Human Trafficking may be widespread in South Florida

[ensho]

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/01/24/107283/human-trafficking-may-be-widespread.html



For up to 16 hours daily, they worked at posh country clubs across South Florida, then returned to deceptively quiet houses in Boca Raton where they were captives -- and in the most dreadful cases, fed rotten chicken and vegetables, forced to drink muriatic acid and repeatedly denied medical help.

The 39 servers, lured to the United States by the cliché of a decent dollar and a promising next chapter, instead became imported modern-day slaves two continents away from their homeland. Their story repeats in plain sight most every day in South Florida: barely paid -- or unpaid -- people forced to toil in fields, work as domestics in hotels and restaurants or in the sex industry, an out-sized regional problem authorities are emphasizing in January, Human Trafficking Awareness Month.


``This is organized crime where humans are used as products. We are talking about selling a person over and over and making large sums of money,'' says Carmen Pino, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Homeland Security Investigations Assistant Special Agent in Charge. ``What people need to realize is that human trafficking is happening here, it's a big problem. It could be happening in the restaurant where you eat, at your nail salon, in your neighborhood. It's not just something that happens in foreign countries.''

-snip-
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its the Sunshine State don't you know . . .

[leveymg]

1. Only a tiny fraction of the ten million plus undocumented are victims of "trafficking"

This is a meme that's supposed to make us feel that continuing mass removals are somehow "humane."

[ensho]

2. what do you mean 'mass removals'?

I must have missed the news on mass removals in Fl.

[leveymg]

3. 2009 ICE detentions (383524) and removals a record high. I call that mass.

No fundamental change in policy. Just more of the same. Also,see,

#
Current ICE Removals of Noncitizens Exceed Numbers Under Bush ...
Aug 1, 2010 ... In a Feb 2010 report, TRAC's detailed analysis found that, from FY 2005 through FY 2009, the sharp increases in ICE detention and removal of ...
http://trac.syr.edu/immigration/reports/234/ - Cached
►
#

[Hello_Kitty]

4. I don't believe these workers were undocumented.

Exploitation and abuse of legal guestworkers is rampant, which undercuts the meme that "if we just increase the number of visas everything will be okay."

And I find it remarkable that your first response to this awful story is to insist defensively that it's only a "tiny fraction" who are victimized like this. How do you even know that?

[leveymg]

6. Trafficking victims are likely either B-1 housemaids or undocumented EWIs

who pay trafficking groups and are kept as literal slaves until they've paid off the high price of their voyage.

On the other hand, the vast bulk of undocumented in America are persons who overstayed legal visas or persons who crossed the southern border but were not kept captive or exploited by traffickers thereafter.

If you believe that a large percentage of lawful H-1B and L-1 visa holders are trafficked, you are deluded.

I've worked in the immigration policy and trade fields for three decades.

[Hello_Kitty]

7. Gee I'm shocked to learn you worked in "immigration policy and trade fields"

Lemme guess, you work for the employers.

[leveymg]

10. If you turn this into something personal, I won't answer your questions.

Actually, I've worked for refugee and human rights groups, a public interest law firm representing the Sanctuary Movement, US agency contractors, as well as major international organizations and law firms. If you're trying to impugn my motives, you're probably wrong.

[Hello_Kitty]

12. Then you should know that trafficking goes on and it's hardly rare.

You also know that both legal and illegal immigrants are routinely cheated and abused by their employers even if they technically weren't trafficked. There are accounts here in Phoenix of bosses refusing to pay the workers what they're due and then threatening to call Sheriff Joe on them.

Given your background it's curious to me that you immediately attacked the article on the basis that trafficking is "rare". First, so what if it is? Second, Florida has become notorious for labor violations and not just slave like conditions, but actual slavery, in immigrant-heavy industries.

[leveymg]

16. What you describe is employer exploitation that occurs because of the threat of arrest by ICE.

Actual slavery is rare in the United States. I've assisted actual victims, who in the DC area tend to be domestic servants of diplomats who seize their passports, fail to pay them, rape and otherwise abuse them for years on end.

The other concentration of trafficking problems I've seen is the garment industry in NY, where persons -- mostly recently-arrived Asian women -- still work in the needle trades for trafficking groups and clients as indentured servants, with the same sort of issues as some captive household domestics. I have heard of some isolated incidents of H-1Bs kept in group houses, not paid the prevailing wage, and generally subjected to ill-treatment by employers. But, that is NOT at all common, in my experience.

Trafficking problems in Florida may be more acute due to the high concentrations of undocumented and deficient worker protections, in general. A decade ago, driving south on I-95 across the Florida border, the first thing I saw was a line of Florida State Patrol cars, which wasn't very welcoming. The next thing I noticed was Black people picking cotton beside the highway - something I had not seen before. I did not feel at home in Florida.

[Hello_Kitty]

18. The employer exploitation occurs because the employers choose to do it.

They care more about their profits than the human beings working for them. Middle class and affluent Americans tolerate it because they want cheap lettuce and tomatoes for their sandwiches and cheap domestic help and, besides, "those people" loooooooove to work hard for low pay.


And kudos to the reporter in the OP who brought this to light. What this country needs is another "Harvest of Shame". Instead we get Stephen Colbert yukking it up in front of Congress while carrying Big Ag's water.

[Gamow]

5. Where is your evidence? And what percentage of "human trafficking" (slavery) is okay for you?

The story is not an anti-immigrant story. There is no reason to tolerate slavery.
We could end it if people would just give a shit.

[leveymg]

8. Slavery is intolerable, not to be confused with human smuggling and illegal border crossing.

The moral and legal distinctions are important.

The vast majority of undocumented persons are not trafficking victims.

[Gamow]

11. "human trafficking" is a well know euphemism for slavery. No one here is confusing it with

illegal immigration.
I don't understand your need to make that clarification.
Again, the posted story is anti-slavery, not anti immigration. Please stop assuming people are confusing issues.

Present-day slavery is something that is not focused on enough. We CAN end it, if we just payed attention to it. Obfuscating it, confusing it, or assuming others are confusing it does not help.

[leveymg]

13. The source of the story is ICE. That agency's main mission is apprehension & removals

Human trafficking is the law enforcement term, not a euphemism, used to describe the activities of criminal networks that exploit persons after they've arrived in the receiving country.

Slavery is a term that applies to forced labor, anywhere, including in ones own community.

ICE uses slavery, which is indeed an isolated occurrence in the United States, as a rationale to garner public support for its wider mission of suppressing illegal smuggling of persons. Many people do not understand the difference between alien smuggling and trafficking, and that confusion helps the agency maintain expanded funding against smuggling and undocumented entries.

[Gamow]

14. Er, no. Human trafficking is slavery. nt

[leveymg]

17. Human trafficking is slavery, yes. But, trafficking is a law enforcement term,

while not all slavery involves trafficking.

Please, let's not split hairs. I am not defending either trafficking or slavery - the opposite, I'm just saying that public confusion between alien trafficking and undocumented aliens is widespread, and that misunderstanding has its advantages to ICE.

[Gamow]

19. I'm not splitting hairs. Human trafficking is a term that means slavery, end of story. You seem to

be insisting otherwise and I can't understand why. It is NOT strictly a law enforcement term. "Human trafficking" is used by many institutions and organizations across the world.

Again, no one here is confusing the issues, but you keep on insisting on cross defining terms.

[leveymg]

20. Human Trafficking was a term barely heard until a decade ago. It's origins are in law enforcement

that uses the term to describe the operations of transnational organized crime groups, and to distinguish it from human smuggling groups and undocumented immigration. Its first application to an international treaty was the 2000 UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime. This was preceded by the 1949 UN Convention on the Suppression of Trafficking and Exploitation of Prostitution, but that treaty was never widely implemented by an international enforcement mechanism and because of controversy and national differences in the definition and legality of prostitution, or "white slavery", as it had been referred to. See, http://pfpdev.ethz.ch/SCORMcontent/70633/scos/2/index.pdf

There is a long line of international conventions and national laws outlawing Slavery, both within and across borders, that for centuries preceded the first-use of the term human trafficking. The distinction has become since obscured, but the original application of trafficking was to the activities of transnational organized crime organizations.

Wiki:

Adopted by the United Nations in Palermo, Italy in 2000, the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (also referred to as the Trafficking Protocol) is an international set of diplomatic guidelines established by the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime. The Trafficking Protocol is one of three Protocols adopted to supplement the Convention.

. . .

The United Nations estimates nearly 2.5 million people from 127 different countries are being trafficked around the world.<10>

However, many of these statistics are grossly inflated to aid advocacy of anti-trafficking NGOs and the anti-trafficking policies of governments. Due to the definition of trafficking being a process (not a singly defined act) and the fact that it is a dynamic phenomenon with constantly shifting patterns relating to economic circumstances, much of the statistical evaluation is flawed.<11>

Human trafficking differs from people smuggling. In the latter, people voluntarily request or hire an individual, known as a smuggler, to covertly transport them from one location to another. This generally involves transportation from one country to another, where legal entry would be denied upon arrival at the international border. There may be no deception involved in the (illegal) agreement. After entry into the country and arrival at their ultimate destination, the smuggled person is usually free to find their own way.

While smuggling requires travel, trafficking does not. Much of the confusion rests with the term itself. The word "trafficking" includes the word "traffic," which we often equate with transportation or travel. However, while the words look and sound alike, they do not hold the same meaning. Human trafficking does not require the physical movement of a person (but must entail the exploitation of the person for labor or commercial sex). Additionally, victims of human trafficking are not permitted to leave upon arrival at their destination. They are held against their will through acts of coercion and forced to work or provide services to the trafficker or others. The work or services may include anything from bonded or forced labor to commercialized sexual exploitation.<12><13> The arrangement may be structured as a work contract, but with no or low payment or on terms which are highly exploitative. Sometimes the arrangement is structured as debt bondage, with the victim not being permitted or able to pay off the debt.

[Gamow]

21. Ummm. what is your point? It means slavery, there is no "distinction" to be made. nt

[Hello_Kitty]

9. +1000 eom

[Obamanaut]

15. Does the last line of the OP suggest that ALL Floridians are complicit, or

that this occurs BECAUSE it is Florida, or that surely it does not occur anywhere BUT Florida?

"...its the Sunshine State don't you know..."