When the FBI Comes Calling…®
HUMAN TRAFFICKING AND SMUGGLING
Introduction
According to Interpol, trafficking in persons and human smuggling are two distinct phenomena. Trafficking in persons involves the exploitation of the migrant, "often for purposes of forced labour and prostitution," whereas human smuggling "while odious in its own right," is focused only on "the procurement, for financial or material gain, of the illegal entry into a state of which that person is neither a citizen nor a permanent resident." Interpol, People Smuggling: Challenge and Response. The United States and other countries follow a similar delineation of the two categories.
Black's Law Dictionary defines trafficking as "To trade or deal in (goods, esp. illicit drugs or other contraband)," Black's Law Dictionary 1534 (8th ed. 2005), and transport as "To carry or convey (a thing) from one place to another." Id. at 1537. While many statutes tend to use the terms interchangeably, and federal prosecutors seem to charge individuals under either theory, the two categories really are distinguishable.
Because treatment in the courts of certain labor activity had not always matched Congressional desire to protect people who have been trafficked, Congress enacted the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000, Pub. L. No. 106-386, 114 Stat. 1464 (2000) (codified at 22 USCS §§ 7101-7110) to "combat trafficking in persons, a contemporary manifestation of slavery whose victims are predominantly women and children, to ensure just and effective punishment of traffickers, and to protect their victims." 22 U.S.C. § 7101(a). The same Act also amended title 18, chapter 77 of the United States Code, by adding sections 1589-1594 to the chapter. In 2003, Congress amended chapter 77, changing the former "Peonage and Slavery" to the current "Peonage, Slavery, and Trafficking in Persons."
The United States has plenty of statutes on the books concerning the trafficking and transportation of persons. Some are found in chapter 77 of title 18 (18 U.S.C. §§ 1581 et seq.) (relating to peonage, slavery, and trafficking in persons), others are found in chapter 117 (18 U.S.C. §§ 2421 et seq.) (relating to transportation for illegal sexual activity), and still others are tucked in chapters 109A and 110 (18 U.S.C. §§ 2241 et seq. and 18 U.S.C. §§ 2251 et seq.) (relating to sexual abuse). Many of the statutes are interrelated or even seemingly redundant, and we have endeavored to make this investigation of trafficking and its ancillary offenses as thorough as possible.
We have tried to categorize the different forms of trafficking or transportation into five main categories: peonage, involuntary servitude, transportation, human smuggling, and human trafficking.