Coyote ugly: curbing human trafficking | Troy Media Corporation

August 29, 2010

By Mark Milke
Research Director
Frontier Centre for Public Policy

Mark Milke

CALGARY, AB, Aug. 29, 2010/ – The recent arrival of 492 Sri Lankans on the West Coast, courtesy of the MV Sun Sea, claiming refugee status again raised the rhetoric which was of little help to refugee claimants or to their potential host countries.

While some assume any concern about the immigration and refugee system is merely a cloak for anti-immigrant sentiment, others, also skating on the surface, suggest border controls should be abolished, similar to the absence of passports in the 18th century.

Sober reflection
Past migration patterns, unfortunately, don’t help with present-day realities. The choice really is not between shutting the door to all potential newcomers or doing away with the border altogether. Few want the first option – that would neither be compassionate nor economically smart – and the open-the-floodgates trial balloon is not a sober suggestion, given the reality of modern terrorism.

Some type of processes for allowing newcomers into the country will always be necessary. To understand what happens when governments lose control of significant parts of their borders, consider a recent story on the problem that exists on the Mexico-U.S. boundary. Reporter Monica Alonzo from New York City’s Village Voice newspaper: she began her investigative account of human trafficking this way:

“Maria was drifting off to sleep on the bedroom floor. She could hear women getting raped in the next room. Only, she didn’t hear screams – she heard the laughter of male guards. The women had been drugged by their rapists, who had done the same to Maria as soon as she walked into the house.”

The reporter was describing the increasing problem encountered by migrants who are ferried across the border into Arizona only to be held to ransom by their “coyote” escorts. Alonzo writes of  the brutality of the human smugglers who double-cross their paying prey by demanding extra cash from the victims or their families back in Mexico.

“Kidnappers,” wrote the Voice reporter, “kick and punch hostages, beat them with baseball bats, submerge them in bathtubs and electrically shock them, burn their flesh with blowtorches, smash their fingers with bricks, slice their bodies with butcher knives, shoot them in their arms and legs, and cut open their backs with wire-cutters. The kidnappers usually videotape the sexual humiliation and violence and send the images to family members if ransoms aren’t paid.”

In the case of Maria and 12 other Mexican migrants, including two boys, each paid human smugglers $1,800 to ferry them safely across the border. But once they reached Phoenix, their coyotes-turned-captors demanded another $1,700 before they would be released.

Maria, her husband and the other captives were eventually freed after an anonymous tipster told local police about the house. After the raid and after giving Phoenix police information, they were eventually deported back to Mexico.

There is a plethora of issues in the illegal immigration conundrum, none of them easily solvable. What the Village Voice article exemplifies is how, in the absence of effective border controls, human smugglers exploit the shadowy existence of those in a country illegally. The Voice noted that in 2008 alone, and just in Phoenix, there were 368 reported kidnappings, most of them in the world of smuggled migrants such as Maria.

The U.S.-Mexico border is a mess and may be problematic until Mexico and central American countries become a lot more prosperous. In the meantime, no option is perfect. The U.S. could naturalize all illegal immigrants as it’s done before. That’s humanitarian. But absent a wide-open border, it won’t solve the problem of how to control illegal flows exacerbated by smugglers. A better option, suggested by some, is to try to legalize many more “guest workers” as is done in Europe.

Regardless, sympathy is due for anyone who wants to escape Mexican corruption, violence and poverty, or Tamils who want to leave Sri Lanka after undergoing repression there. But not every claim of refugee status is to be believed. So distinctions are necessary. And it’s critical that governments which wish to maintain some control of their borders, such as Canada, do so.

Immigration policy run by human smugglers
When they don’t – and there are plenty of Supreme Court and political hurdles in Canada in the way of such a basic government function – then it is human smugglers who run Canada’s immigration policy by default.
The point of trying to control a nation’s borders is not to turn our back on refugees and immigrants. The point of quick deportations is to remove the incentive for newcomers to pay human smugglers to get them here. It is to force them into safer and legal (albeit lengthy) channels in all but the most immediate cases of actual persecution.

Without that, the sloppy, ad hoc approach risks an explosion of brutality in the black market of human trafficking.

Channels: The Calgary Herald, Aug. 30, 2010

Coyote ugly: curbing human trafficking | Troy Media Corporation

Related articles by Zemanta

• Human trafficking second only to drugs in Mexico (cnn.com)
• ED-human-smuggling-0830 (theglobeandmail.com)

Human trafficking second only to drugs in Mexico - CNN.com

FROM CNN

 

By Arthur Brice, CNN

August 27, 2010 -- Updated 1214 GMT (2014 HKT)

These guns were found at the Mexican ranch in Tamaulipas state, 

where 72 bodies were discovered.

 

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• The road to the United States goes through Mexico for Central Americans
• The journey is "one of the most dangerous in the world," rights group says
• Thousands of migrants are abused each years by smugglers and drug cartels
• Human smuggling may be a $20 billion business in Mexico

(CNN) -- Mario Santos likely never made it to the United States.
The 18-year-old set out 10 years ago from his native El Salvador in search of opportunity and a better way of life. But he had to travel north through Mexico first.

A short while after leaving, he called his parents to tell them he had been beaten and robbed in Mexico, left penniless and without shoes or clothes. It was the last they heard from him.

While it's not certain that Santos is dead, he probably suffered the same fate as 72 migrants from Central and South America whose bodies were found this week in a ranch in northern Mexico, just 90 miles from the U.S. border.

Officials are investigating whether they were the victims of human traffickers or drug cartels that prey on migrants.
It's a fate that officials say befalls thousands of Central and South Americans every year.

"It's brutal," says Peter Hakim, president emeritus of the Inter-American Dialogue, a non-partisan Washington policy institute. "This is very big business. It's very brutal."

 

Video: 72 bodies found in Mexican ranch

 

It is indeed big business. Human trafficking is one of the most lucrative forms of crime worldwide after drug and arms trafficking, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime said in April.

In Mexico, it is a $15 billion- to $20 billion-a-year endeavor, second only to drug trafficking, said Samuel Logan, founding director of Southern Pulse, an online information network focused on Latin America.

"And that may be a conservative estimate," Logan said.

That money, which used to go mostly to smugglers, now also flows into the hands of drug cartel members.

The Center for Strategic and International Studies, a bipartisan, nonprofit policy institute based in Washington, noted in an August report that human smuggling and other illegal activities are playing an increasingly important role as narcotraffickers diversify their activities.

"The drug cartels have not confined themselves to selling narcotics," the report said. "They engage in kidnapping for ransom, extortion, human smuggling and other crimes to augment their incomes."

Some cartels have come to rely more in recent years on human smuggling.



"For the Zetas, it's been one of their main revenue streams for years," Logan said about the vicious cartel, which operates mostly in northeastern Mexico.

Cartel involvement has increased the risk for migrants crossing through Mexico to get to the United States, said Mexico's National Commission for Human Rights. An investigation by the commission showed that 9,758 migrants were abducted from September 2008 to February 2009, or about 1,600 per month.

No one knows exactly how many people try to make the passage every year.

The human rights organization Amnesty International estimates it as tens of thousands. More than 90 percent of them are Central Americans, mostly from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua, Amnesty International said in a report this year. And the vast majority of these migrants, the rights group said, are headed for the United States.

"Their journey is one of the most dangerous in the world," Amnesty International said.

"Every year, thousands of migrants are kidnapped, threatened or assaulted by members of criminal gangs," the rights group said. "Extortion and sexual violence are widespread and many migrants go missing or are killed. Few of these abuses are reported and in most cases those responsible are never held to account."

An indication of how many people attempt the trip can be found in statistics compiled by Mexico's National Migration Service, which tracks how many migrants are detained and returned to their countries of origin each year. 

Experts note that these are only the migrants who get caught, and that many -- even most -- are not apprehended.

Nonetheless, the Mexican agency said it detained 64,061 migrants last year, 60,383 of whom were from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua. About 20 percent of them were females and about 8 percent were under the age of 18. Some were under 10.

Officials in El Salvador, where the teen-aged Santos started his trip, estimate that about 10,000 Central American migrants suffered some kind of abuse in 2009.

"The vast majority has been committed by these organized crime gangs, such as the Zetas for example, in the route along the Gulf (of Mexico), which is where they operate most frequently," said Juan Jose Garcia, the Salvadoran vice minister for citizens living abroad.

"But we also have found events in which (Mexican) authorities have participated," Garcia said.

The Salvadoran Foreign Ministry estimates up to 150 citizens leave each day for Mexico. Some analysts put that figure at closer to 300.

For most Central Americans, that journey begins with a human smuggler, commonly called a "pollero." In the United States, the smugglers are better known as "coyotes."

For a set fee, usually ranging from $850 to $5,000 a head, a smuggler will deliver a migrant to the border of the United States or even offer passage across.

Problems often arise when smugglers and migrants approach the border and organized crime organizations get involved.

"This is where things get complicated," said Logan, who is writing a book on the Zetas and is the author of "This is for the Mara Salvatrucha: Inside the MS-13 America's Most Violent Gang."

The drug-trafficking organizations charge the "polleros" a price per person for the right to cross over their territory, a practice called "derecho de piso," or right of passage.

Or they will abduct the migrants and hold them for ransom from their relatives and friends in the United States or family back home.

Often times, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime said, migrants who are abducted are subjected to sexual or labor exploitation.

If the migrants are being held for ransom and the money is not paid in time, the situation can get ugly.

"Sometimes the Mexican organized crime group says, 'The hell with it. We're not going to deal with these people,' and they kill them all," Logan said.

That's what may have happened, Logan said, to the 72 people whose bodies were found Tuesday in a ranch building in Tamaulipas state, about 14 miles (22 kilometers) from the town of San Fernando, near the border with Texas.

Or the migrants may have refused to work for the cartel, which is one possibility that has been mentioned in news accounts.

A bloody turf war between the Zetas and the Gulf cartels also may have complicated matters because the smugglers may not have known who to pay or may have paid one group and angered the other.

"In Tamaulipas, it's very hard for a pollero to know who is who," Logan said. "The Zetas and Gulf cartels were once allied and now have split."

At any rate, the involvement of the drug cartels has changed the dynamics of human smuggling in Mexico, said Andrew Selee, director of the Woodrow Wilson Center's Mexico Institute.

Selee remembers living in northern Mexico a few years back and knowing that a father-son duo who lived on his block were "polleros."

"That's gone," Selee said, noting that the costs of having to pay cartels for the right to cross their territory has driven out small-time smugglers.

"They now have to be big enough to handle those costs," Selee said.

Selee and the Inter-American Dialogue's Hakim point out that increased border security and interdiction by the United States also has led to cartel involvement because of the level of sophistication and complexity now often involved in getting someone across the border. The cartels already have the routes and other facilities in place they use for smuggling drugs.

"We're no longer talking about a simple process that involves one or two individuals," Selee said. "This has become much more dangerous."

As always, profit is the motive.

"The smuggling became profitable the more the United States began to build barriers to immigration," Hakim said.

On Thursday, Amnesty International called on the Mexican government to take swift action about the slayings of the 72 people in Tamaulipas.

"Amnesty International issued a report in April highlighting the failure of Mexican federal and state authorities to implement effective measures to prevent and punish thousands of kidnappings, killings and rape of irregular migrants at the hands of criminal gangs, who often operate with the complicity or acquiescence of public officials," the rights group said in a release.

"This case once again demonstrates the extreme dangers faced by migrants and the apparent inability of both federal and state authorities to reduce the attacks that migrants face. The response of the authorities to this case will be a test."

It's too late for the families of the victims.

For the parents of Mario Santos, the Salvadoran who disappeared 10 years ago, much of the anguish lies in not knowing what happened.

"If only he would call me on the telephone and I would know he is alive, even if I never saw him again, that would satisfy me," said his father, Daniel Santos.

For thousands of Central American families, the phone does not ring.

Journalist Merlin Delcid contributed to this report.

Human trafficking second only to drugs in Mexico - CNN.com

Related articles by Zemanta

• Perry wants stiffer penalties for human traffickers (chron.com)
• Human Rights Watch says Nigerian teens are being trafficked into Ivory Coast for prostitution (foxnews.com)
• Pacquiao fights for funding for anti-human trafficking body (globalnation.inquirer.net)
• On the trail of forced labor in Bangladesh (cnn.com)

Man sentenced for human trafficking | TuscaloosaNews.com

Image via Wikipedia

FROM TUSCALOOSA NEWS

Nicaraguan receives 10 months in prison for bringing woman to Northport for prostitution

By Stephanie Taylor Staff Writer

Published: Tuesday, August 17, 2010 at 3:30 a.m.
Last Modified: Monday, August 16, 2010 at 11:17 p.m.

( page of 2 )

A Nicaraguan man who brought a woman to Northport to work as a prostitute was sentenced Monday to 10 months in prison.

“Making money off the exploitation and misery of another human being, whether for commercial sex acts or forced labor, is human trafficking and nothing more than modern-day slavery,” U.S. Attorney Joyce White Vance said in a statement released Monday. “Prosecuting this type case is how we begin to address the criminal enterprise of human trafficking, which, sadly, is growing in the United States.”

U.S. District Judge Abdul K. Kallon sentenced Castilblanco-Hernandez, 27, to serve 10 months in prison and five years on supervised release. He will be required to register as a sex offender after completing the prison term.

Castilblanco-Hernandez also went by the names Otilio Orosco Tremino and Manuel.

“It is a top priority of the Justice Department and the U.S. Attorney’s Office to forge partnerships among local, state and federal law enforcement agencies and victim service providers to identify, investigate and prosecute crimes of human trafficking and reduce the number of people who become enslaved by it,” Vance said.

According to court documents, agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement received a tip that a Hispanic man was offering the services of prostitutes at a home on 10th Street in Northport.

The documents indicate that he had charged men $25 to have sex with the woman and had paid her $15 between Jan. 7 and Jan. 15. ICE agents who executed a search warrant at the house found a woman and three men, all foreign-born nationals who were unlawfully present in the U.S. They found a man and the woman in a back bedroom.

Prosecutors recommended a reduced sentence because Castilblanco-Hernandez cooperated with investigators after his arrest and agreed to plead guilty. The maximum sentence for transporting an individual across state lines for prostitution is 10 years.

Reach Stephanie Taylor at stephanie.taylor@tuscaloosa

news.com or 205-722-0210.

Donald Castilblanco-Hernandez pleaded guilty in June to one count of interstate transportation of an individual for prostitution. He admitted that he traveled to Atlanta in January to pick up the Nicaraguan woman in her 20s, and brought her to Northport to work for him.

The documents indicate that he had charged men $25 to have sex with the woman and had paid her $15 between Jan. 7 and Jan. 15. ICE agents who executed a search warrant at the house found a woman and three men, all foreign-born nationals who were unlawfully present in the U.S. They found a man and the woman in a back bedroom.

Prosecutors recommended a reduced sentence because Castilblanco-Hernandez cooperated with investigators after his arrest and agreed to plead guilty. The maximum sentence for transporting an individual across state lines for prostitution is 10 years.

Reach Stephanie Taylor at stephanie.taylor@tuscaloosa

news.com or 205-722-0210.

Man sentenced for human trafficking | TuscaloosaNews.com

Related articles by Zemanta

• Horrific UK Child Sex Trafficking (grantlawrence.blogspot.com)
• Human Trafficking Class for Female Iraqi Police Officers (waronterrornews.typepad.com)
• NAPTIP to prosecute 3 for human trafficking (vanguardngr.com)
• The Organization For Responsible Tourism (FACTS) (nowpublic.com)

‘Fabric,’ a play about of human trafficking and slavery; based on the 1995 El Monte story | Blogging.la

jozjozjozBy – July 12, 2010Posted in: Events, LA, Social issues, Theatre/Stage

Fifteen years ago in El Monte, California, law enforcement officials discovered 72 Thai nationals confined in an apartment complex ringed with barbed wire, lured to this country with promises of achieving the American dream. Under conditions of forced labor and slavery, some of the victims had been confined for as long as seven years. A seven-member Thai family led by a ringleader known as the notorious “Aunt Suni” was apprehended at the scene. The story made national and international headlines as the first case of modern-day slavery since the abolishment of slavery in the United States.

Written by Los Angeles playwright, Henry Ong, “Fabric” is the only known dramatization of the 1995 Thai garment workers’ slavery case. Company of Angels, Los Angeles’ oldest professional non-profit theater company, in association with the Thai Community Development Center (CDC), opened “Fabric” to sold-out audiences and standing ovations this past weekend.

Fabric is presented by Company of Angels, inside the Black Box at The Alexandria, 501 S. Spring Street, Downtown Los Angeles, and will run through August 8. Performances are on Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m., and Sundays at 4:30 p.m. Tickets at $20 can be purchased at www.companyofangels.org.

Founded in 1959 as an artists’ cooperative, Company of Angels recently celebrated its 50th anniversary, making it the oldest non-profit professional theater in Los Angeles. The theater produces works that reflect the diversity of Los Angeles and the issues the City faces.

Thai CDC was founded in 1994, one year before the El Monte slavery case, with a mission to advance the social and economic well being of low and moderate income Thais and other ethnic communities in the Greater Los Angeles. The issues of human trafficking and slavery are an integral part of Thai CDC’s work as a majority of trafficking cases involve Thai nationals.

FABRIC
by Henry Ong

Co-Directors: Marlene Forte and Tchia Casselle
Produced by Kila Kitu, Joyce Liu, Henry Ong & Deborah Geer
Assoc. Produced by Gregory Gately
Starring: *Jennifer Chang, *Feodor Chin, Jolene Kim, *Dian Kobayashi, Jully Lee, Rudy Marquez, *P.J. Marshall, Eddie Mui, *Diana Toshiko, Ben Wang, *Jeff Watson, *Andy Hamrick
*Member of Actors Equity Association

JULY 8 – AUGUST 8, 2010
Friday, Saturday, 8pm; Sunday, 4:30pm
$20 General
$12 Students & Seniors
Box Office: (213) 489-3703 / info@companyofangels.org

Lighting Design: Christopher Singleton
Sound Designer: Dennis Yen
Stage Manager: Amelia Worfolk
Set Design: Luis Delgado

Location:
Company of Angels
inside The Black Box at The Alexandria
501 S. Spring Street
Los Angeles, CA 90013

Want to check it out, L.A. folks? 8Asians is doing a ticket giveaway on their site this week.

Related posts:

1. East West Players presents a star-studded event as a part of CAST’s campaign against human trafficking
2. “I’m not a cop, but I play one in the Explorer Scouts…”
3. Why play the race card when you can play the 9/11 card?
4. Debit Card Fraud list in El Monte grows.
5. The Knights Of Monte Carlo

About the Author

Joz... sounds like "Jaws" jozjozjoz is an asian american gal who lives and blogs underneath the hollywood sign and who doesn’t clean her fishtank unless the fish starts to do the backstroke. she is also able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, but cannot stop from bumping into door handles, cabinet doors, and anything else that protrudes or has a sharp edge. she does not run with scissors for this same reason. she can pet the fur off a dog but don’t ask her to go anywhere near a horse. or a moth. or a roach. her dealings with L.A.’s finest (aka the parking violations department) are legend, as are her giant sneezes. Other than the two too many joz’s, jozjozjoz is a perfectly normal, relatively sane individual who defies the odds, reaches for the stars, and carries moonbeams home in a jar. She’d rather be a fish… but not in her own dirty fishtank. aside from her personal blog at jozjozjoz.com, she also writes at 8Asians.com

‘Fabric,’ a play about of human trafficking and slavery; based on the 1995 El Monte story | Blogging.la

Related articles by Zemanta

• Beverly Hills Sweatshop (humantrafficking.change.org)

Human trafficking targeted by ICE agents in Arizona

Image via Wikipedia

By Daniel González - Feb. 2, 2010 12:00 AM
The Arizona Republic

Human trafficking remains a major problem in Arizona but the crime remains hidden because victims are often too afraid to contact law-enforcement officials, U.S. Attorney Dennis K. Burke said Monday.

Burke called on the public to help law-enforcement officials identify victims as part of a national effort to combat human trafficking.

Burke described the crime as a modern form of slavery that involves holding someone to work for little or no money, often as prostitutes in the sex trade or as laborers in the restaurant and construction industry.

"It occurs largely in the shadows," Burke said at a news conference at Phoenix City Hall. He was joined by several federal and local officials, including Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon and Matthew Allen, the special agent in charge of investigations for the Arizona office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Human trafficking should not be confused with the much more well-known crime of human smuggling, which involves paying criminal organizations to help immigrants sneak into the United States illegally, Allen said.

Arizona is the main gateway for illegal immigration across the U.S.-Mexico border, but law-enforcement officials believe it is also a major corridor and hub for human trafficking.

Human trafficking victims can be anyone who is being held for work through force, fraud or coercion and can include legal and illegal immigrants and even U.S. citizens, Allen said.

On Friday, ICE agents raided a massage parlor in Somerton, a farming town near Yuma in southwestern Arizona, where they arrested three women suspected of illegally operating a house of prostitution.

"Running illicit prostitution rings disguised as massage parlors is a common tactic used by human-trafficking organizations," Kevin Jeter, the assistant special agent in charge of ICE investigations in Yuma, said in a statement.

ICE arrested three Korean women in connection with the raid. Two are legal permanent residents of the U.S., according to ICE officials. The third is suspected of being in the U.S. illegally, ICE officials said.

In 2000, the Department of Justice made combating human trafficking a top priority. The agency was prompted in part by testimony from non-profit groups and advocates who believe that human trafficking is a global epidemic that results in the trafficking of tens of thousands of victims into the United States each year.

The Justice Department, however, has had difficulty uncovering cases to prosecute. Law-enforcement officials say that is because trafficking victims are often afraid to come forward. Sometimes they are afraid because they are trying to pay off debts and fear retribution from trafficking organizations, either to themselves or family members.

The U.S. Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics began tracking human-trafficking investigations in January 2007. During the first 21 months, the bureau counted 1,229 incidents involving human trafficking, more than 80 percent of them related to the sex trade. About two-thirds of the trafficking victims were 17 or younger.

Robin Dunn Marcos, executive director of the International Rescue Committee, urged the public to call a state hotline, 888-60-ALERT (888-602-5378) when they suspect human trafficking is taking place. The hotline is run by Arizona League to End Regional Trafficking.

Human trafficking targeted by ICE agents in Arizona

Related articles by Zemanta

• Human Trafficking Survivors Train Cambodian Police and Government Officials (prweb.com)
• With First Arrest in Haitian Child Trafficking, U.S. Adoptions of Haitian Children May Unknowingly Play into Hands of Recruiters/Child Traffickers (prweb.com)

Texas police: Teen was victim of human trafficking | AP Texas News | Chron.com - Houston Chronicle

Image via Wikipedia

The Associated Press
Dec. 25, 2009, 9:50PM

SAN JUAN, Texas — A 16-year-old Mexican girl was raped, deprived of food and forced into household labor by a South Texas family who sneaked her across the Mexican border into the United States, police said.

Ofelia Vargas, 45, was arrested Wednesday and charged with failure to report a felony, San Juan Police Chief Juan Gonzalez said. Her daughter, Belen Vargas, 17, has been charged with misdemeanor assault. Police are searching for her son, Benito Vargas, 17, who was last seen at the girl's home in Jalisco, Mexico.

Ofelia Vargas was being held in Hildago County Jail in lieu of $50,000 bond. Belen Vargas was in custody at the La Villa Detention Center in lieu of $45,000 bond. She was being held on an unrelated marijuana possession charge.

Neither Vargas nor her daughter could be reached for comment.

Gonzalez said police believe Benito Vargas sexually assaulted the girl and that his mother did not respond to her cries for help. Gonzalez also said the girl's family told authorities Benito Vargas went to their home searching for her after she disappeared and tried to intimidate them.

The police chief told The Monitor in McAllen it's not uncommon for girls and women to be lured north across the border under false pretenses. He said the 16-year-old "came over with the intent of a better life, but what she walked into was a nightmare."

The teen was beaten on several occasions, rarely fed and forced to sleep on a couch outside, he said. She escaped this week through a window in the house.

A neighbor took her to a shelter where she was under police supervision, Gonzalez said.

Police said Benito Vargas may face additional charges, including unlawful restraint and human trafficking.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/tx/6787293.html

___