Labor trafficking in the United States is a form of human trafficking where victims are made to perform a task through force, fraud or coercion as it occurs in the United States. Labor trafficking is typically distinguished from sex trafficking, where the task is sexual in nature. People may be victims of both labor and sex trafficking.
History
Many Native American tribes practiced some form of slavery before the European introduction of African slavery into North America; but none exploited slave labor on a large scale. The arrival of the Europeans ushered in the Atlantic slave trade, where Africans were sold into chattel slavery into the American continent. It lasted from the 15th through 19th centuries and was the largest legal form of human trafficking in the history of the United States, reaching 4 million slaves at its height. It first became illegal in the northern states, which favored other forms of human trafficking, such as debt bondage. Following the Civil War, chattel slavery became illegal throughout the United States through the thirteenth amendment, except as punishment for a crime. Three years later, the peonage system of slavery was abolished in New Mexico Territory."Sec 1990. The holding of any person to service or labor under the system known as peonage is abolished and forever prohibited in the territory of New Mexico, or in any other territory or state of the United States; and all acts, laws, … made to establish, maintain, or enforce, directly or indirectly, the voluntary or involuntary service or labour of any persons as peons, in liquidation of any debt or obligation, or otherwise, are declared null and void." Supreme Court Reporter, West Publishing Co, Bailey v. Alabama (1910), page 151.
Though the amendment formally abolished slavery throughout the United States, the amendment did not clearly define slavery. Factors such as Black Codes, white supremacist violence, and selective enforcement of statutes continued to subject some black Americans to involuntary labor, particularly in the South. Employers had complete control over black employees, and were allowed to use corporal punishment. If blacks tried to "escape" employment, they were arrested and brought back to their employers. They were also arrested and enslaved if they failed to find a job or were homeless.Ellis Paxson Oberholtzer, A History of the United States since the Civil War (1917) 1:128–129. Quote: "Negroes must make annual contracts for their labor in writing; if they should run away from their tasks, they forfeited their wages for the year. Whenever it was required of them they must present licenses (in a town from the mayor; elsewhere from a member of the board of police of the beat) citing their places of residence and authorizing them to work. Fugitives from labor were to be arrested and carried back to their employers. Five dollars a head and mileage would be allowed such negro catchers. It was made a misdemeanor, punishable with fine or imprisonment, to persuade a freedman to leave his employer, or to feed the runaway. Minors were to be apprenticed, if males until they were twenty-one, if females until eighteen years of age. Such corporal punishment as a father would administer to a child might be inflicted upon apprentices by their masters. Vagrants were to be fined heavily, and if they could not pay the sum, they were to be hired out to service until the claim was satisfied. Negroes must not carry knives or firearms unless they were licensed so to do. It was an offense, to be punished by a fine of $50 and imprisonment for thirty days, to give or sell intoxicating liquors to a negro. When negroes could not pay the fines and costs after legal proceedings, they were to be hired at public outcry by the sheriff to the lowest bidder...." Many blacks were arrested for minor offenses and subject to often brutal forms of penal labor. A system of convict leasing emerged which sold black prisoners to do the work previously done by slaves. The black codes were eventually overturned and ruled unconstitutional during the civil rights movement.
In addition to race-based slavery, many poor Americans were enslaved through debt bondage. One common system was the truck system, in which victims were paid in credits to the company store. The pay was not enough to sustain life, and so victims were often indebted to the company store, and were unable to leave until the debt was repaid. The 19th and 20th centuries saw major reforms of labor law and debt bondage is outlawed. Today, illegal forms of unfree labor are considered labor trafficking. Under federal law, this includes any form of force, fraud or coercion, but differs under state law.
At the beginning of the 19th century, there was growing concern over "white slavery", which referred to the kidnapping of females to work in the sex industry. A number of laws, such as the Mann Act, were passed to protect white females, and eventually extended to children and women of all races and to a lesser degree men. The laws have continued to change, especially regarding the boundary between a willing prostitute and an innocent victim. Currently, under federal law, prostitutes are considered a victim of human trafficking if either under 18 or being controlled through force, fraud or coercion. However, this is not fully implemented, and in many states, prostitutes who are considered victims under federal law are still arrested and prosecuted under state law. Some states have adopted the federal standard, while others have only partially adopted them.
Estimates on prevalence It is difficult to determine the exact extent of labor trafficking in the United States because of the secretive nature. The U.S. government only keeps a count of survivors, defined as victims of severe instances of human trafficking, who have been assisted by the government in acquiring immigration benefits. The National Institute of Justice (NIJ) notes that while only 15% of trafficking cases identified by law enforcement involve labor trafficking, there is significantly more labor trafficking victims seeking service than sex trafficking victims. They suggest that labor trafficking victims are harder to identify, that police and prosecutors were unfamiliar with labor laws, they lacked the infrastructure to identify labor trafficking, and research tends to focus on sex trafficking.
According to the National Human Rights Center in Berkeley, California, there are currently about 10,000 forced laborers in the U.S., around one-third of whom are domestic servants and some portion of whom are children. In reality, this number could be far higher due to the difficulty in getting exact numbers of victims, due to the secretive nature of human trafficking. Research at San Diego State University estimates that there are 2.4 million victims of human trafficking among illegal Mexican immigrants. Research by the Urban Institute says that law enforcement agencies do not prioritize labor trafficking cases, were reluctant to help victims obtain authorization to legally remain in the United States, and felt there was not enough evidence to corroborate victim statements.
In 2014, the National Human Trafficking Resource Center reported 990 cases of forced labor trafficking in the US, including 172 which also involved sex trafficking. The most common types of labor trafficking included domestic work, traveling sales crews, agriculture/farms, restaurant/food service, health & beauty services, begging, retail, landscaping, hospitality, construction, carnivals, elder care, forestry, manufacturing, and housekeeping.
Agriculture In the agriculture sector, the most common victims of trafficking are U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents, undocumented immigrants, and foreign nationals with temporary H-2A visas.Labor Trafficking in Agriculture | Polaris Project | Combating Human Trafficking and Modern-day Slavery. (n.d.). Retrieved April 24, 2014, from Due to the nature of agricultural work as being seasonal and transient, the ability of employers to exploit these workers is high. Such exploitation may take the form of threats of violence and playing on vulnerabilities (i.e. immigration status). In some cases, workers are held in a state of perpetual debt to the crew leaders who impose mandatory transportation, housing and communication fees upon the workers which are high in relation to pay received, therefore further indebting the worker. Crew leaders may also provide workers with H-2A visas and transportation to the place of work from a home country.
JB Farm Labor contractor hired hundreds to work on an asparagus farm in San Joaquin County. Once hired, they were held hostage and threatened with physical harm if they complained to authorities. After California Rural Legal Assistance was unable to locate JB Farm Labor contractor, they sued the grower who was ordered to pay the workers back-pay. In 2010, the company Global Horizons was indicted on charges of trafficking more than 400 Thai workers through a program of bonded labor. Charges were ultimately dropped in 2012.
In November 2002, Ramiro Ramos, his brother Juan, and their cousin Jose Luis, sub-contractors of a farm in Immokalee, Florida, were charged ten to twelve years each for holding migrant workers in involuntary servitude. The human trafficking ring was uncovered by the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, a local organization that focuses on human rights of the Mexican and Central American immigrants in the region who are exploited for cheap or unpaid labor. The Coalition has also led the Campaign for Fair Food, which resulted in the Fair Food Program. They argued that larger companies put pressure on suppliers to constantly cut prices, leading many suppliers to engage in human trafficking. They successfully campaigned for several large companies to only buy tomatoes from growers that followed certain standards that guarded against human trafficking and pay them an extra cent per pound for tomatoes which would go directly to the growers.
From 2015 to 2017, Bladimir Moreno, owner of Los Villatoros Harvesting LLC, ran a racketeering-style forced-labor scheme using H-2A agricultural visas, across several U.S. states, including Florida, Kentucky, Indiana, Georgia, and North Carolina. He charged inflated recruitment fees, confiscated passports, imposed debt burdens, housed workers in crowded unsanitary conditions, and threatened them with deportation if they refused. In 2022 he pleaded guilty to RICO and forced-labor conspiracy, and was sentenced to 118 months in federal prison, plus over US$175,000 restitution.
Fishing
According to an Associated Press investigation published in 2016, exemptions from federal human trafficking, minimum wage, and other labor protection laws have allowed certain fishing boats to operate with foreign workers in what critics have described as a "human trafficking scheme" and debt bondage. The exemptions apply to "highly migratory species" caught outside the Exclusive Economic Zone, in practice largely tuna and swordfish caught off Hawaii. Though the fish are delivered to ports on Honolulu and San Francisco, crew members are not allowed to leave the vessels for years at a time, and have their passports held by boat owners. Paid as little as $0.70 per hour, some fishermen work in unsanitary conditions, and some report abuse or being deceived into taking a job which they thought would pay considerably more than the land-based jobs they were leaving. The fish are sold on to restaurants, hotels, and stores like Sam's Club and Costco; Whole Foods Market suspended purchases after the AP report.