WASHINGTON—Hundreds of thousands of people head to the United States every year in search of a better life, many by paying a smuggler thousands of dollars to get them in the back door—across the southwest border illegally. Others, as in the recent bust of a sex-trafficking ring in Florida, are lured by temporary work visas and then forced into servitude.
A smuggler often promises a better life in the United States, a job, or maybe even a love interest, said Greg Nevano, assistant director of ICE Homeland Security Investigations’ investigative programs.
“Many times, you’ll see parents [who] want their children to have a better life … send their child along with a friend, a cousin,” he said.
“And along the route—which is a long journey to the United States—the smugglers will then exploit the children. They’ll say, if you don’t pay us additional money, or if you do not perform these types of activities—some of which are sexual activity, some of them could be forced labor—we will kill your family back home.”
The scope of the problem is mind-boggling, going by a recent estimate by expert Timothy Ballard.
Ballard, founder of the anti-trafficking organization Operation Underground Railroad, said that as many as 10,000 children are trafficked into the United States every year to be used as sex slaves. Nevano concurs with Ballard’s estimate.
Previously, Ballard spent more than 12 years working as a special agent for Homeland Security Investigations in its child trafficking unit.
He recounted a story of a 13-year-old girl from Central America who was kidnapped from her village, then trafficked into the United States across an unpatrolled part of the southwest border.
She was taken to New York City. “This little girl—and this is very typical—was raped for money every day, 30 to 40 times a day,” Ballard said during a White House roundtable on Feb. 1.
Last year, the number of Border Patrol apprehensions along the southwest border almost hit 400,000. This year, it’s on track to pass 600,000 illegal crossers. The vast majority hail from Central America.
More than 48,000 unaccompanied minors were apprehended by Border Patrol in fiscal year 2018. Almost half were from Guatemala, and the rest were from Honduras, Mexico, and El Salvador.
Marlene Castro, a former supervisory Border Patrol agent in the Rio Grande Valley sector in Texas, said no one crosses the Rio Grande into the United States without paying something.
“It could be cash, it could be jewelry, some possession of yours, or whatever, but you’re going to pay,” Castro said in a 2017 interview.
“They hire this smuggler, someone they don’t even know, and they trust him on this 800-, 1,000-mile journey. Even if they’re paid with cash upfront or whatever, lots of times these people risk being assaulted, beaten, robbed by these people.
“There are cases where the women—with the expectation of getting raped—prepare themselves by getting on birth control, or taking birth control, for the purpose of the journey.”
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