system as
quickly as possible, with as few questions asked as possible.
This is completely playing into the hands of the traffickers.
This is what enables them to carry on this horrible
brutalization of people and make money off of it. The more
money they make the more they're going to keep doing it, the
better able they are to control a situation in some of these
other countries, bribe the officials that they need to bribe.
It just perpetuates the whole thing. We are complicit in it as
a government by having polices that allow people to be tempted
in this way and allow the perpetrators to escape our attention
just pretending that this is some benign thing that's
happening.
Ms. Jackson Lee. The gentleman's time has expired.
Mr. Fitzgerald. Thank you.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you.
Mr. Fitzgerald. Excellent answer.
I yield back, Madam Chair.
Ms. Jackson Lee. The gentleman's time has expired.
I now recognize Mr. Lieu for five minutes.
Mr. Correa, are you present?
Ms. Escobar?
Mr. Cohen?
Ms. Escobar?
Ms. Escobar. Thank you. Oh, Madam Chair?
Ms. Jackson Lee. Yes, you are recognized, Ms. Escobar, for
five minutes. Thank you very much.
Ms. Escobar. Madam Chair, thank you so much for this
hearing and for this opportunity. I would like to thank all our
Witnesses for being here today.
I think it is really important given the comments by some
of our Republican colleagues that I make something very clear
from the onset. I am the only Member of Congress on this
Committee who actually represents a border community. I am so
proud to represent El Paso, Texas, and to give voice to the
reality that we see on the ground on the border.
The focus of this hearing should be what Congress can and
should do as well as what Congress has failed to do when it
comes to human trafficking. It is clear that the policies
championed by my Republican colleagues, policies like Remain in
Mexico, policies like title 42, policies created by Stephen
Miller of the Trump Administration--they have actually fueled
human trafficking.
It is also clear that by standing in the way of immigration
reform Republicans have done their best to close off legal
pathways. In fact, we haven't reformed our outdated immigration
laws in nearly 30 years. The last best chance we had at
reforming outdated immigration laws was in 2013, and
Republicans were the ones who obstructed.
Congress had a bipartisan bill that was passed in the
Senate, but House Tea Party Members ensured that this bill
never saw the light of day in the House of Representatives.
Nevertheless, House Democrats have repeatedly worked to pass
immigration reform despite our Republican colleagues' best
efforts to obstruct.
Obviously when you cut off legal pathways, when you create
a system where there is no line to get into, there is no way to
do it the right way because there is no way at all, obviously
immigrants and refugees will seek irregular pathways making
them vulnerable to human traffickers.
The best thing Congress can do today right now to help
alleviate some of the horrors of human trafficking is pass
immigration reform. I invite my Republican colleagues to join
us, finally once and for all.
I do have a couple of questions for our panelists.
Ms. Vandenberg, in your testimony you identified the work
visa system and H-2A visas, in particular, as a major
contributor to forced labor in the United States. Could you
elaborate on the barriers that such visas present to visa
holders who may need to leave an abusive employer?
Ms. Vandenberg. Absolutely. I'm so glad you asked that
question, and I just want to mention an important indictment
that just came down: U.S. v. Atrusio (phonetic). It is an
indictment involving more than 20 defendants who are alleged to
have brought and illegally petitioned, falsely petitioned for
as many as 71,000 H-2A workers to come into the United States.
The problem is that what we have in the United States is a
system where your visa is tied to your employer. So, if you're
employer, the person who brought you into the United States is
an abusive, or harmful, or trafficking you, or holding you in
forced labor, it is enormously difficult to leave. I agree with
you completely that we need to have immigration reform. I
agree, also, though that we need to have greater protections in
the H-2A system so that people can actually leave abusive
employers, and fight for their rights, and work legally in the
United States, as they have petitioned to do. These are workers
who are here legally in the United States, and they are facing
forced labor.
Ms. Escobar. Thank you, Ms. Vandenberg.
I have one more question for you with my remaining time.
Victims of trafficking who have arrest records may find
themselves excluded from safe affordable housing options, from
educational opportunities and legitimate employment, which can
leave them vulnerable to being re-trafficked. How do we
effectively address the needs of trafficking survivors with
arrest records to ensure they have access to housing?
Ms. Vandenberg. I would just echo what Ms. McKenzie said,
which is get rid of the convictions. At this point we have
vacatur and expungement statutes across the United States, and
States have done a great deal--largely credit to the work of
Kate Mogulescu and others--have done a great deal to end
convictions of trafficking victims. There's no Federal
equivalent. So, we very strongly feel that there should be a
Federal vacatur statute so that people do not face this kind of
discrimination in housing and in other sectors.
Ms. Escobar. Thank you so much. Really appreciate everyone
on here.
I just would once again reiterate to my Republican
colleagues, if you want to help stop human trafficking, work
with Democrats to pass immigration reform.
Madam Chair, I yield back.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you. The gentlelady's time has
expired.
I now recognize Mr. Owens for five minutes.
Mr. Owens. Thank you so much, Chair Jackson Lee, Ranking
Member Biggs, and Witnesses for this opportunity to address
this big issue.
I guess I will start off with our Democratic friends would
love to have you not believe your lying eyes. It was the last
year under Democratic control cartels are now making half a
million dollars per month trafficking. Last year under
Democratic control the cost of a child now to be trafficked is
$5,000. It is under the Democratic control over the last year
that we now have 40,000 unaccompanied kids who have come past
this border.
Human trafficking is pure evil, period. Sadly, 200 years
after my great-grandfather was trafficked here to this country
we still see it going on today. I have always been told you can
also judge someone's real intentions and priorities by how they
use their time and their money.
We have an administration who has failed to go to the
border, like every one of my Republican friends have, to see
this evil happening every single day. We now have NGOs that are
completing--there is a cycle of trafficking by taking these
kids and women into the country, just dropping them off
anywhere.
We need to prioritize not only detecting, preventing human
trafficking and prosecuting these perpetrators, these predators
and giving survivors the resources and support they need to
start anew. We also need to use some common sense. What I see
of my common sense of last year is this administrative is
complicit with this process, that has partnered with cartel
because they want profit and power, and this is being done on
purpose. You do not have this kind of misery by accident over
this last 12-18 months.
In Utah we are working on to lead our nation in these
efforts with collaborations with our attorney general, State,
and local enforcement agencies. Utah's transportation authority
announced last year they will begin to train staff to recognize
human trafficking.
Last year, I introduced a No Traffic of Traffickers--a No
Travel for Traffickers Act with my Democratic colleague
Republican Cohen, preventing trafficking kingpins from moving
freely from country to country ending the corrupt Golden
Passport Program. I have sponsored an EARN IT Act and END Child
Exploitation Act, a Child RESCUE Act, and other measures to
strengthen Federal efforts to prevent child exploitation.
This issue has been a priority of our mind from day one. If
we are going to ever get country to where we want to truly live
the American dream, this shows the stain on our heart by--just
like in 1800s the government not being aware or closing our
eyes to this evil going on because people making profits and
profitability because of political profitability.
So, we need to make sure our children aren't being used and
abused and make sure we identify these government officials who
simply do not care.
Sheriff Dannels, shortly after--well, let me just say, do
you have knowledge--what are the specific policies and programs
at the border that could prevent child trafficking? Sheriff?
Mr. Dannels. Thank you, sir. I appreciate the question.
The first thing, and this is what our national sheriffs
have proposed is a collective message starting with President
of the United States, supported by Congress, our governors,
sheriffs, and mayors that we can all come together with a
shared message, that we have a secure border, and we agree on
immigration reform. Second, is a collective action plan. Last,
but not least, is the enforcement of the rule of law. If we can
work together, it's amazing what we can get done.
Right now our border being in chaos the way it is a
concealment for these transnational organizations to traffic
children, adults, you name it. We have to work together. That's
my biggest message to you today. Thank you.
Mr. Owens. Jessica Vaughan, Ms. Vaughan, in your opinion if
the Biden Administration does not address the issues at the
Southwest border, how will this impact our nation's security
over the next year?
Ms. Vaughan. Well, the Department of Homeland Security is
now predicting that the level of illegal border crossing
probably is going to triple from several thousand a day, maybe
5,000-6,000 a day to 18,000 a day, which means--and also we've
now learned that the administration is planning on implementing
changes to how migrants are processed to emphasize even faster
processing and access to the United States rather than trying
to put a stop to this flow by emphasizing sending people home.
So, there are a number of things that can be done. It's
only going to get worse and the systems are only going to be
weakened.
We know, for example, today I read about an ICE Case where
a man connected to a terrorist organization who had crossed
illegally near El Paso on September was just removed from the
country. So, clearly bad actors, in addition to the traffickers
and the gang members, and so on, are trying to take advantage
of our unsecure border.
Mr. Owens. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much.
I yield back.
Ms. Jackson Lee. The gentleman time has expired.
The gentleman, Mr. Steube, is represented not for five
years, but five months--five--
Mr. Steube. Okay. I don't think I would want to take five
years, but I will take five minutes.
Ms. Jackson Lee. All right. Five minutes. The gentleman is
recognized. Not even for five months. Thank you.
Mr. Steube. All right. Thank you, Madam Chair.
First, I just feel like I need to address the comments that
were made by one of our Democratic colleagues about Republicans
getting in the way of immigration reform. I think she fails to
recognize the fact that the House is controlled by the
Democrats, the Senate is controlled by the Democrats, and the
White House is controlled by the Democrats. So, if they wanted
to pass immigration reform, they could have done it in the last
year-and-a-half, and that hasn't been able to be completed.
So, I would like to let somebody who knows what is going on
the border--because Sheriff Mark Dannels is representative of a
county that is as large as the State of Rhode Island and
Connecticut combined. So, regardless of whether the Members of
this Committee sit on a border district, the good sheriff there
knows exactly what is going on, and has been there for over 30
years and has seen day to day what is happening with Biden's
border crisis.
Just recently, sheriff, the DHS Secretary Mayorkas recently
stated that the border crisis was a problem that he inherited
from the previous administration. You have been sheriff there
under both the Trump Administration and the current
administration. Could you highlight for the American people the
vast differences and the effects of the policies that have been
put in place between the two administrations?
Mr. Dannels. Thank you, sir. It's a vast difference between
President Trump and President Biden. This started--under
President Trump we had manageable control on the border. Like I
say, we had 400 a month; now we're at 8,000 a month. Our got-
aways are--in my county, my section of the State are 16,000
got-aways. We lead the nation right now.
We were the safest county on the Southwest border out of 31
border counties. We had the greatest programs, the best
collective efforts. It was working. Now, we're one of the
worst. I hate to say it like that, based on the fact that the
numbers, the non-political numbers show that, and because the
message, the rule of law, the consequences, this administration
is not working with communities on the Southwest border. That
is the problem and we're not addressing border security. It's a
big difference.
Mr. Steube. Well, and talk about the got-aways for a
second. I mean we all see--here in Washington we see the
numbers of the apprehensions, which we are now over two million
apprehensions just since Biden has taken office, but what they
are not talking about is if we have apprehended over two
million--I am sure there is numbers, hundreds of thousands of
more of people that--as you term them got-aways, and the effect
that this is having on the safety and security of the American
people.
Mr. Dannels. Well, since July--excuse me, since October 1
of 2021 we've had over 300,000 got-aways. These are people--
can't give up. They're aggravated. They're serious criminals.
They're your traffickers in so many ways that have come through
into our country. That's a nominal minimal number on that. It
should scare every American out there. Nobody's addressing
border security. We got to address that. We need to address
immigration reform, like was spoke by many of the people
speaking today.
Our border is in really bad shape right now, and that's
saying it lightly. We have to actively engage in securing our
border, address the immigration reform, and start addressing
collectively these issues down here. It's only going to get
worse.
Mr. Steube. These got-aways are typically your more
hardened criminals that know how to get across the border to
avoid Border Patrol because they either have a record or they
have been previously deported. So, these are truly your high-
end criminals that are intending on coming into our country to
create harm and get experience in criminal activity. I mean
would you agree with that statement?
Mr. Dannels. I would agree with that, sir. That's why you
don't see them in Del Rio and Yuma giving up because they can't
give up. These are very aggravated individuals to include
people from countries of interest. These are serious criminals.
They have no respect for America, no respect for Americans. We
have to address that. Two thousand a day are coming into our
country--a day are coming into our country right now on got-
away status alone. So, again, we got to do a better job.
When the criminal cartels, the transnational organizations
behind much of this trafficking and smuggling and drugs have
more will than we do, they have come together united to do
their illicit trade, we got to do better.
Mr. Steube. We know of 43 terrorists, recognized terrorists
that have gotten in, and that is not including the people we
don't know and these got-aways.
Real quickly, Ms. Vaughan, in the time I have left that
leads into this, in terms of allowing criminal elements into
our country what has been the worst or most harmful policies of
the Biden Administration?
Ms. Vaughan. Most definitely the catch and release that is
happening at the border. Just the fact that they are really not
attempting to turn back so many of the people who are making it
here illegally and releasing them--
Ms. Jackson Lee. The gentleman's time has expired.
Ms. Vaughan. --into the country without coordination with
State and local officials.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you. The gentleman's time is
expired.
I am now pleased to recognize the gentlelady from
California for five minutes.
Ms. Bass, you are recognized for five minutes. Thank you.
Ms. Bass. Thank you so much. Thank you so much, Madam
Chair, and thank you for holding this hearing and your
leadership on this issue.
I wanted to direct my questions looking at trafficking, but
looking at young people who are from the U.S. who are in the
foster care system, the juvenile justice system, are from our
inner cities that wind up being trafficked, especially sexual
trafficking.
I have a couple of pieces of legislation, one that calls on
the Attorney General to provide training and technical
assistance for government agencies; another to establish a
working group to look at barriers that hamper data collection.
I wanted to know the Witnesses' reaction to that.
A bill I am doing with Representative Smith is the
Reauthorization of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, and
we are talking about grants to assist people in recognizing
trafficking. I am just wondering for those of you that have
been involved--I would direct this to Ms. McKenzie, Ms.
Vandenberg, or Mr. FitzPatrick. If you could talk about what we
have been accomplishing in terms of trafficking, but of U.S.
girls. My understanding is that the average age for a girl that
is sex trafficked is 12 years old and they tend to be girls
from the foster care system, or the juvenile justice system.
So, can Ms. McKenzie, Vandenberg, or FitzPatrick comment on
that?
Ms. Vandenberg. Thank you, Representative Bass, for that
question. I've been nominated to go first.
Ms. Bass. Good.
Ms. Vandenberg. Sadly, in our own research, looking for
example at criminal restitution, what we found is that the
least likely people to get criminal restitution in the United
States are child victims of sex trafficking. As you know, most
of those children are U.S. citizens.
The problem I see is that they don't have lawyers. So, if
we were to improve one aspect of U.S. systems it would be to
provide attorneys for trafficking survivors, including U.S.
citizen children.
Ms. Bass. Thank you very much.
Ms. McKenzie, or FitzPatrick, would you like to comment on
that?
Ms. McKenzie. I thank you for your question and I
definitely believe the legislation that you have introduced
will continue to help address this issue of trafficking.
This issue of trafficking, it's not a Republican or a
Democratic issue. We are talking about people's lives here,
right? We're talking about human beings who are being bought
and sold here on our own U.S. soil. We need to come together
and--and put this politics aside. We need to come together and
really address it. What you're doing to implement training on a
Federal level so that we can get these traffickers and hold the
true perpetrator, who is a trafficker, and not the victim
accountable. So, I thank you for introducing that legislation
and I personally support it.
Ms. Bass. Well, thank you. I appreciate and understand your
frustration and intolerance when politics is injected into
this. What did you think in terms of when--because I heard your
opening testimony. What did you need?
Ms. McKenzie. There are several things that I need, and I
explain the six of them in my written testimony. Number one, we
truly need to stop criminalizing victims. We need to hold
traffickers and buyers accountable. We need to stop
criminalizing our victims. We see over 46 States we said on a
State level have implementing this, but we still need to rise
the bar in a State level, and nothing exists on the Federal
level. We need to implement training for judges who have the
power--they have that gateway to get the victims access to the
services that they need. Criminalization is not the answer.
Victims need access to services to rebuilding their lives.
True freedom. We need true freedom. I hear people say all the
time we never want to see you go back to the life, we never
want to see you go back to trafficking. Then give us the things
that we need to pick up our broken pieces and go confidently
after our dreams.
Ms. Bass. Well, thank you very much. I am proud to say in
my county girls; and that is who we are talking about, are not
prosecuted. Because if you are under the age of consent, how
could you possibly be a prostitute?
I have found politically that there is a reluctance to hold
the men accountable, a reluctance to hold the johns
accountable. We will hold the traffickers, but the johns we
tend to shy away from.
Let me thank you so much for your willingness to testify,
to come before our Committee.
Again, let me thank, Madam Chair.
Ms. Jackson Lee. The gentlelady's time has expired. Thank
you very much for your questioning.
Now, I am pleased to yield five minutes to the Ranking
Member, Mr. Biggs. Five minutes. You are recognized.
Mr. Biggs. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Sheriff Dannels, I want to know how are human traffickers--
not necessarily drug traffickers or anything else--human
traffickers taking advantage of this border crisis in your
county?
Mr. Dannels. Well it's, Ranking Member Biggs, mainly
because they're allowed to do it. Let me just say that. It's
been talked about by Ms. Vaughan, too, the catch and release.
The consequences are not in place.
Give you an example: In my section of the State of Arizona,
southeast corner, in the month of February of 2022 we had over
22,000 encounters by Border Patrol and migrant smugglers. Nine
hundred and ninety-five were released back to Mexico. There
were 21,000 who were released in the country, just catch and
release. Then another 16,000 got-aways just in my section of
the State, which is a small sample of the 31 border counties.
We're allowing this. The Federal government is allowing
this. I call it intellectual avoidance. It's willful neglect.
We--and I've said this several times, we got to come together
and do a better job because citizens and those being
trafficking are all victims that we took an oath--the sheriff,
both the local, State, and Federal, and right now we're not
collectively doing that.
I agree with Ms. McKenzie; thank you for saying that, this
is not about politics. This is about people. So, it's being
allowed, Mr. Biggs.
Mr. Biggs. Thanks, Sheriff. I think one of the panelists
mentioned deterrence. I think you talked about deterrence. We
don't have any deterrence when we are releasing people who are
actually trafficking in human beings. So, there is a bit of a
problem.
Ms. Vaughan, in your written testimony you mention that the
Biden Administration has implemented policies concerning
unaccompanied children that actually encourages human
traffickers to exploit them. Would you elaborate on that for
us?
Ms. Vaughan. Sure. Thank you. This is one of the most
serious problems within the dysfunctional system, and through
information that you obtained from the Department of Homeland
Security just in the last year or so 146,000 unaccompanied
minors have been released into the country.
The current administration, particularly HHS, gives a big
illusion of monitoring the well-being of these kids, that they
have applications for the sponsors to fill out, that there's
legal orientation, post-release phone calls, and so on. That is
an illusion on monitoring. There are no home studies. There are
no financial assessments of the ability of the people who come
forward to sponsor these kids that they can actually do it.
There are no fingerprints taken. There is no requirement that
anyone comply with the requirements of the release of the child
to that person.
Even the phone calls that they've completed, they tout
these post-release phone calls that they make. Even those are
worthless for detecting whether someone has been taken into
commercialized sex trafficking or even labor trafficking. You
can't tell from a phone call what is going on in some of these
households.
In a lot of these cases there are no red flags for the
government agencies to pick up on. It's the local law
enforcement agencies that detect this or the service providing
agencies that detect it. Sometimes there are sanctuary policies
in place, also that prevent them from getting in touch with
immigration authorities to do something about it.
So, this is a disgrace, the system that we have that would
not pass muster in any foster care placement or child welfare
agency in any State in this country. That's why some of the
States are declining to participate because of the risk to the
kids.
Mr. Biggs. So, this gets to this cycle that we see. You
have got a decrepit foster system at the Federal level. That
leads to what Ms. Aluotto has described as this grooming that
takes place, particularly for foster children who are
vulnerable. That leads to the trafficking that occurs and makes
it very difficult to find and prosecute the actual trafficker
or rescue the victim.
So, I am glad we are having this hearing and there has
actually been some great concrete--and I have read the
documents. I think there are some great concrete proposals here
that we want to look at. In reality I really like the
expungement. In my home State, Arizona, we have an expungement
that goes back for quite a long ways. So, we tried to make
retroactive. That needs to happen as well.
I appreciate all your testimony and this is an important
issue and I am hoping that we can cross our boundaries that we
have here politically and find solutions.
So, with that I will yield back to you, Madam Chair.
Ms. Jackson Lee. I thank the Ranking Member very much and I
especially thank each and every one of the Witnesses. To the
survivors, your words, your passion, compassion, your anger and
anguish, which is in no way a criticism, but it is welcomed
because it is not falling on deaf ears.
I will take the challenge of the Ranking Member. We can
work together bipartisan. There is no reason whatsoever. We do
it in Texas. Ms. Aluotto knows that we do that day after day
after day.
To Sheriff Dannels, I accept your challenge for
comprehensive immigration reform. I hope the record will
reflect I said Sheriff Dannels.
[Laughter.]
Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you so very much.
Mr. Dannels. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Ms. Jackson Lee. We accept your challenge. I want to make
sure that we heard you.
I want to introduce some items into the record.
I will not ask any questions, but I will just very quickly
reiterate that human smuggling is terrible. There are victims.
They come--individuals who are brought over for many reasons.
This hearing was about human trafficking. That should not be in
a 21st Century nation. It was tragic under the Trump
Administration that almost 4,000 children were separated from
their parents. To date we are still trying to reunite some of
those children with their parents. Some fell into trafficking
once separated from parents or guardians.
So, we know that there is much work to do. What I heard is
the issue of criminalizing the victim. We just stop that. The
record that a victim has. Better work on forced later. A big
word, the R word, restitution for victims that don't get
anything and can't start their life anew. Then very eloquent
story of Ms. Litvak, the honorable Courtney Litvak, of how she
was trafficked at school and how heads were turned and no one
wanted to listen. Let us pass H.R. 7566 to heighten the fact
that there should be no trafficking in a school zone.
So, you all have brought different perspectives. Just
wanted to emphasize that this hearing touched on what we wanted
to focus on. TVPA, thank you. As well as Anti-Trafficking at
School Zones Act to stop and begin.
Now, we must move to the larger comprehensive package that
you have challenged us to do. We must pierce into the depth of
what human trafficking is and get away from victimizing,
criminalizing, get away from people benefitting from writing
books how to do human trafficking.
I guess the point that should be made is that trafficking
of human beings--we know what slavery did. Thank you. We must
rid ourselves of slavery. What slavery did is move the traders
from spices and oils to people. It was much more profitable.
Trafficking, you can traffic the victim over and over and over
again.
So, our charge, we accept. The Federal government must take
a large stand on behalf of all you. All you. We must take a big
stand on that.
All of these will be submitted as unanimous consent without
objection.
I want to introduce into the record right in our own town
of Houston, ``Father of woman who vanished after leaving
Houston strip club says she's a victim of human trafficking,''
Fox 26, Houston. ``Kidnapped California Baby is Found,'' AP
News. Can you imagine the horrors and what was to happen if
this little baby had not been found? ``DPS Arrests 35 in Joint
Human Trafficking.'' AP News. That is Department of Public
Safety in Texas, article dated February 4, 2022. ``Eastern
District of New York: Nine Members and Associates of Nationwide
Sex Trafficking and Prostitution Enterprise Indicted on
Racketeering and Related Charges.'' That's the Eastern
District. Now, we are down in Maryland, an article indicating
that ``Sex Trafficking Conspiracy Members Sentenced to Nine
Years in Federal Prison.'' District of Maryland; ``A Man
Sentenced to 10 Years for Offering to Break Sex Trafficking
Victim.'' That is the Northern District of Texas. As I
indicated there are others dealing with the State of Texas, but
we will add ``Six Truths About Human Trafficking in Texas,''
January 11, 2022.
[The information follows:]
MS. JACKSON LEE FOR THE RECORD
=======================================================================
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. Jackson Lee. In my concluding remarks again is a thank
you and then to mention the additional work that Ms. Aluotto
has done with Bishop James Dixon in creating human trafficking-
free zones around sport
We can do much of our work together and I look forward to
working with the Ranking Member on that.
With that, this concludes today's hearing. Thank you to our
distinguished Witnesses as I said for attending, but more
importantly for sharing their pain with us, but also sharing
your challenge to us. We accept that.
Without objection, all Members will have five legislative
days to submit additional written questions for the Witnesses
or additional materials for the record.
I thank all the Members who participated. We always
appreciate your participation in this very important work of
this Committee. Now, the hearing is now adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:45 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
APPENDIX
=======================================================================
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
QUESTIONS AND RESPONSES FOR THE OFFICIAL RECORD
=======================================================================
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
[all]