Biden’s open border is a boon for human traffickers; we must stop them

As a retired NYPD detective and current member of Congress, I have spent my career working to keep my community safe and ensure that our nation is a haven of liberty and justice for all. That is why it’s important to shine a light on the migrants who are vulnerable to human trafficking along their journey and here within the U.S.

While most Americans agree that human trafficking is an evil that should be fought, many are unaware that human trafficking might be happening in their own communities. The 2023 Modern Slavery Index confirms that an estimated 1.1 million victims are currently being exploited in the U.S., whether they are foreign nationals or American citizens.  

As a member of the House Committee on Homeland Security, and chair of the Subcommittee on Emergency Management and Technology, I recently conducted a joint hearing with the Subcommittee on Border Security and Enforcement to investigate how human trafficking is occurring along smuggling routes into the U.S. I heard firsthand how traffickers target vulnerable migrants along their journey, and how they target migrants after their arrival.

As I listened, several facts became glaringly apparent. First, human traffickers are benefiting from the Biden administration’s failure to secure the Southwest border. Second, while traffickers exploit migrant vulnerability, vulnerability itself does not cause human trafficking — criminals commit crimes because they think they will be able to get away with it. We must support the efforts of our federal, state, and local law enforcement to bring traffickers to justice.

Transnational criminal organizations, or cartels, are being empowered by the lawlessness at the Southwest border under the watch of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. Open borders facilitate the cartels’ billion-dollar business of human smuggling, drug trafficking, and human trafficking.

It is important to understand the distinction between human smuggling and trafficking: the former is a crime of transportation across borders, whereas the latter involves the use of “force, fraud or coercion” to exploit someone else for personal gain. Whereas a migrant may agree to be smuggled, a victim of human trafficking never agrees to be trafficked. In many cases, a migrant who pays a considerable amount of money to be smuggled across the border may ultimately wind up a victim of trafficking, as well.

In my home state of New York, thousands of migrants remain vulnerable to the horrors of human trafficking. For instance, in 2022, the Washington Post reported that the ruthless gang MS-13 has “increasingly turned to sex trafficking over the last decade to generate income alongside drug trafficking.” According to Polaris, the operator of the National Human Trafficking Hotline, having an unstable living situation, undocumented immigration status, and financial pressure make an individual uniquely vulnerable to human trafficking. A 2021 Polaris report demonstrated that migration, relocation, and unstable housing all put immigrants at greater risk of being trafficked. This is a reality that we cannot ignore in 2024, as cities grapple with how to care for the more than 3 million migrants who have been released by U.S. Customs and Border Protection since President Biden’s first day in office.

Criminals thrive when federal and state law enforcement are too overwhelmed to hold them accountable. According to the U.S. State Department, less than half of one percent (0.4) of all human trafficking victims are identified throughout the world. And in the U.S., federal human trafficking convictions decreased by 48 percent between 2019 and 2022.

Considering the impunity that traffickers unfortunately enjoy, we must prioritize the efforts of our federal, state, and local law enforcement to prevent human trafficking, identify victims, and remove these violent criminals from our streets. We must secure the Southwest border to disincentivize human smuggling and decrease the likelihood of migrant exploitation along every stage of their journey.

We must work with governments in Latin America to hold the cartels accountable and further invest in training law enforcement to identify victims through programs such as DHS’s Blue Campaign and the Federal Law Enforcement Training Centers Human Trafficking Awareness Training. Lastly, federal and state law enforcement should work together, not against each other, to intercept and detain gang leaders. All in all, these actions would ensure that gangs like MS-13 are no longer able to generate profits from these despicable practices.

Ultimately, traffickers prey on vulnerability, and they profit from pain. But they are only doing this only because they think they will get away with it. In 2024, we need to start making sure they don’t.

Anthony D’Esposito (R), a retired NYPD detective, represents New York’s 4th congressional district and serves as chairman of the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Emergency Management and Technology.