T Visa
U.S. Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000
U.S. Immigration Lawyers
Info@GreenCard4You.com
(213) 620-0222

Immigration Consultation with
Experienced Immigration Attorneys

In the seven full years that the federal government's T visa program has been under way to help foreign women exploited in sweatshops or sold as sex slaves in America, only 1,094 trafficking victims have obtained the visas available to those willing to help prosecute traffickers, according to a newspaper report.

The Houston Chronicle reported in its Monday edition that just 67 of about 120 women rescued in a raid on a cantina-based ring in Houston in 2005 have obtained the visas. Nationwide, 1,924 people got services from the U.S. Department of Justice as trafficking victims from 2004 to 2007 and only 709 people got visas during those same three years, the newspaper said immigration records show.

"There is this available protection that our government wisely determined it needed to provide, and yet we're obviously not doing a good enough job," said Melanne Verveer, chief executive officer of the nonprofit Vital Voices Global Partnership. Verveer helped develop the law as part of the Clinton administration.

Maria Elena Garcia-Upson, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, said fear of immigration authorities may be the most significant barrier.

"For the entire U.S. government, identification of trafficking victims is challenging due to the circumstances victims find themselves in, the money, power and influence of the traffickers; essentially the nature of human trafficking itself," the USCIS said.

The T visa program was created under the U.S. Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 to help victims as traffickers were prosecuted by the government. As many as 5,000 visas could be granted annually, Congress said.

In the Houston ring, 67 of the women who were rescued after the anti-trafficking task force raided five cantinas and restaurants have received the T visas and four-year work permits, according to Andre Rodriguez, an attorney for the YMCA International Services.

Traffickers had tricked young women and girls from El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua into coming to the U.S. Some of the women were beaten and forced into prostitution. The women were forced to repay smuggling fees that were as high as $15,000.

Nineteen women have applied for visas but are waiting while at least nine are stuck in the complex paperwork process, the newspaper reported. Three have been deported, which may have been their choice.

Wafa Abdin, an attorney for Catholic Charities, said one of those was a teenager but she wasn't able to interview her.

"We worry most about the youngest victims," Abdin said. "Some never knew anything but abuse and had no one to take care of them or to teach them to protect themselves — some are going to be lost."

The newspaper said its interviews with advocates, victims and attorneys showed 20 others are in limbo. The women apparently were separated from others after the rescue because they refused to speak, made mistakes, lied in statements or were described as traffickers' girlfriends, according to immigration lawyers who eventually won their release.

Federal agents have arrested 449 traffickers and convicted more than 75 percent, according to U.S. Department of Justice statistics.

In Houston, eight members of the ring were convicted and five are serving prison time.

Victims' testimony is key to nearly every case.

Martiza Conde Vazquez, a task force member based at the FBI Houston office, has learned how hard it is to coax the truth from traumatized and fearful victims. "Even though they're free from the traffickers, they are still slave to their fears, and I don't think that goes away," she said.

© 2008 The Associated Press