Human trafficking in the United States

In the United States, human trafficking tends to occur around international travel hubs with large immigrant populations, notably in California, Texas, and Georgia.

Trafficking is officially defined as the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring, or receipt of persons through coercion, abduction, fraud, deception, or abuse of power from a position of vulnerability for the purpose of exploitation.

[20] According to the 2011 Department of State report, victims are largely from Thailand, India, Mexico, Philippines, Haiti, Honduras, El Salvador, and the Dominican Republic.

[19] Relevant to people being trafficked from other countries, "[v]ulnerabilities are increasingly found in visa programs for legally documented students and temporary workers who typically fill labor needs in the hospitality, landscaping, construction, food service, and agricultural industries.

[29] Research conducted by University of California at Berkeley on behalf of the anti-trafficking organization Free the Slaves found that about 46% of people in slavery in the United States are forced into prostitution.

David Finkelhor, a University of New Hampshire professor who is director of the Crimes Against Children Research Center, said "I wouldn't put any stock in these figures as indicators of what is going on today".

A study conducted by the International Labor Union indicated that boys are at a higher risk of being trafficked into agricultural work, the drug trade, and petty crime.

A 2012 study done in Atlantic City, New Jersey, by the same group incorporated an extended qualitative ethnographic component that looked specifically at the relationship between pimps and adolescents engaged in street-based sex markets.

[54] A 2021 multi-agency federal investigation dubbed Operation Blooming Onion revealed that a years long human trafficking ring forced migrant workers from Mexico and Central America into "modern day slavery" on various agricultural sites in southern Georgia.

[56] The Associated Press reports, based on interviews in California and Egypt, that trafficking of children for domestic labor in the U.S. includes an extension of an illegal but common practice in Africa.

[68] In the agriculture sector, the most common victims of trafficking are U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents, undocumented immigrants, and foreign nationals with temporary H-2A visas.

[79] Furthermore, when natural disasters such as hurricanes and earthquakes strike Latin American countries, traffickers often capitalize on impoverished families who cannot afford to support their kids.

[81] According to cases reported to Polaris-operated hotlines, survivors of this type of labor trafficking are disproportionately Latino male migrant workers, mostly from Mexico and Central America, on seasonal H-2A visas.

Despite the H-2A program requirement that employers supply workers with suitable housing, traffickers have also been known to subject victims to squalid living conditions, often denying them even necessities such as beds and indoor toilets.

[92] In addition, victims often accept their positions because they feel that this is the only way that they may send some remittances to their family and their enslaved situations may in some cases still be better than their original impoverished and desperate state.

[106][107] The U visa is available to individuals who have been victims of specific qualifying criminal acts, such as domestic violence, human trafficking, sexual assault, and hate crimes.

[108] The T visa provides T nonimmigrant status as a temporary immigration benefit to individuals who are victims of severe human trafficking and have complied with law enforcement requests or qualify for an exemption.

[131] California, Florida, New York, Nevada, Ohio and Texas are main hubs of human trafficking in the United States because of their “proximity to international borders, number of ports and airports, significant immigrant population, and large economy that includes industries that attract forced labor”.

Some contributing factors include its proximity to Mexico, San Diego, and Las Vegas, its warm weather, its network of freeways, and that it is a major conference destination, and home to many professional sporting events.

[143][144] California is particularly vulnerable because of its "proximity to international borders, number of ports and airports, significant immigrant population, and large economy that includes industries that attract forced labor.

[160] FCAHT provides training to law enforcement agencies, medical facilities, faith-based, civil, and community organizations to bring awareness and recognition to the signs and symptoms of human trafficking.

[176][177][178] Detective Greg Harvey, from Eugene, Oregon, said such cases were in reality very common; he said, "It's happening right now, it's amazing how many girls are shipped from here to different brothels in northern and southern Nevada.

[186] Shared Hope International says Las Vegas is a major hub for child sex trafficking, in part because of the hyper-sexualized entertainment industry, easy access to alcohol and drugs, and 24-hour gambling.

Thistle Farms provides a network of partnerships and communities committed to helping women survivors free themselves from the physical, emotional, and economic bondage of trafficking, addiction, prostitution, and poverty.

[212] Sex trafficking that occurs in Houston is not limited to taking place in strip clubs, spas, massage parlors, modeling studios, cantinas, and residential brothels in hotels, motels, apartments, and houses.

[212] Labor trafficking found in Houston maybe but is not limited to agricultural work, restaurants, nail salons, domestic servitude, peddling, begging, or traveling sales crew.

[212] Based on a study released by Dallas Women's Foundation, sex trafficking of young girls is not an isolated phenomenon, but a widespread criminal activity in Texas.

[223] The State of Wisconsin has worked to address human trafficking by establishing a comprehensive task force co-chaired by Attorney General Brad Schimel and Secretary of Children and Families Eloise Anderson.

Committee Chair Senator Pronzanski committed at a public hearing to establish a work group that will further consider hearsay exceptions for sex trafficking cases.

Trafficked workers often face permanent physical and psychological damage as a result of their ordeal such as post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other health problems.