Slave Next Door (48 page)

offices looking for help. So the involvement of local law enforcement is

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very important.” She sees the need for the NGOs to “build networks of

relationships in order to find and service victims,” and she considers the

police vital to these networks.62

USCCB has been allocated up to $6 million for regranting over a five-

year period. This does not mean they automatically have the full amount

to distribute; as they are quick to point out, it is conditional on numbers

of victims found and appropriated funding. In 2007, they were asked by

the government to provide research to help determine how long victims

should receive services and how much they should be allotted.

The unreality of this “one size fits all” approach is immediately obvi-

ous. No two victims are alike. Aside from the fact that there are differ-

ent kinds of exploitation within human trafficking, each victim carries

his or her own history, problems, and needs. There is no “average” traf-

ficking victim; no one can predict the amount of psychological support

needed by a victim of months or years of beatings, rape, and slavery, or

what amount of bilingual help a non-English speaking victim might

need. USCCB based their research on the average length of time victims

have been in care in the past. Basing their determinations on data from

USCCB and other sources, HHS came up with a period of up to nine

months of service for precertified victims, with a monthly allotment of

$1,300, and four months for certified victims, at $900 per month. Not

surprisingly, there are serious problems, beyond language and adjust-

ment issues. “Trials,” says Brown, “are times of incredible trauma and

mental anguish” for trafficking victims, when they could most benefit

from counseling. However, if their allotted time for service has expired

by the opening of a trial, they are basically out of luck. Another time of

stress is during family readjustment. This is a time when a victim needs

service—even if the allotted period has expired. In emergency situa-

tions, USCCB can go to HHS’s ORR and ask for dispensation to spend

more time, and more money, on a given victim, but a positive response

is by no means guaranteed. Without question, the time limits placed on

the distribution of services impose an artificial and frustrating qualifier,

especially, says Brown, when service is contingent on the involvement of

law enforcement.63

To further complicate matters, there is inconsistent service at differ-

ent levels of government—something USCCB is currently documenting

and attempting to correct. Says Brown, “Victims who have already been

serviced and are eligible for refugee benefits might not receive them

because in many places it’s difficult to get city, state and county offices

to understand the system. For example, the federal government doesn’t

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require that victims have photo IDs, but a lot of local welfare offices ask

for them anyway. This can delay the process tremendously.” Delays are

also a result of slow processing of T visas. Logistically, Brown says,

“there must be some limitation to funds and services; still there’s a lot of

dependency on law enforcement to get these people a T visa, and

although the turnaround can be as fast as one month, it can take

upwards of ten to twelve months.” And there is often ignorance, she

points out, on the part of law enforcement. For instance, “Most Border

Patrol agents have no knowledge of trafficking, and none of them feels

it’s their responsibility to ID victims. And this is Homeland Security ter-

ritory!”64 Sister Mary Ellen sees an enormous degree of “pragmatism”

on the part of law enforcement. She spoke of a recent case reported by

an NGO in which dozens of victims were brought to the attention of the

FBI, of whom the bureau selected only eight, on the premise that this

was the number they needed to make their case. And although local and

state police are required to apply to the federal government for a victim’s

“continued presence”—their right to stay in the United States—very

few are actually doing it.65

To their credit, USCCB doesn’t feel that the per capita system is the

end-all and be-all for the provision of services. Although she sees bene-

fits in the system—built-in accountability, tighter control of funds—

Sister Mary Ellen acknowledges the absence of valuable service

providers and concedes, “The field feels the loss of these agencies. We’ve

lost some very fine, valuable colleagues who are no longer able to do the

work. It’s a shame.”66 Nor is USCCB averse to a viable hybrid system;

Nyssa Mestes sees it as potentially “a good thing, to budget some and

put others on per capita.” Still she feels, “The sites that have the large

caseloads are the same as would succeed in the per capita system. It’s

the agencies with medium-size caseloads who don’t do well; there’s too

much fluctuation.”67

Apparently, USCCB is satisfied with its list of subcontractors. “The

agencies providing services are doing very good work,” says Mestes.

“It’s tough work; some of these victims have had their whole world

turned upside down. They come with only the clothes on their backs.”68

Still, USCCB staffers have no illusions regarding the small number of

victims found. As do so many victim advocates, Sister Mary Ellen points

to the hidden nature of the crime itself as a reason why more victims

don’t come forward. She adds, however, “They’re driven even further

underground when the national conversation on immigration is as hos-

tile as it’s become.” She stresses community education as a means of

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finding victims, pointing to the mailman and the “guy delivering alco-

holic beverages to a bar” as typical people who can be trained to know

what—and whom—to look for.69

Overall, the number of victims found in the United States, when com-

pared to the multiagency press and expenditures, is alarmingly small.

And as defined by the parameters of their contract, USCCB is empow-

ered to fund services only to foreign-born victims of human trafficking.

Still, they are proud of their record and of the results of their recent

efforts within the framework of the current contract. In the eighteen

months between April 2006—when the contract was awarded—and the

end of October 2007, 569 victims of trafficking were identified. Of

these, 322 were victims of labor trafficking, 184 of sex-related traffick-

ing, and 63 of both. They came from sixty-nine different countries, the

most predominant of which were Thailand, Mexico, South Korea,

Russia, and the Philippines.

USCCB makes no secret of the fact that it is a faith-based organiza-

tion. This has raised concern among some service providers, who feel

that the organization (and, by implication, HHS) tend to lean toward

supporting organizations whose thinking is more in line with their

own. There are, according to Sister Mary Ellen’s records, currently

ninety-two subcontractors, thirty-three—or 35.8 percent—of which

are Catholic agencies. However, she points out that they have never

solicited strictly religious organizations but have “advertised the con-

tract to just about everybody in the world. Many of the smaller organ-

izations wouldn’t take the contracts because there was no money in it

for them.” Besides, she stresses, a lot of social service agencies, by def-

inition, are faith based.70

Still, one provision of the contract is particularly unsettling to a

number of service providers. Found in both the proposal and the con-

tract, it reads, “As we are a Catholic organization, we need to ensure

that our victims services funds are not used to refer or fund activities

that would be contrary to our moral convictions and religious

beliefs. . . . Specifically, subcontractors could not provide or refer for

abortion services or contraceptive materials for our clients pursuant to

this contract.”71 In a situation where a trafficking victim—either adult

or minor—is raped and made pregnant by her trafficker, USCCB will

deny related services to that victim should she choose to have an abor-

tion. She is forced to either bear her trafficker’s unwanted child or seek

alternatives on her own, without benefit of government financial assis-

tance. Abortion is legally available in the United States in exactly these

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circumstances, but if you have been trafficked, enslaved, and raped, our

government’s system of “victim support” denies it.

At a time when the line separating church and state has been crossed

and recrossed throughout the tenure of the Bush administration, many

see it as unacceptably blurred here. What business, ask several NGOs,

does a church-based group have in determining civil policy? It’s a valid

question, and one that the USCCB addresses head on. “It is a church-

based consideration,” acknowledges Sister Mary Ellen. “We were up

front with the federal government when we submitted the proposal, and

the government was okay with it. Your question shouldn’t be ‘Why did

we include it?’ It should be, ‘Why did the government approve it? Why

did they give us a contract with that clause in it?’”72

Steve Wagner, who was director of HHS’s Human Trafficking

Program at the time the USCCB contract was awarded, is an antiabor-

tion advocate and served in George W. Bush’s Faith Based Office. When

asked what he thought of a church-driven provision that would leave a

pregnant trafficking victim figuratively if not literally out in the cold, he

responded, “You don’t want to ask me what I think of abortion.”73

Federal Bureau of Investigation

The FBI is the DOJ’s main investigative agency. One hundred years old

in 2008, it acts as the government’s primary federal investigative branch

as well as a domestic intelligence agency. These are the guys we stereo-

typically picture in dark suits and short hair. Known as the agency of

J. Edgar Hoover, the bureau has long been viewed in polarized terms:

by some as a heroic force standing to preserve the American way of life

and by others as a group of gruff, humorless functionaries who often

can’t get out of their own way and stand aloof from other agencies.

O F F I C E O F V I C T I M A S S I S TA N C E

The FBI is one of the government’s vanguard agencies in its human traf-

ficking campaign. It divides its efforts mainly between two depart-

ments—the Office for Victim Assistance (OVA) and the Civil Rights

Unit. OVA, as a prominent NGO member described it, is the “warm

and fuzzy” branch. By definition, it “manages and supports victim assis-

tance operations across the FBI.”74 According to OVA program director

Kathryn Turman, it works with NGOs and state and local service

providers. “Our function is to see that victims of crimes receive the

rights and services due them and the assistance to help them cope with

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the crime.” The department’s job, says Turman, is “strictly humanitar-

ian.” Their victim specialists go to the crime scenes with the field agents.

“It helps the agents, and it’s satisfying to see victims get help, to cope

and do better.”75

Of the nearly two hundred thousand crime victims identified by the

FBI in fiscal 2006, Turman acknowledges that only a small handful were

victims of human trafficking. She attributes this to the legal definition of

trafficking, the difficulty in getting victims to come forward, and the fact

that many apparent trafficking cases end up being alien smuggling cases.

Turman sees stumbling blocks in bringing trafficking cases and helping

victims. “There’s no time to get to know the victims and build their

trust. Also, most human trafficking cases—forced labor, households,

small businesses—are harder to find.” Turman adds that about half the

bureau’s “take-down cases” are labor based and half sex related.76

One facet of trafficking that frustrates Turman involves juvenile vic-

tims of forced prostitution. “A lot of well-meaning NGOs and police

want to help, but the services these kids need just aren’t there. You can’t

send them home, you can’t put them in foster care, and they don’t belong

in jail. They need medical and mental health care, help with substance

abuse, counseling to get over relationships with pimps. Most agencies

don’t want them and aren’t set up for it. A lot of these kids are going to

run. They’re going to end up back on the street, or they’ll get killed.

There’s no cocoon for them.”77

According to Turman, the trafficking cases brought by the bureau are

fairly evenly divided between foreign-born and domestic victims. She

holds the not uncommon view that a lot of attention has been paid to