Researching Human Trafficking

By Jaden E. Terrell

For the past month, I've been working on the third Jared McKean book, which involves human trafficking and slavery in the United States. The research for this book has been eye-opening. We don't think of slavery as something that happens in the modern age, especially in the United States, but the truth is, while it is more common in some countries than in others, no country is immune.

Each year, 800,000 people become human trafficking victims and are transported across international borders. Of those, it's estimated that 14,500 to 17,500 people are trafficked into the United States each year. Most are women and children, but some are men who are put to work picking oranges or tomatoes or performing other manual labor.

Some modern slaves come here illegally, smuggled across the border by "snakeheads" (in the case of Chinese illegal immigrants) and "coyotes (in the case of Mexicans and South Americans, as Ben has so eloquently discussed elsewhere) and are forced into sexual slavery or manual labor. Others come on work visas, but their documents are confiscated, and they are forced into servitude. Lured by the promise of good jobs and the "American Dream," many victims of human trafficking don't realize they're being exploited. They're told that their trip here was costly and that because of this, they have incurred a heavy debt, which they must discharge by working for the debt holder. Somehow, though, the debt never grows smaller. The victims are charged for the minimal food and clothing they are given, and if they need medical care, the cost (if care is given at all) is added to their debt. Sometimes they are paid a minimal salary but must buy toiletries, food, clothing, and other necessities from a "store" owned by the "employer."

Some women are brought into the country to work as nannies and housekeepers; instead of the fair pay and good working conditions they are promised, they're beaten, starved, and fed horror stories about the cruelty of American law enforcement officials and even of their neighbors. Some are broken by being repeatedly brutalized. They become convinced that no one will help them and that there is no escape. Some "employers" even pretend to send money home to their victims' families so the victims, believing their families are depending on them to send money, are even more motivated to accept their lot. The "employers" are masters of manipulation, using a combination of fear, pain, hunger, and honor to keep their victims under control.

Cases have been documented in New York, California, Florida, Arizona, New Mexico, and many other American cities. The chilling book The Slave Next Door by Kevin Bales and Ron Soodalter describes a numer of them. In Nashville, Tennessee, there are at least two rescue groups dedicated to rescuing victims of trafficking and helping them deal with their trauma. The police department has formed a task force, and special training in identifying and helping trafficking victims has been given to local law enforcement as well as to the local branches of the FBI and TBI. This is serious stuff.

While reading A Crime So Monstrous by Benjamin Skinner, I was taken aback by the author's assertion that in any major city in the world, it was possible to buy a human being for less than $200. It's inconceivable to me that in this day and age, one human being can still treat another like chattel. Yet, every day, in virtually every country in the world, people are being bought and sold.

I'm just beginning to scrape the surface of the subject, but delving into it has been a little like turning over a big shiny rock and finding a nest of creepy crawly things beneath. It's my hope that human trafficking, like those creepy crawly things, will shrivel when exposed to light. How fortunate to be writing in a genre that can entertain while doing exactly that.

Border Boogie

by Ben Small

Now that the elections are over, there's not much attention paid by the national media to the ongoing border invasion in our Southwest, unless stories leak out from U.S. local presses about the ongoing horrors or from our federal government about the Mexican government deserving some credit. And the Federales deserve some applause. They've made some successful raids on cartel leaders, and one cartel reportedly asked for a deal -- seeking protection from other cartels.

But more stories aren't told. Reporters in Mexico fear the cartels. And rightfully so. The cartels are targeting those who report their atrocities, their corruption of Mexican police and city governments. Mexico City's largest newspaper promised a few weeks ago not to cover these activities further after several of its reporters covering a massacre of seventy-some human captives were themselves kidnapped and murdered. Likewise, the largest newspaper in Ciudad Jurarez, Mexico's most violent city. That newspaper publicly asked the cartels what they want it to print.

And in the U.S., for the most part, the national media has moved on; drug and human trafficking no longer hot topics. They'd rather focus on Brett Favre's weiner, Lindsay Lohan's horrific parents, the Fed bloating our currency, Beck's crusade against Soros, Bush vs. Obama in book sales, Mel Gibson's rants or what Michelle Obama or the cast of Glee might be wearing tonight.

Such is the talking-head, Internet-fed 24/7 news cycle, and the clarion call for entertainment news.

But the flow of death and drug and human smuggling through our Southwest borders hasn't stopped; it's not even slowed.

In the last two weeks, we who live in the Southwest have seen the following:

• the American Consulate in Mexico issuing instructions to its employees not to travel unless in armored carriers.
• a gigantic Guatemalan human sex-trafficking bust in Phoenix.
• Three southern Arizona sheriffs state that Mexican cartel snipers dot the hills, carrying high-powered rifles equipped with scopes and night vision.
• Several tunnels from Nogales, Sonora to Nogales, AZ, one which featured electricity, lights, air conditioning and rail tracks, along with thirty tons of weed.
• Janet Napolitano, Homeland Security Secretary and former governor of Arizona, cutting off funding for the electronic fence project, leaving much of Arizona's border with Mexico with either no fence at all or fencing a paraplegic could cross...unassisted.
• National Forest lands abutting the border closed to Americans, the Border Patrol and ICE.
• Three separate inspections along Arizona's highways yielding $12 million in cocaine...in one day.
• The discovery of over a ton of marijuana daily no longer constituting  "News."
• Untold numbers of traffic deaths in human trafficking accidents. Sorry, they're on the local News almost every night, and I've simply lost headcount.
• Replacement of the orange warning signs throughout Southern Arizona with yellow caution signs, still advising those who witness illegal smuggling activities to call 911, which of course, is the Sheriff's Office, the same guys Eric Holder is suing and harassing -- for enforcing federal immigration laws the Feds ignore.
• Southwest officials attending a London Kidnapping seminar, and release of statistics that through July, 2010, Phoenix police -- not the whole of Maricopa County, mind you, but Phoenix alone -- registered one hundred forty-one kidnappings, contrasted to two hundred seventy-three average for all of 2008 and 2009.
• U.S. bound produce inspections terminated until the product reaches the U.S., because of cartel vengeance-risk to U.S. inspection agents -- resulting in massive delays in produce deliveries... and spoilage.
• The Mexican Consul in Tucson saying he's seen no evidence whatsoever of the claimed hundred thousand Mexicans who returned home from Arizona, despite U.S. government statements to the contrary. In fact, he admitted, no such statistics exist.
• A Tucson television news program entitled "How Safe Is Sierra Vista?" Sierra Vista, about forty miles south of Tucson, is just north of the major drug and human trafficking trails through the southern Arizona national forests, and ironically, is home to Fort Huachuca, the Army's Intel Center.
• The Pima County (Tucson) coroner reporting a backlog of eighty unidentified bodies awaiting processing, perhaps necessitating the purchase of a third refrigerated body-truck. The second one was just ordered and delivered this summer.
• A movement of the Mexican drug cartels into software piracy on a national scale.
• The seizure of one hundred five tons of marijuana in one Northern Mexico raid.

Yes, border agents are making progress, and yes, Mexico too has scored against the cartels. But much more drug and human cargo passes through our border defenses than is blocked.

Ask yourself this question: How hard is it to get reefer today? 

Better yet: Ask your kids.

And the National Guard's presence? An election ploy, a photo-op. Guardsmen instructions: Do nothing but report violations; defend yourself only if attacked. 

Don't get me started on cargo ships, on the millions of containers flowing through our ports each and every day. Even our federal government admits it inspects only about ten percent of these containers.

Feel safe? Ask yourself this question: If our borders are so insecure we cannot stop human or drug smuggling, how hard would it be to smuggle in a suitcase bomb?

Goodbye Chicago. Or San Diego. Or Phoenix. Take your pick.

Maybe our president should actually come down and see our southern border with Mexico...once. Michelle can find ice cream there, and Arizona has golf courses. Maybe our president should leaf through some of the Qurans left on Southern Arizona smuggling trails. Or if he's short on time, how about a fly-over? Even Bush buzzed New Orleans after Katrina.

Yes, the election drums bang no more. But along the Mexico-U.S. border, unheard by Washington, the Border Boogie beats on.