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A House Divided: Humanitarianism and Anti-immigration Within US Anti-trafficking Legislation

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Abstract

The Trafficking Victims Protection Act legislation has established the US as a global humanitarian leader on the issue of human trafficking. Through the use of formulaic victim narratives, appeals to masculinist protection, and invocations of slave abolitionism, legislators frame the law as a work of compassion and protection of migrant people. On the other hand, legislators often take a suspicious and unsympathetic approach to irregular migrants. This article describes the humanitarian posture adopted by the US in relation to anti-trafficking, contrasting it with an anti-immigration sentiment, evidenced in two attempts to limit or rescind the benefits of anti-trafficking legislation for migrants. When considered together the humanitarian and anti-immigration focus of anti-trafficking law and policy make for an internally inconsistent approach to tackling trafficking.

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Notes

  1. The important criteria for determining trafficking under the TVPA are “force, fraud, or coercion for the purpose of subjection to involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage, or slavery” and need not include transportation from one location to another.

  2. Based at the Women and Public Policy Program at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, the Protection Project aimed to build an international database cataloguing laws and other relevant materials related to sexual exploitation of women and children.

  3. Lederer served as a witness in the following hearings: The Sex Trade: Trafficking of Women and Children in Europe and the US: Hearings Before the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, 106th Cong. (June 28, 1999); Trafficking of Women and Children in the International Sex Trade: Hearings Before the Subcommittee on International Operations and Human Rights of the Committee on International Relations: House of Representatives 106th Cong. (Sept. 14, 1999); International Trafficking in Women and Children: Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs of the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate 106th Cong. (Feb. 22 and April 4, 2000). In all of these statements, Lederer referenced the 50,000 victims statistic, later found to be inaccurate (see for e.g. Chapkis 2003, 925–926).

  4. International Trafficking in Women and Children: Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs of the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate 106th Cong. 30 (Feb. 22 and April 4, 2000) (statement of Laura Lederer, director, the Protection Project, the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University).

  5. Despite being described as a global problem, the geographical origins of trafficking invoked here suggest white victims, perhaps revealing enhanced anxiety about white sexuality, and resurrecting colonial assumptions that women of color are highly sexualized and less likely to be sexually naïve.

  6. For example, congressional witness Steven Galster, of the anti-trafficking organization “Global Survivor Network,” suggested separating forced prostitution from regular sex work, and including the former with other forms of forced labour in industries such as restaurant work. This would emphasize human trafficking rather than sex trafficking in particular. [See: The Sex Trade: Trafficking of Women and Children in Europe and the US: Hearings Before the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, 106th Cong. (June 28, 1999)]. Harold Hongju Koh, representative of the Clinton administration in his capacity as Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, advocated a similar perspective [see Trafficking of Women and Children in the International Sex Trade: Hearings Before the Subcommittee on International Operations and Human Rights, Committee on International Relations: House of Representatives 106th Cong. (Sept. 14, 1999)]. Both advocated a broad focus on trafficking in persons, not merely women and children, nor only within sex trafficking.

  7. The Sex Trade: Trafficking of Women and Children in Europe and the US: Hearings Before the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, 106th Cong. (June 28, 1999) (statement of Louise Shelley, Director, Center for the Study of Transnational Crime and Corruption; statement of Anita Botti, Deputy Director for International Women’s Initiatives, President’s Interagency Council on Women).

  8. 106 Cong. Rec S10166-7 (Oct. 11, 2000) (statement of Sen. Brownback).

  9. Supra n 4 (Statement of Frank Loy, Undersecretary of State for Global Affairs, United States).

  10. 106 Cong. Rec H21339 (Oct.6, 2000) (statement of Rep. Constance Morella).

  11. 106 Cong. Rec H21343 (Oct.6, 2000) (statement of Rep. Juanita Millender-MacDonald).

  12. Trafficking of Women and Children in the International Sex Trade: Hearings Before the Subcommittee on International Operations and Human Rights, Committee on International Relations: House of Representatives 106th Cong. (Sept. 14, 1999) (statement of Rep. Chris Smith, Republican-New Jersey).

  13. Supra n 12 (statement of Harold Hongju Koh, Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, United States).

  14. Supra n 12 (statement of Rep. Eni Faleomavaega).

  15. Some feminist scholars have linked anti-trafficking’s anxieties around sex work and female victims to a previous “moral panic” around “white slavery.” (See for e.g. Sharma 2005, 97–100; Desyllas 2007, 60–61; Bernstein 2010, 49–50; Bravo 2011).

  16. Supra n 12 (statement of Laura Lederer, Director of the Protection Project, the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University).

  17. Markup of H.R. 3244, H. Con. Res. 165. H Res. 169, H. Con. Res. 206, H. Con. Res. 222, H. Con. Res. 211, and H. Con. Res. 200- Markup Before the Committee on International Relations: House of Representatives Committee on International Relations 106th Cong. (Nov. 9, 1999).

  18. 106 Cong. Rec H9038 (Oct. 6, 2000) (statement of Rep. Henry Hyde).

  19. 106 Cong. Rec H9039 (Oct. 6, 2000) (statement of Rep. Sam Gejdenson).

  20. Bill Clinton, “Statement on Signing the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000, October 28, 2000,” in Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Bill Clinton, 2000, Book III—2000–2001, The American Presidency Project <http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=1105> (accessed August 8, 2016).

  21. Supra n 12 (statement of Theresa Loar, Director, Interagency Council on Women).

  22. Supra n 12 (statement of Gary Haugen, Director, International Justice Mission).

  23. There is an important restriction on eligibility for visas. Victims are only eligible for a T-visa, which accords non-immigrant status to the victim and qualified family members, allowing them to remain in the US if they provide information about their traffickers and assist in their prosecution. This is a contentious provision because testifying against their traffickers or otherwise assisting in the case against them (or even being suspected of doing so) is a dangerous prospect for many trafficked people. Further, those who have experienced sexual violence need continued protection, legal and medical assistance, which may not be available in their communities of origin. Many who have engaged in sex work face the prospect of shunning in their home communities due to taboos against sexual labor (Pearson 2002, 56). Other trafficked people return home to be threatened or actually harmed by traffickers, or to be re-trafficked, because they continue to face the same economic ‘push factors’ that led them to migrate in the first place (Goodey 2004, 38).

  24. 106 Cong. Rec H7630 (Sept. 14, 2000) (statement of Rep. Lamar Smith).

  25. The motion to remove the amendment capping visas at 5000 went to conference committee and remained in the bill, becoming part of the TVPA, with the compromise that each year, the Secretary of State report a list of visa claimants who were not able to obtain visas due to the cap.

  26. 106 Cong. Rec H7630 (Sept. 14, 2000) (statement of Rep. John Conyers).

  27. 106 Cong. Rec H7630 (Sept. 14, 2000) (statement of Rep. Melvin Watt).

  28. A detailed exegesis of global economic forces and their role in creating the conditions that lead to precarious migration is beyond the scope of this paper. See Sassen (2000), Sassen (2001), Sharma (2005) and Alpes (2008).

  29. An Administration Made Disaster: The South Texas Border Surge of Unaccompanied Alien Minors: Hearing Before the Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives 113th Cong. (June 25th, 2014) (statement of Rep. Louie Gohmert).

  30. Supra n 29 (statement of Rep. Louie Gohmert).

  31. Supra n 29 (statement of Rep. Jason Chaffetz).

  32. The HUMANE Act bill died in a previous Congress, however its successor, the Expedited Family Reunification Act of 2016 (H.R. 4720), is being considered by congressional committee at the time of writing.

  33. Supra n 29 (statement of Brandon Judd, President, American Federation of Government Employees National Border Patrol Council).

  34. Supra n 29 (statement of Rep. J. Randy Forbes).

  35. Supra n 29 (statement of Rep. Darrell Issa).

  36. Supra n 29 (statement of Rep. Darrell Issa).

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Acknowledgments

I would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their clear and constructive comments. Thanks also to Lincoln Addison, Mary Hawkesworth, and Sonja Boon for commenting on drafts of this article.

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  1. Departments of Gender Studies and Political Science, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John’s, Canada

    Christina Doonan

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Correspondence to Christina Doonan.

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Doonan, C. A House Divided: Humanitarianism and Anti-immigration Within US Anti-trafficking Legislation. Fem Leg Stud 24, 273–293 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10691-016-9329-5

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