Unauthorized migrants are targets of labor trafficking Page 1 of 2 | UTSanDiego.com

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New study estimates nearly one-third of unauthorized workers in County are victims

Sheldon Zhang, professor at SDSU, released a multi-year, federally-funded study on labor trafficking in San Diego County that found nearly a third of the unauthorized migrant workers he surveyed have been victims. — Peggy Peatti

Written by

Elizabeth Aguilera

midnight, Nov. 28, 2012

Nearly a third of unauthorized migrant workers in San Diego County have been victims of labor trafficking and more than half have experienced other labor abuses, according to a landmark study released Tuesday in the nation’s capital.

Sheldon Zhang, a sociologist at San Diego State University, based his estimate on findings from his three-year study. The project — funded by the National Institute of Justice, a part of the U.S. Department of Justice — is billed as the first of its kind in the country.

Zhang interviewed 826 unauthorized, Spanish-speaking migrants who were working locally at the time or had done so in the previous three months. He found that 31 percent had experienced labor trafficking, almost all of it occurring after they came to the United States.

“Labor trafficking in San Diego is not only common, it is rampant,” said Zhang, adding that a main factor is the victims’ lack of legal status. “This requires systemic changes. This is not something that law enforcement alone can deal with, or one or two prosecutions can solve.”

Zhang narrowly defined labor trafficking as “actual/threatened infringement of freedom of movement or actual/threatened violation of one’s physical integrity.” Examples of that include holding a person hostage for ransom, keeping a migrant’s vital documents for leverage and assaulting a worker physically or sexually.

“This is not just regular fraud about intent to pay, this is far worse,” Zhang said. “This is violation of human rights and infringement on one’s freedom to move and communicate.”

Across industries, labor-trafficking offenses happened most often in construction, janitorial and food processing, the study showed. Workers in agriculture also reported trafficking but at a lower rate — a finding that surprised Zhang because it contradicts popular thought.

Non-trafficking abuses against unauthorized workers include underpayment of wages, not giving work breaks and making workers perform certain tasks without the right equipment.

Zhang’s study, titled “Looking for a Hidden Population: Trafficking of Migrant Laborers in San Diego County,” is the latest milestone in a year filled with major advances in the fight against human trafficking. Other key developments include an October speech on the issue by President Barack Obama, increased research funding from federal and private sources and a renewed call by federal, state and local authorities for greater prosecution of trafficking. In California, voters this month approved increased penalties for convicted sex traffickers and the state attorney general released a study on human trafficking.

Despite such attention, there has been little research into the scope of human trafficking in the United States and even less examination of labor trafficking in particular. Sex trafficking has received much of the funding, and the bulk of prosecutions have been in this area.

“This study produces the first scientifically grounded measure of human trafficking in the U.S.,” said John Picarelli, program manager for transnational issues at the National Institute of Justice. “Trafficking victims are a hidden population. The combination of their enslaved situation and the physical, mental and other trauma they endure makes them less likely to seek assistance.”

Using population estimates from the Pew Hispanic Center and other policy groups that show about 198,000 unauthorized immigrants in San Diego County, Zhang estimates that 124,460 of them are in the workforce and about 38,458 of them have experienced labor trafficking.

Nationally, there are an estimated 11 million unauthorized immigrants.

The National Institute of Justice has a dozen other human-trafficking studies that are ongoing. One of those is being led by Jamie Gates, director of the Center for Justice and Reconciliation at Point Loma Nazarene University. He is working with researchers from San Diego State and the University of San Diego on the relationship between gangs and sex trafficking.

“Sheldon’s study is a strong contribution to the empirical data that is desperately needed in this new abolition movement,” Gates said. “The folks who are undocumented are the most at-risk people in our population.”

The prevalence of labor trafficking in this region could be due in part to the proximity to the border and the heightened political discussion of illegal immigration, said Estela De Los Rios, executive director of CSA San Diego County, a civil and human-rights organization that helped connect unauthorized workers with Zhang.

“We can now say there is a number of labor-trafficking victims. They are not a hidden population anymore, they are people who deserve investigation and prosecution of their traffickers,” she said. “Regardless of their status it is a crime. Unscrupulous employers are getting away with it, so who are the criminals here?”

Larger public-awareness campaigns and linking more victims with law enforcement are the next steps, De Los Rios said. But persuading unauthorized workers to report workplace abuses to authorities is difficult because of their fear of deportation, she added.

According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the most recent labor-trafficking prosecution in the Southern District — which includes San Diego County — occurred in 2008.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations team does have current labor-trafficking cases, said Dan Page, assistant special agent in charge of the team in San Diego.

In addition, his group conducts public-awareness outreach, trains community members on how to spot and report trafficking, and works with local advocacy groups to identify victims.

“The important thing is we would take those cases if we had a person come forward alleging human trafficking. We would take care of that person and offer them all the protections we can and not turn them away,” Page said. “This report shows (trafficking) is hidden, it’s happening, but we are not getting wind of it. Any type of outreach or awareness is beneficial.”

Read the Report:

"Looking for a Hidden Population: Trafficking of Migrant Laborers in San Diego County" - prepared by Sheldon X. Zhang, Ph.D., Principal Investigator, San Diego State University, Department of Sociology

In case you missed it:

• Momentum growing against human trafficking
• Experts to study region's gangs, sex trafficking
• President Obama takes on human trafficking
• An Inhumane Trade: human trafficking

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