2 weeks Ago
Immigration and crime are two of the top issues in this November’s election, according to polls. Where those two issues intersect tragically is sex trafficking, a $150 billion global industry. According to a recent investigative report by The Free Press, sex and labor trafficking of minors in the United States has more than tripled in the past four years — at least gauging by the number who have escaped slavery.
That largely coincides with the opening of the southern border. Colorado is not immune to this trend. There is “market demand” for trafficked migrants; a recent bust in Florida arrested scores of johns, not just traffickers.
Investigators with Shepherd’s Watch, a nonprofit which tracks commercial sex trends and identifies potential victims and traffickers to law enforcement, say that the volume of trafficking ads on TikTok, Facebook, and other platforms has grown dramatically in the past four years. They claim that 90% of the ads now are for migrant girls. The sex industry also has a ready “product supply.
” Trafficking victims are a renewable commodity. Unlike drugs, which are consumed once and must be resupplied, trafficked persons are used over and over again. And the federal government is part of the problem.
The supply chain of victims for the commercial sex trade is being unintentionally facilitated by the Department of Homeland Security and its Office of Refugee Resettlement. In coordination with the Department of Health and Human Services, the Office of Refugee Resettlement is supposed to vet sponsors for unaccompanied minors, but perhaps 15-20% of minors are released to nonrelatives without the sponsor facing a background check. Some are being handed over directly to gang members and traffickers, according to whistleblowers.
The Inspector General for DHS told Congress in August that in the past five years, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has “lost” more than 32,000 unaccompanied minors who have failed to appear for immigration hearings. But it’s worse than that. ICE has failed to notify or schedule hearings for 291,000 unaccompanied children.
In other words, there could be thousands more unaccompanied minors who have been forced into sex trafficking in recent years, but we don’t know how many or where they are. I asked Wendy Smith, a retired acute care nurse practitioner who volunteers with several anti-sex trafficking organizations, why we don’t hear more reports of trafficking. She tells me, “Trafficking victims often do not self-identify as victims, for several reasons.
Traffickers are good at targeting vulnerable minors. They befriend the child and groom them, building a false sense of trust, to the point the perpetrator is seen as a boyfriend or girlfriend.” Some are coerced into it after sexting with a stranger or a school peer, who turns on them to demand sex in exchange for keeping the images secret.
Artificial intelligence is also being used for “sextortion” to generate explicit images of minors using their social media posts. These victims may appear to live a normal life with school and friends but are still being trafficked, unknown to their parents. Smith tells me that fear is another factor.
“Victims who are captives are often locked up much of the time, sometimes chained to radiators or locked in car trunks. They are beaten, burned, or injected with drugs to keep them compliant — a minor girl may be sold on average ten times a day.” Because many do not self-identify as victims, they are reluctant to report what is happening.
Trafficked youth might also be wary of interacting with police, when their experience in their home country has been corrupt law enforcement. This means that many never receive the intervention they need. Victims can be identified when they visit health care facilities, and some health care workers are being trained in how to detect signs of trafficking.
But according to Smith, many are doubly victimized by being forced into having abortions. This might happen in abortion clinics — which are documented to repeatedly ignore indications of trafficking — or remotely through the use of widely available mifepristone. As many as 30% of trafficking survivors say they were forced to undergo multiple abortions, many of them when they were 11-17.
The experience of being trafficked, including forced abortions, leaves long term physical, emotional, and psychological trauma that can require years of treatment and recovery. The Common Sense Institute recently released a report on commercial sex trafficking in Colorado, showing that such crimes are at an all-time high in our state. Based on official crime data, the institute points out that in 2023 Colorado had the 10th-highest number of sex trafficking reports in the country at 84.
That’s up from an average of 48 per year in 2016-20, and 74 per year in 2021-23. Most of those cases are found in just a few counties — Adams, El Paso, Jefferson, Denver, Larimer, and Boulder, which jumped from 7th to 3rd most in 2023. Those numbers do not include the thousands never reported or investigated.
It’s easy to figure out why Colorado is such a hub for trafficking and drug shipments. I-25 extends from Ciudad Juarez north to intersect with I-70, I-80, and I-90, which connect California to New York. Further, the sanctuary cities of Boulder and Denver have created a special draw for illegal immigration and are pushing it out into nearby cities and communities.
News of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua taking over apartment complexes in Aurora made nationwide news and prompted former President Donald Trump’s recent visit to the area. The gang is heavily involved in commercial sex trafficking across the country, and many trafficking crimes occur at hotels and apartments. Whether politicians and national media want to play up or play down these apartment takeovers, such gang activity provides fertile ground for sex trafficking.
Colorado seems unsure whether it wants more or fewer immigrants. The state and Denver policy of busing thousands of illegal immigrants to other states might be providing unintentional support to commercial sex trafficking elsewhere. By late 2023, roughly 6,700 migrants had been given one-way tickets to elsewhere, especially Chicago and New York City.
Certainly, a number of those migrants were being trafficked for sex. There are some obvious ways to begin to address the problem. At the federal level: Close the border, even though it’s closing the barn door after the horse is out.
The Colorado Congressional delegation needs to hold DHS accountable for the failures of ORR, and they should not allow ORR to relax background checks for sponsors as it’s proposing to do. Make the prosecution of sex trafficking cases a top priority for federal prosecutors. At the state level: Ban sanctuary cities.
What they are doing undermines the rule of law and attracts illegal immigration. Dedicate more state and local resources to investigating and prosecuting commercial sex crime. Train more medical professionals to recognize signs of trafficking.
And require the mandated reporting of abortions below the age of consent and referral to child protective services. Ironically, many of the more vocal supporters of illegal immigration have little to say about sex trafficking. Those who most proudly promote bodily autonomy and the “right to choose” appear to have little interest in the plight of young migrant women and men who have no autonomy and no choices.
Social justice is not for all, apparently. Sex trafficking is one of the most basic and degrading violations of human dignity and human rights. Whether progressive, libertarian, or conservative, we should agree that there is no excuse for Colorado being the 10th-worst state in the country for sex trafficking.
Tom Copeland, Ph.D., is the director of research at the Centennial Institute of Colorado Christian University.
He writes regularly on public policy and the intersection of politics, culture and religion. The views expressed by the author are his own and do not represent the views of Centennial Institute or Colorado Christian University..
