According to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), immigrants in the United States make up most of the population at risk for both sex and labor trafficking. To better prevent human trafficking and address these root causes, the Biden Administration must make significant changes to its immigration policies, including protecting undocumented workers, ending the deportation of migrant and unaccompanied children, and significantly expanding the T-visa program. These policy actions together would provide stronger wrap-around services to protect some of the most vulnerable in America from falling prey to traffickers.

The United States’ anti-trafficking movement was formed 20 years ago, including the establishment of the Office to Monitor and Combat Human Trafficking ( J/TIP) within the U.S. State Department and the first U.S. legislation on trafficking, the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act (TVPA). The anti-trafficking movement grew rapidly after those early days, yet it is critical to analyze why, after twenty years and billions of dollars invested, the United States government has failed to address the root causes of trafficking. Additionally, it is important to uncover how they have compounded the problem through immigration policies that put men, women, and children at higher risk of being exploited.

Immigrants are among the most vulnerable to trafficking in the United States, yet Trump’s immigration policies made immigrants even more vulnerable to trafficking during the four years of his presidency.1 For example, such policies benefited traffickers, impeded prevention efforts, minimized survivors’ visibility, and impaired service providers’ trust in federal agencies.2 To ensure those most vulnerable to human trafficking are protected, the Biden Administration must make significant changes to its immigration policies, including expanding special visas for victims of trafficking, ending the deportation of migrant children, and strengthening labor protections for undocumented workers.

The primary policy and legal mechanisms for combating trafficking in the United States are the TVPA and the Department of State’s TIP Report. The passage of the TVPA in 2000 created a legal framework for the prosecution of the crime of “trafficking in persons” and provided assistance to trafficked persons identified or “certified” as such by law enforcement or another government agency. Victims of trafficking can receive compensation or restitution, and their traffickers can be subject to fines and/or imprisonment because of criminal prosecution under the TVPA. The TVPA criminalizes trafficking, including forced labor, involuntary servitude, peonage, and slavery. The TVPA also makes it a criminal offense to confiscate a victim’s documents in furtherance of a trafficking crime.10

To protect immigrant men, women, and children from human trafficking in the United States, the Biden administration must implement the following changes to rectify previous U.S. and especially Trump-era immigration policies. While the U.S. has pre-Trump era legislation that punishes traffickers and helps services to victims, human trafficking continues to exist in the United States at especially high rates in migrant populations.12 The Biden administration must enact legal reform and enforce current labor and employment protections to bolster existing efforts to address trafficking.