Site Region Total client records (since 2000) Client records sampled Client records
coded interviews Survivor
Service provider interviews Law enforcement interviews 1 Northeast (urban) 274 45 40 10 8 7 2 South 61 30 21 7 14 4 3 West 47 30 25 9 4 7 4 Northeast (rural) 90 52 36 2a 8 6 Total 472 157 122 28 34 24
a To overcome the limitation of not being able to interview victims directly associated with migrant farm cases in this community,
the research team conducted a focus group with 11 unauthorized immigrant farmworkers who were potentially at risk for labor trafficking to talk about their experiences. These interviews are not included in the total number of survivor interviews.
For each study site, the researchers conducted a follow-up site visit between January and June 2013 to interview victims of labor trafficking and the law enforcement officials associated with the labor trafficking cases identified and coded in the first site visit. Working with the victim service providers in each study site and using client information collected during the initial site visit, the research team identified a set of former labor trafficking survivors that were still in the local area and were willing—and in an appropriate position in their recovery—to be interviewed. When possible, the research team attempted to ensure representation of victims to be interviewed across multiple types of labor trafficking experiences. We had reviewed and coded the client case records for many of the victims whom we ultimately interviewed, but the victims interviewed did not have their records selected through a random selection process. In other words, we did not limit our interviews to those clients whose case records had been coded. The pool of survivors that would be eligible for interviews in each study site was much smaller than the pool of labor trafficking client records. Many survivors whose records were randomly selected for coding were not in a position in their recovery to complete a one- on-one interview without the risk of retraumatization. Some of the survivors whose case records we
coded had moved away from the study site after receiving services. After the research team selected survivors from the eligible pool of potential interviewees, the service providers contacted clients to gauge their interest in participating in the interviews. To ensure that service providers remained impartial during the recruitment process, the research team provided each site with a recruitment guide that detailed how recruitment should take place and enumerated the information the sites were required to share with potential respondents (appendix E). The guidelines and list emphasized that recruiters should not compel anyone to participate and that they were required to inform the survivors about the voluntary nature of their participation.
Many of the survivors we interviewed spoke little to no English. As a result, we had the consent form and one-page project description translated into Spanish and Tagalog, two of the primary languages spoken by the selected service providers’ clients (see appendix F for translated documents). All the translations were completed by experienced translators. We also hired interpreters in certain sites to assist with the interviews. The interpreters were either recommended by service provider staff who had worked with them before on cases and had experience working with vulnerable populations or were hired through a reputable translation company. Interpreters hired through the translation
company were thoroughly vetted and were required to have had experience working with victims and/or vulnerable populations. In a few instances we were unable to hire an interpreter to assist with the interview face-to-face and instead used telephonic interpretation through Language Line or Ethnic Bridge. Both of these services have been used successfully by service providers in our selected sites and interpreters working for these companies were recommended and used. Some of the languages that required interpretation included Spanish,13 Thai, Mixtec, Somali, Bengali, and Indonesian.
The research team conducted 28 interviews with victims of labor trafficking across all sites;
between 2 and 10 interviews were conducted at each site. The interview protocol was designed to elicit information on a survivor’s background, recruitment, and movement (if any) to the job that became the trafficking experience; the victimization itself; how the victim escaped; and any service and contact the victim had with law enforcement. Survivors were also asked about their current living situations, the impact of the labor trafficking experience, their hopes and goals for the future, and any
recommendations or advice for changes. The interview guide is included in appendix G. Survivors who agreed to be interviewed were promised confidentiality before the interview began and were assured that the information collected during the interviews would be used for research purposes only. Before the interview, participants were fully apprised of the purpose of the research and the voluntary nature of their participation (participation is voluntary; respondents may opt out of any question or stop the interview at any time) via an assent form (appendix H). Survivors were also informed that a social
worker or caseworker from the service provider organization was available to meet with them at any point during or after the interview. When needed, researchers conducted interviews using interpreters. Respondents were provided with a $50 gift card for their participation. Interviews with clients were in- depth and ranged in length from one to three hours. In addition to the 28 victims who were interviewed, a focus group was held in one site where numerous victims of labor trafficking in agricultural work had been located a few years before this study. The victims in the cases we reviewed had largely left the area owing to the nature of migrant farmwork. To overcome the limitation of not being able to interview victims directly associated with migrant farm cases in this community, the research team conducted a focus group with 11 unauthorized immigrant farmworkers who were potentially at risk for labor trafficking to talk about their experiences.14 See appendix I for the interview protocol.
Interviews with local and federal law enforcement officials who participated in the investigation of cases of labor trafficking were also conducted in each study site (see appendix J for the interview protocol). We had initially planned to review and code law enforcement records for labor trafficking cases included in our study. Two major challenges were encountered that led us to change our data collection strategy. First, law enforcement was involved in a small number of labor trafficking investigations. Second, a majority of the investigative work on labor trafficking cases was done by federal law enforcement personnel. Federal law enforcement agencies were unwilling to let us review and code the physical copies of their investigative records. We were able to walk through the details of each case, often with agents directly consulting the case record, to capture the information that we had originally intended to code from physical case records. Four to seven law enforcement officers,
including municipal, county, and state law enforcement as well as agents from Homeland Security and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, were interviewed in each site. Interviews were conducted with state or federal prosecutors in sites where labor trafficking cases had gone forward to prosecution. In addition to interviews with law enforcement, we conducted a few interviews with stakeholders familiar with the labor trafficking cases selected for our study; including representatives from the Department of Labor (see appendix K for the Department of Labor interview protocol).
Analysis
The information from client case records was coded on site into an Excel data file for cleaning and ultimately transferred to an SPSS data file for analysis. Information collected directly from client case records was cross-checked with publicly available information from court records and other public sources such as news outlets. Significant additional information on suspects associated with labor
trafficking cases was collected directly from case records because victim service providers, victims, and sometimes law enforcement were not clear about the outcome of many labor trafficking cases in which the police began an investigation. Data from 122 clients in 72 unique labor trafficking cases and 169 suspects associated with those cases were analyzed. Univariate and bivariate statistics were calculated to illustrate patterns of labor trafficking victim experiences and responses by law enforcement officials, victim service providers, legal advocates, and others.
All interview audio files were transcribed, and interview text was uploaded into QSR-NVivo 9 (WSR International Pty Ltd., Victoria, Australia), a qualitative data analysis software package for coding and analysis. Through this analysis, we developed thematic codes representing themes derived from interviews with service providers, legal advocates, and law enforcement and separate codes for themes that emerged from interviews with victims. Themes for both groups were first developed based on literature reviews and various components of our research questions. New themes were added that emerged from the interview coding. These themes were analyzed within and across clients, cases, and study sites to identify any differences in the patterns of themes. We developed analytic memos to explore each emerging theme in depth. Qualitative findings are organized around these themes.
Limitations
The methodology chosen for this study has several limitations. Primary among them was our ability to gather information only about victims who came in contact with a studied service provider. Previous research suggests many labor trafficking victims do not seek services and in many cases do not understand that they are crime victims (Barrick et al. 2013). As a result, our sample is biased toward victims who sought services or were otherwise connected to service providers (e.g., by law
enforcement). As our understanding of human trafficking victimization (particularly victimization of individuals in labor situations) is in its early stages, this research should be considered exploratory. We do not seek to generalize about the experiences of all labor trafficking victims, but seek instead to deeply understand the experiences of those victims who came to the attention of service providers in the studied communities and are thus a small subset of labor trafficking victims in the United States.
In addition to limitations in the representativeness of the labor trafficking victims we studied, there are limits to the information that was available for each victim. As described in more detail above, four main sources of information were used to gather information about the victimization experience: (1) victim case records, including the records of legal advocates who filed T visa applications or similar
affidavits that attested to the victimization experience of the studied victim; (2) interviews with victim service providers about the victims with whom they worked; (3) interviews with the survivors; and (4) interviews with law enforcement officials who had knowledge of a subset of the studied victims’ experiences. Although we gathered rich data from all these sources, none of them alone provided a complete picture of the victimization experience. Sometimes victims did not know extensive details about their perpetrators, and as a result the client records included very little information about perpetrators or their criminal networks. Information that service providers and legal advocates did not believe was directly relevant to a client’s T visa application or other claims for legal status was
commonly not included in the client records. Law enforcement commonly had more detailed information about labor trafficking perpetrators associated with the studied victims, but often that information was not part of an official case record or the research team was not granted direct access to the case record. This restriction was commonly the problem when federal criminal justice agencies served as the lead investigators in labor trafficking cases. Although we had originally intended to code law enforcement records using a method similar to the one used to code victim service case records, our limited access to actual case files prevented such coding. Instead, we relied on detailed interviews with law enforcement officers to provide details about studied victims and their perpetrators.
Throughout the report we try to make comparisons when appropriate among the experiences of victims working in different types of industries. We identified cases occurring in 10 primary industries: agriculture, hospitality, restaurants, domestic service in private residences, assisted living facilities, massage parlors, strip clubs, construction, factories, and carnival or fair workers. Victims were not evenly distributed across the 10 industry types. For some industries we identified a small number of victims and therefore conclusions about the experiences in these industries should be drawn cautiously.
Interviews with labor trafficking survivors, who were generally open and candid, provided some of the richest information about the victimization experience. Many of the victims we interviewed were still in the process of receiving T visas or adjusting their status from T visas to permanent residency. More longitudinal research is needed to understand survivor experiences over time and to more accurately assess the barriers survivors encounter accessing services and adjusting their status. Although the information we present on challenges experienced by survivors is limited by the time survivors have been out of their situation of victimization, it provides valuable information on the short- term and intermediate challenges survivors face.
Chapter 3: Characteristics of Victims
and Suspects
Research questions addressed in this chapter
What are the personal characteristics of labor trafficking victims (age, sex, immigration status,
country of origin, education, mental and physical health)? How do these characteristics vary by region and type of labor?
What are the personal characteristics of labor trafficking perpetrators (age, sex, immigration status,
country of origin)? How do these characteristics vary by region and type of labor?
On average, how many perpetrators are involved in labor trafficking operations? How does this
vary by type of labor?
What other illicit activities are connected with labor trafficking? What other criminal activities are
traffickers involved in?
Main findings
Labor trafficking victims were victimized across various industries. The most common industries in
which victims were trafficked were agriculture, hospitality, domestic service in private residences, construction, and restaurants.
Roughly half the victims we studied were male. Gender of victim varied by industry. Ninety percent
of agricultural workers we studied were male, and 95 percent of workers in domestic service were female. On average, labor trafficking victims were 33 years old when they began receiving services for their victimization.
Labor trafficking victims had diverse educational backgrounds. Some victims had very little formal
education, prompting their migration to the United States to seek low-wage, unskilled labor
opportunities. Other victims had a great deal of education, some with college and graduate degrees. More highly educated victims sought opportunities in the United States both to use their training and in less-skilled jobs because the options for well-paid work were limited in their home countries.
A majority of victims (71 percent) entered the United States on a lawful visa, but most victims (69
percent) were unauthorized by the time they escaped labor trafficking and sought services. Victims in agricultural work were less likely to have lawful immigration status upon entry to the United States.
Two-thirds of labor trafficking perpetrators were male, most of whom were in their thirties or
forties.
Labor trafficking perpetrators commonly victimized people from their home countries. Middle
Nearly half the identified perpetrators were confirmed as being arrested. Various factors led to low
arrest rates, including lack of law enforcement prioritization and proactive investigation of labor trafficking, declination of cases brought forward by victims, suspects absconding to non-extradition countries, and a lack of victim cooperation. In 6 percent of the cases suspects were not arrested or cases were dismissed because the perpetrator was a diplomat.
There were few formal connections between labor trafficking perpetrators and other criminal
networks, such as drug trafficking, weapons trafficking, or money laundering. Some perpetrators were involved in smuggling, document fraud, and sexual abuse.
This chapter includes detailed information about the 122 victims of human trafficking who were
identified through the victim service records in each of the four study sites. In addition, we present basic characteristics of the 169 suspects identified as associated with these victims’ cases. The characteristics described below are not intended to represent the characteristics of all labor trafficking victims or perpetrators nationwide. Results are generalizable only to the four study sites. Instead, these
characteristics represent a randomly selected sample of labor trafficking victims who were identified by victim service providers in our four study sites. Qualitative information about the characteristics of victims, their perpetrators, and the factors that may contribute to their vulnerability were also gathered from in-depth interviews with 28 victims (many of whose records were included in the statistics
described here), as well as victim service providers and law enforcement officers. The information from these interviews helps provide context about each of the victim characteristics and how they intersect with labor trafficking victimization or the risk of such victimization.