Schumer Promises New Authority to Feds in Smuggling Cases

*Picture from Senator Schumer's Bio

Please read the release below carefully

From Senator Chuck Schumer's Office:

Schumer Promises Napolitano He Will Propose Giving Feds New Authority To Seise 'Stash' Houses Used By Human Smugglers

Current 'Civil Forfeiture' Laws Allow Government To Confiscate Property Used In Drug Smuggling, Money Laundering and Child Porn Cases, But Not Human TraffickingIn Meeting

With DHS Secretary, Senator Commits To Pursuing Fix For Loophole As Part Of Comprehensive Immigration Reform Bill Planned For Later This Year

GAO Report Recommended This Step Four Years Ago In Order To Disrupt Human Smuggling Networks

WASHINGTON, DC—At the urging of the Obama administration, U.S. Senator Charles E. Schumer (D-NY) announced Wednesday that he would push, as part of the comprehensive immigration reform bill he plans to propose in the coming months, to give the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) new authority to seize property linked to human trafficking crimes.

Schumer, the Chairman of the Senate Immigration Subcommittee, made the commitment at a meeting with Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, who requested that Congress deal with this issue. Under current law, federal authorities are prevented from taking a home used to stash illegal immigrants unless the owner is first found guilty of a crime. Schumer’s proposal would allow the house to be seized based instead upon a showing that it was being used to facilitate a crime. This is the same standard that applies in drug smuggling, money laundering and child pornography cases. Schumer called this update to the law “critical” to the nation’s border security efforts.

“Right now, a loophole in the law is making it harder to shut down safe houses being used to smuggle illegal immigrants. It makes no sense that the government has this authority in drug smuggling cases, but not with human smuggling. This policy needs to be fixed right away, and we will be sure to include it in our comprehensive reform bill. It will put a serious dent in the operations of the Mexican cartels that deal in human trafficking.”

Gaining the expanded authority, known as “civil forfeiture,” has been a priority for federal law enforcement officials since the Bush administration. While authorities have the ability to seize vessels and vehicles through a civil proceeding, they cannot seize homes in this same manner. The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office, a division of DHS, has long complained that this distinction has frustrated their efforts to crack down on human traffickers who use “stash houses” as way stations along their smuggling routes. A 2005 report issued by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) report concurred, noting that “a concern for investigators is lack of adequate statutory civil forfeiture authority for seizing real property, such as ‘stash’ houses, used to facilitate the smuggling of aliens.” Despite the report’s recommendation that Congress update the law to expand civil forfeiture authority, it has ever been taken.

But on Wednesday, Schumer assured Napolitano he would begin drafting legislative language to expand the agency’s powers right away and add it to the comprehensive immigration reform bill he is drafting. He predicted the measure would gain bipartisan support.

I'm not sure what to make of this. I'm not sure if Schumer understands the difference between human smuggling and human trafficking. It is clear the author who wrote this AP article doesn't, which is where I originally found this release and became frustrated with the lack of distiction.

It's not to say that both cannot happen in the same case: victims can be smuggled and trafficked, but he hardly makes the distinction or the connection in his release. If the distinction cannot be made in the law, then we're in a lot of trouble. This would easily confuse someone who was unfamiliar with the difference between smuggling (a crime against the state) and trafficking (a crime against the individual). Not to mention the fact it makes me nervous that we are giving broad powers to agencies that have not been completely trained on human trafficking and run the risk of re-traumatizing victims when agents can't recognize the difference. I guess I am judging a bit early in the process of what this legislation would actually mean, but this "promise" does not start on a good note with me.

Three Charged in Sweden Human Trafficking Case

*This article never specifically mentions why this is a case of human trafficking and NOT smuggling. The journalist never specifies what actions qualified the crime as human trafficking and in doing so blurs the line between human trafficking and smuggling which are two fundamentally different actions.

From The Local:

September 25th, 2008

Three men have been charged for arranging to have 49 foreign citizens smuggled into Sweden.

The human trafficking victims were allegedly taken across the European continent through Denmark and then over the Öresund bridge to Skåne in southern Sweden.

The suspects are said to have cooperated with accomplices in France, according to charges filed on Thursday in Malmö District Court.

The victims who asked for help to enter Sweden each paid 10,000 kronor ($1,515) to the smugglers.

The men are charged with organizing and carrying out human trafficking.

Two other men were also charged with the latter crime.

According to the charges, the men are suspected of conducting their human trafficking operations in cooperation with several different groups, including with a man who has already been convicted in Denmark, as well as another man not included in the charges.

The charges cover seven separate instances of human trafficking which took place between February 13th and June 16th of this year.

One of the men is also charged with serious forgery crimes. At his home police found a USB-memory stick with digital images of Arabic-language identity papers bearing official stamps.

Read the full article

Drawing lines in a dark place

From the Economist:

Coercing hapless human beings into sex or servitude is obviously evil, but defining the problem (let alone solving it) is very hard

LIVING from the forced labour, or unwillingly provided sexual services, of vulnerable people is a horrific business, and more should be done to punish the perpetrators and succour the victims. That is a sentiment to which almost all governments readily assent, even in the (quite large) slice of the world where links exist between officialdom, the police and the shady types who trade in flesh.

And at least in principle, cross-border trafficking is acknowledged to be so manifestly dreadful that every civilised state must be seen to help correct this wrong. As one sign of this feeling, a Council of Europe convention on trafficking went into force this year; 17 countries have ratified it.

The American government has for the past eight years been mandated by law to wage a many-fronted struggle against human trafficking, at home and around the world. And some hard arguments are now raging in Washington, involving politicians, lobby groups and rival government agencies, about whether the struggle should be escalated.

Why, one might ask, should there be arguments about an issue that, in moral terms, seems so clear-cut? Mainly because the precise definition of trafficking, and hence of trafficking victims, is in reality quite difficult—whether you are a policeman or a moral philosopher.

Among pundits, people-trafficking is distinguished from the lesser evil of people-smuggling—an uncomfortable but almost unavoidable part of social reality in areas that adjoin rich countries with a demand for labour. In Kosovo, it is an open secret that you can be whisked illegally to Vienna by paying €4,000 ($6,000) to a professional smuggler. The Bosnian town of Bijeljina, once a black spot for ethnic cleansing, is now a way-station for south Asians who pay around $16,000 per head to be smuggled into the EU heartland: half on departure and half on arrival.

People-smuggling is done with the consent of those involved; they have no further debt to the gangsters who abet them once they arrive. Trafficking means moving people under duress or false pretences—or in order to use them for forced labour (ranging from domestic work to commercial sex). So the theory goes; but in practice, as the latest State Department report concedes, there is an overlap between the two activities. It often happens, for example, that a poor Indian is hired for menial work in a Gulf state—only to find that his wage is much less than promised, and his passport is seized. This leads to a form of servitude, and that person’s treatment could be called trafficking.

Despite the grey area, public perception of the two problems often diverges. In Australia, for example, public opinion favours a tough line over people-smuggling—but there has been a surge of sympathy for the victims of trafficking (often brought to Australia from Thailand or Indochina) since the release last year of “The Jammed”, a film set in a Melbourne brothel.

And in recent years both the sharper definition of, and the fight against, human-trafficking have become a high priority for the State Department; its grading of other countries’ anti-trafficking efforts is an elaborate and closely-watched business. Countries in “tier 1” (including most of the EU but not Ireland, Greece, Estonia or Latvia) are deemed to comply fully with the minimum standards of American law. Those in “tier 2” don’t yet comply but are trying hard. A lower tier, labelled “Watch List”, consists of countries that are trying, but not hard enough or with good enough results. In the bottom “tier 3” (including American allies like Saudi Arabia) are those that are neither complying nor trying hard enough. Even rickety post-Soviet states (see chart) can improve their scores if they follow what is deemed to be the right advice.

As the State Department has found, it is hard to discuss cross-border trafficking without looking at what occurs inside countries. Its reports have thus broadened into a more general look at the ways in which people are forced to work or have sex against their will. Servitude, it finds, can take many forms: for example, children are mutilated and forced to beg—or else fight in ghastly wars. Slavery, the State Department suggests, happens in many successful emerging economies; it cites bonded labour in Brazil’s plantations, or children working long hours making bricks in China. Indeed, bits of the department’s 2008 report read as though they were penned by a left-of-centre NGO, decrying the dark side of globalisation.

And some of the other ideological issues now coming to a head in Washington are even more contentious. Behind them all is an emotive question: whether there can be such a thing as willing prostitution.

How far can you go?

Since 2002, the policy of the United States has been to oppose prostitution, and to urge all governments to “reduce the demand” for prostitutes through education and by punishing those who patronise them. But how far can this principle be pressed? As passed by the House of Representatives last year, a new bill on protecting the victims of trafficking could have made it illegal for Americans to consort with prostitutes anywhere in the world (even when the prostitutes are adults, and in countries where buying sex is legal). The House version of the bill would also broaden the obligations of America’s federal (as opposed to state) authorities to curb the trafficking of sex workers inside the country. The Justice Department (amid many other objections) said all this would place a huge burden on federal agencies that are already overstretched.

Supporters of stepping up the fight (who range from feminist groups to the religious right) compare their campaign to that of William Wilberforce, whose efforts to free the British empire’s slaves bore fruit 200 years ago. John Miller, an ex-head of the State Department’s anti-trafficking programme, has deplored the Justice Department’s campaign to modify the proposed legislation; its complaints, he says, imply leniency towards an absolute evil, slavery. But the American Civil Liberties Union, a lobby group, has praised the Senate for deleting language which, in its view, would make prostitution and trafficking virtually identical. Lots more arguments can be expected before the bill reaches the White House.

In fact, says Jorgen Carling, a Norwegian who has studied the trafficking of Nigerian women to Europe, it is rarely possible to draw the absolutely clear line that policymakers want between “innocent victimhood” and “willing participation” in sex work. For example, people may know that they are being taken abroad as sex workers, but have no idea of the harsh conditions, and the absolute loss of control over their lives, that they will face. This may be an area of life where most people can recognise evil when they see the details of one horrifying case—but where it will always be hard to make hard-and-fast rules that suit every country

Confusing trafficking and smuggling

Multiple articles were published yesterday and today in major news agencies around the world regarding the Europol operation that arrested 75 people yesterday in nine different countries in Europe under charges of smuggling. 

From the Europol press release:

Today, a total of 75 persons suspected of being part of a people-smuggling network were arrested throughout Europe...

All suspects are said to be involved in the clandestine smuggling of a large number of illegal immigrants into and within the European Union. This was one of the largest co-ordinated actions against people smugglers ever, involving more than 1,300 police officers...

Operation Baghdad targeted a network primarily consisting of Iraqi nationals and former nationals facilitating the illegal immigration of citizens from Afghanistan, China, Turkey, Bangladesh, and Iraq into and within Europe.

No where in the release is it mentioned that there were suspicions or charges of human trafficking although it did mention that the migrants often suffered through cramped conditions while being smuggled into the EU.

However, the BBC and the Times Online reported that this effort was a part of a bust on human traffickers.

BBC: A pan-European police operation has led to the arrest of 75 people suspected of trafficking Iraqi Kurds in the EU

Times Online: Dozens of suspects were arrested in Britain and across Europe yesterday in one of the largest co-ordinated crackdowns on people-trafficking.

It is important to recognize the distinction between trafficking and smuggling for multiple reasons:

• They are different problems, even though their paths sometimes cross. Essentially, smuggling is the facilitation of illegal border crossing or irregular stay, while the final purpose of trafficking is exploitation. Also, borders need not be crossed in trafficking (i.e. internal trafficking.
  
• By not distinguishing the issues, it creates confusion among the public and hinders general awareness of both problems.
  
• It impedes a more nuanced and comprehensive approach to tackling the problems effectively.

While, other news sources such as AP, Al Jazeera,  and CNN (although CNN used the term "funneling" immigrants, which is not an official term) did not place trafficking anywhere in their reports, the fact that some news agencies did confuse the two terms shows that there is still a lack of awareness among journalists covering these stories, even in major news networks.

The AP story did include an interview with a representative from UNHCR who commented on how this operation, for example, affects refugees desperate to reach Europe.

William Spindler, a spokesman for the U.N. refugee agency in Geneva, urged authorities to consider the interests of refugees who at times count on human smugglers to help them flee misery at home.

"We welcome actions to crack down on human smugglers, some of whom are utterly ruthlerr characters who abuse, exploit, rob and sometimes even kill their clients. But it is important to ensure that their victims are properly protected," he said.

"An unintended effect of cracking down on human smugglers - as important as that is - may be to close the only avenue left for refugees to escape persecution or conflict," he said.

He noted cases in which some Iraqis had been granted refugee status in European countries but were unable to get there without turning to people smugglers.

"For many refugees it is well nigh impossible to get passports, visas or plane tickets," Spindler said. "They have to travel in an irregular way in order to save their lives and reach a secure place."

An article such as this one approaches these issues from multiple points of view without confusing them. Law enforcement must also be careful in these situations with migrants who may, in fact, end up becoming victims of trafficking. The importance is to approach the migrants with a consideration for human rights and the possibilities facing these migrants as to why they went through a smuggler in the first place. However, it is the media's job to be responsible and not confuse the issues, thus hindering better public awareness and a better response to each of these problems.

U.S. : Federal Hammer Hits Migrants Harder

From the LA Times:

The Department of Homeland Security has dramatically ratcheted up its arrests of individuals along the U.S.-Mexico border for various immigration crimes, according to statistics released today by Syracuse University. Immigration prosecutions hit an all-time high in March 2008, with 9,350 defendants charged. The number of March arrests is up 50% from April and up a whopping 73% from 2007. The prosecutions are part of a Homeland Security and Justice Department program called "Operation Streamline." Under the program, illegal immigrants caught along the U.S.-Mexico border are prosecuted on federal criminal charges that require jail time. The average sentence is one month.

In early June, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said the program was yielding "striking" results. "Once they get prosecuted, they stop trying to come in again," Chertoff said, adding that officials have also seen "a reduction in smuggling -- in smuggling organizations and illegal entries in the relevant urban areas." The top three charges in March were: "reentry of deported alien," "bringing in and harboring certain aliens," and "entry of alien at improper time or place, etc." The Syracuse data found that five federal judicial districts along the border dominated when it came to immigration prosecutions. The Southern District of Texas, around Houston, was the most active with 488 prosecutions in March. Texas' Western District court, around San Antonio, was second and the Southern District of California, around San Diego, was third.

Read the full article

A Trafficking Overview

By Vitit Munt Arbhorn

From the Bangkok Post:

The Palermo Protocol on human trafficking, attached to the United Nations Convention on Transnational Organised Crime 2000, helps to define human trafficking as recruitment or transfer of persons for the purpose of exploitation, and this can pave the way to an appropriate definition at the national level.

While sexual exploitation is often in the news, human trafficking covers many other forms of exploitation, including for labour and for adoptions. However, there is often confusion on the issue of consent- can a person consent to be trafficked implying that trafficking with the consent of the victim should not be criminalised? The international consensus through the Palermo Protocol is that consent is immaterial- a victim needs to be protected against trafficking irrespective of whether it is voluntary or not.

Another area of confusion is between human smuggling and human trafficking. The latter has to do with a person who is either in an exploited situation or on the way to an exploited situation, while human smuggling concerns a third party helping someone to enter another country illegally (not necessarily for exploitation).

On a related front, there is a need to address both the supply and demand, and thwart the intermediary. The supply side often involves local people producing illicit goods or providing the humans to be traded as the illicit goods. A key challenge is to address those sources through development measures which can enable them to avoid being involved in elements of exploitation, and to prevent criminality.

These are closely linked with the need for livelihood opportunities, access to education and productive activities which help to keep children from falling prey to the criminal market. These are particularly pertinent to preventing children from being used either as objects of human trafficking or as instruments of crime such as drug couriers.

The intermediary comes in various shapes and sizes ranging from small scale abusers to transnational organised crime syndicates. There is a need for effective sanctions against them, with adequate penalties, and in the worst-case scenarios, the types of exploitation perpetrated by them related to human trafficking can be seen as crimes against humanity subject to international criminal courts.

The demand side also needs to be dealt with creatively. In a Scandinavian country, for example, customers of prostitutes, rather than the prostitutes, are now criminalised. The law in Thailand incriminates the customer in the case of the sexual exploitation of those under 18 years of age, but there is a large gap between the principle and the practice of law enforcement.

There is also a need to promote community and family participation against trafficking. Precisely because the problem of drug and human trafficking often arises from the community level, before being transformed into a larger-scale cross-border affair, action is needed to motivate local communities and families to act against this trafficking. In-school and after-school programmes to involve teachers, parents and children are important entry points for constructive activities, consciousness raising and preventing children from being lured into the negative market.

Communities and families are also important as watchdogs against abuse and to help the victims reintegrate into society and prevent them from returning to exploitative situations. Moreover, effective mechanisms and processes are required to identify the victims and to be victim sensitive: treat them as victims/survivors rather than criminals.

There is a clear need to have a mechanism, such as an inter-agency panel, to help identify the victims of human trafficking and act quickly and effectively. This would need to be linked with a referral system so that victims do not land in jail or in immigration detention centres for illegal entry into the country, but can be referred to welfare facilities.

Read the full article

Smuggled Haitians Get Measly Wages for Work in Jamaica

By Kimone Thompson

From the Jamaica Observer:

HAITIANS smuggled into Jamaica as part of a human smuggling ring have been receiving measly wages for work done on construction sites, among other jobs offered. "Recently we heard that in Portland people were paying them (Haitians) $250 per day to do work, which is pathetic. They give them food then pay them $250 a day to do construction work and all those things," according to Inspector Steve Brown, spokesman for Operation Kingfish.

"We know that when Jamaicans go up to Haiti to smuggle drugs, they bring back Haitians with them and use them to do odd jobs but as far as a number, we don't have that," Inspector Brown added.

He did say however that since the middle of 2007, 11 persons (mostly Jamaicans) have been arrested on charges including human trafficking and that there are now seven such cases before the court.

"Not every Haitian who comes here does so of his own will," a Haitian source with intimate knowledge of the situation told the Observer. "I know of Jamaicans living in Haiti, particularly in the south in places like Cité de Soleil, they are the ones taking people here. They smuggle arms and promise people, especially young girls, that they will get them jobs in Jamaica and when they get them here they hand them over to other people," the source said.

Another source, who does work with Haitians detained here, reported that victims paid up to US$600 for trips after being told they would have taken them to Miami, but taken to Jamaica instead.
"These are people who sell their goats, their house, any and everything they have to get that US$600 and when they come here there is nothing. And it's not like they can return because there is nothing to return to," said the source.

Read the full article

No Human Trafficking Here

*A continuation of the Myanmar illegal migrants' ordeal who were supposedly smuggled, if not trafficked, into Thailand.

By Anchalee Kongrut and Wimol Nukaew

From the Bangkok Post:

Authorities say that under Thai law human trafficking required an act of exploitation, which was absent from the smuggling of people seeking proper work.

The death-truck tragedy involving 120 illegal Burmese job seekers, 54 of whom suffocated to death, is likely to be treated as a smuggling case and not human trafficking.

An initial investigation had determined the evidence did not support a human-trafficking case, immigration bureau chief Pol Lt-Gen Chatchawal Suksomjit said yesterday. It was a matter of legal interpretation, he said. "This initial finding may run counter to general sentiment and reports which labelled this as a case of human trafficking.

But there is a difference between human smuggling and trafficking, it's a matter of degree," Pol Lt-Gen Chatchawal said.

The offenders in the case would still be brought to justice.

Under Thai law human trafficking required an act of exploitation, which was absent from the smuggling of people seeking proper work. Human trafficking must involve smuggling of people with the specific objective of employing them in slave-like conditions and jobs, such as forced prostitution.

People smuggling was a crime of lesser degree. The penalties were also different.

Human rights commissioner Sunee Chaiyarose disagreed with such an interpretation, which she said was based on vague, incomprehensive laws. Treating the case as human smuggling would enable the authorities to speed up the deportations.

The survivors should be allowed to stay and claim compensation.

Representatives of the Lawyers Council would meet with the survivors, who had been moved from prison to the Ranong immigration office, and see if any would like to file complaints.

Orathai Junsawanarak, manager of the anti-trafficking and child-protection section of World Vision, said the authorities should urgently provide counselling for the Burmese. The survivors, particularly children, badly needed such services after such trauma, she said.

Ms Orathai said World Vision staff in Burma would look after these survivors when they return home and provide shelter and counselling.

Read the full article

Kidnappings Cross Border into U.S. Cities

Drug traffickers and human smugglers (no explicit mention of trafficking) are being kidnapped and held for ransom by fellow criminals.

From MSNBC:

PHOENIX, USA - A woman leaving an eyeglass store is grabbed in the parking lot by four men who force her, kicking and screaming, into a pickup. The kidnappers demand a $900,000 ransom.

But police soon realize her family is holding something back and isn't fully cooperating with them. Later, investigators find out that relatives have arranged the woman's release on their own. And they discover that members of the family are heavy into marijuana trafficking.The case illustrates how a terrifyingly common crime in Latin America has moved across the border into the United States: Criminals and their family members are being kidnapped by fellow criminals and held for six-figure ransoms.

The abductions are occurring in the Phoenix area at the rate of practically one per day, and police suspect they have led to killings in which bound and bullet-riddled bodies have been found dumped in the desert.

The kidnap victims are typically drug or immigrant-smugglers, who are seen as inviting targets because they have a lot of money, they can raise large sums of cash on short notice, and they are unlikely to go to the police, for fear their own shady dealings will come to light.

"We have never had a victim that we have investigated that has been as clean as the new driven snow," said Sgt. Phil Roberts, who investigates the kidnappings. "There has always been some type of criminal element to it. Either they are criminals, drug dealers or human smugglers — or a close family member is."The kidnappers themselves are fellow traffickers who are doing it for the money or to punish their rivals.

Rise in violence, kidnappings
Phoenix had more than 340 such kidnappings reported last year, but police said the real number is much higher because many cases go unreported.The San Diego area has also seen a rise in kidnappings over the past year, with two or three reported during busy weeks, and some victims were mixed up in drug smuggling. But the hostage-taking appears to be most prevalent in Phoenix, the nation's biggest base of operations for immigrant smugglers.Kidnappings are common in Mexico, and the victims often include criminals as well as legitimate businessmen, such as bankers. Phoenix police said they believe the kidnappers here are not going after legitimate businessmen for fear their families will go to the police.The kidnappings first came to light in Phoenix three years ago but are rising as overall violence associated with immigrant smuggling intensifies in Arizona.

Drop houses and torture
Immigrant smuggling is a lucrative line of work: A ring that moves a load of 30 illegal immigrants through Arizona can gross $45,000 to $75,000.And smugglers can quickly get their hands on large sums of money — sometimes in the middle of the night. In one case, someone who turned to authorities about a kidnapping brought more than $300,000 in ransom money to the police department in cereal boxes.

Read the full article

"Human Trafficking" Ring Busted in Arizona

The U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona

*The author of this article confuses human trafficking and smuggling. The operation detailed in this article states that illegal immigrants who had crossed into the U.S. from Arizona payed for transportation to cities across the country. This is smuggling, NOT trafficking- please know the difference.

From the Daily News:

Six people were arrested this week in a human-smuggling operation based in Los Angeles that involved thousands of illegal immigrants held in horrid conditions.

Agents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement culminated a three-year investigation that began when police found about 140 illegal immigrants locked inside two "drop houses" in South Los Angeles.

"We believe this ring was probably bringing 100 aliens a week into the L.A. area," ICE spokeswoman Virginia Kice said. "You're looking at a lot of people - and a lot of money."

Agents said the three ringleaders are all named Francisco and worked only in the U.S., picking up immigrants they called "pollos" - Spanish for chickens - who had crossed the border into Arizona. The "pollo books" were seized in raids on Wednesday and show the ring charged clients $1,200 to $3,700 each for transportation to cities across the U.S., according to an affidavit filed in federal court.

From August 2004 to Jan. 5, 2007, one of the ringleaders had $456,897 deposited into bank accounts.

"The significant thing about this organization was that it moved a very large number of people, and they had a specialty," Kice said. "They had their niche. They handled domestic transportation only."

Three Guatemalan nationals were accused of being ringleaders: Francisco Andres Pedro, 35, who appeared in court Thursday; Francisco Andres Francisco, 39, arrested last month in Pennsylvania; and Francisco Pedro-Francisco, 29, who remains at large. They are among 13 individuals, linked to what agents call the Francisco ring, who face charges of transporting and harboring illegal immigrants.

One suspect, a Guatemalan native, had been deported four times, authorities said. Over the course of three years, more than 800 immigrants linked to the operation have been arrested nationwide - some on the road and some in drop houses where they await transportation. One SUV linked to the Francisco ring overturned in Arizona, seriously injuring 10 immigrants packed inside, Kice said.

Read the full article

48 Charged in Supposed Human Trafficking Ring

The Arizona-Mexico border

*There is no specific mention of exploitation in this article. Smuggling is smuggling. Human trafficking is human trafficking. Although similar, there is a distinct difference in that human trafficking involves the deceit, coercion and exploitation of its victims while smuggling involves a consensual transaction between transporter and transportee for mutually advantageous reasons. Read more about trafficking vs. smuggling HERE.

From Fox News:

PHOENIX — Four dozen people accused of taking part in an immigrant trafficking ring have been indicted on human smuggling and money laundering charges, authorities said.

The group brought in as much as US$130,000 a week moving people from Naco, Mexico, to its center of operations in Phoenix and then to destinations across the U.S., Phoenix police Lt. Vince Piano said Thursday. Piano said the ring was believed to be one of the biggest operating in Arizona, the busiest illegal entry point into the country.

"It's not the end of the game, but we believe we have made some very important intelligence directions in the fight against the smugglers," said Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard, whose office was prosecuting the case.

Ten of the 48 suspects were arrested. An additional 10 people who are expected to face charges in the future also were netted in the sweep, authorities said. The investigation led to the discovery of 13 "drop houses" in Phoenix where human smugglers hold customers until they pay up and are sent to their final destinations. The area is believed to have about 1,000 drop houses.

Authorities allege that two Cuban immigrants living in the area, 41-year-old Jose Luis Suarez-Lemus and 35-year-old Roel Ayala Fernandez, ran the ring and paid people in Mexico and Arizona to help smuggle immigrants.The two paid recruiters in Mexico to find customers, Mexican police to allow smugglers to stage their crossings and trail guides to lead immigrants through a conservation area in southeast Arizona, Piano said.

Drivers were paid to bring the immigrants by van to Phoenix, and other drivers were used to spot law enforcement vehicles and protect rival smugglers from forcing them off the road in an attempt to kidnap and extort their customers, he said. Once the immigrants were in a drop house and payments were made, drivers were hired to bring immigrants to spots across the country, authorities said.

They said the group would move four to six loads of immigrants per day, each with six to 10 people. Smuggling fees averaged US$2,500 per person.

Indian American Convicted of Human Trafficking in the U.S.

The U.S.-Canadian border

*What appears to be a human smuggling ring has been misconstrued by the media as a human trafficking operation. The journalist makes no clear distinction between human trafficking and smuggling. For clarification on the issue read HERE.

From the Hindustan Times:

2/23/07, Vancouver, Canada- An Indian American has been convicted in a human trafficking racket that illegally transported South Asians from Canada to the US.

The trial in Seattle showed that as many as 100 Indian and Pakistani nationals were smuggled first into Canada and later into the US. The gang charged up to USD 40,000 per head.

Thirty-eight year old Harminder Singh of Kent, Washington, was convicted on Monday and faces between three and 10 years in jail, including deportation, the Vancouver Sun said yesterday.

Four Canadian residents facing similar charges are yet to be extradited to the US, but have a hearing scheduled in late March, according to the Canadian Department of Justice. Five other Canadian residents arrested for their involvement in the racket pleaded guilty and testified at Singh's trial, Assistant US Attorney Ye-Ting Woo said in an interview.

The five, Raman Pathania, Jatinder Singh Brar, Sukhveer Singh Sandhu and Harjeevan Singh Parhar, all of Surrey, as well as Matthew Dehagi of Port Coquitlam, are due to be sentenced in the next two weeks, the US Attorney said.

From the Vancouver Sun:

"Throughout the course of the investigation both Canadian and American investigators had full access to each other's intelligence on a daily basis," said Mercer. "This collaboration demonstrates our shared resolve to keep our borders secure while respecting each other's sovereignty."

Winchell said officials have begun deportation proceedings against all of the people caught sneaking into the U.S., but could not say how long it would be until their cases are resolved.

Joint UK/Romanian Operation Busts Romanian Child Trafficking Ring

From the BBC:

Police believe they have smashed a Romanian criminal gang smuggling children as young as five into the country to beg and steal.

Officers from several forces, including the Metropolitan Police, raided 17 addresses across the county. At least 25 adults were held, on suspicion of immigration breaches, deception, fraud, theft and pick-pocketing.

Police suspect poor families in eastern Europe may be forced into allowing gangs to take their children into the UK to carry out offences such as pick-pocketing and thefts near cash machines. They estimate that each child is worth £100,000 a year to the gangs and the Romanian authorities estimate there are up to 2,000 children who have been smuggled into Britain.

The human trafficking trade now generates an estimated £5bn a year worldwide, making it the second biggest international criminal industry after the drugs trade.

Figures from the Met showed that before Romania joined the EU, its nationals were associated with 146 crimes over six months in Britain. A year after it joined, the figure had leapt to 922 within the same period. Police believe about 70 people are behind the majority of the trafficking...

Karl Davis, from education and children services, told BBC News: "We carried out individual assessments on all these children and five children remain in our care."

"Five families have come forward and we are satisfied that the arguments made were sufficient and we were happy for them to return to their families. We assessed them fully in terms of what the children and families told us. Some of the families were in the homes that were raided but some traveled from outside of Slough."

"Some of the children were too young to tell us much. The youngest is two years old and there are two 14-year-olds. The two-year-old is still in our care."

The same article has an interview with Christine Beddoe of ECPAT, a global network of organizations working on eliminating child exploitation. She speaks a bit more to the areas the UK will need to improve on in order to help children suffering from exploitation.

According to Reuters, the operation was codenamed "Caddy" and Commander Steve Allen stated that more arrests are expected. Other articles seem to confuse trafficking with smuggling, and others yet call into question whether the children were actually unaware of what was happening. I'm sure the two-year-old gave consent for the family to sell him/her and then viciously hit the streets to steal. I apologize for the sarcasm, but child trafficking targets the most vulnerable group in society and even if or when the children are saved, they are faced with the lifelong burden of their experience. According to a 2005 article on Turkey's efforts to combat human trafficking, only 30 percent of victims of human trafficking recover to the point of leading a normal life. This is of course, the identified victims that organizations and governments are able to document. I can only hope the children who were returned to their families in Romania will not be sold again.

This article also details another cost of human trafficking that I think is striking as I tried to find other articles on the case and found many had some sort of condescending or doubtful tone to it.

"Another human cost of migrant smuggling is the damage that is done to the image of migrants, and an increase in xenophobia. Up until now, unmanaged migration flows in destination countries have resulted in a perception by the general public that migrants are to blame for the growth in organized crime. But migration is an issue that affects us all; it is and always has been a natural human phenomenon. That is why it cannot be left to criminals to manage migration for us."

Even the BBC was ready to point out how crimes by people of Romanian origin was quick to increase in the UK after Romania's accession to the EU so the article makes an important statement. Human trafficking is still not a phenomenon we completely understand and until we realize the extent of the damage it is doing, a complete solution will not be reached.