Trafficking, Scandal, and Abuse of Migrant Workers in Argentina and the United States

2014 ◽  
Vol 653 (1) ◽  
pp. 107-123 ◽  
Author(s):  
Denise Brennan
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Dominican Republic ◽  
Migrant Workers ◽  
Sex Trafficking ◽  
The United States ◽  
Migrant Labor ◽  
Labor Migrants ◽  
Labor Exploitation ◽  
Trafficking Victims ◽  
Definition Of

This article examines the varied consequences that the label “trafficked” holds for migrants and for the organizations that assist them. In the case of migrants from the Dominican Republic to Argentina, threat of U.S. economic sanctions prompted the two governments to document incidents of trafficking by labeling all forms of migrant labor exploitation as trafficking. Collapsing a range of coerced and noncoerced labor experiences under one label has muddied the definition of trafficking. In contrast, U.S. trafficking policy systematically ignores significant exploitation of labor migrants, in part because of the volatile politics of immigration in the United States, and because of the conflation of sex trafficking with trafficking. The article uses these two examples of the effects of labeling exploited workers as trafficking victims to draw attention to the politicization of the term “trafficking.”

Guest Workers and Resistance to U.S. Corporate Despotism

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Immanuel Ness
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Migrant Workers ◽  
Global Economy ◽  
The United States ◽  
Rapid Expansion ◽  
Organized Labor ◽  
Migrant Labor ◽  
Industrial Workers ◽  
Guest Workers ◽  
Labor Costs

This book thoroughly investigates the use of guest workers in the United States, the largest recipient of migrant labor in the world. The book argues that the use of migrant labor is increasing in importance and represents despotic practices calculated by key U.S. business leaders in the global economy to lower labor costs and expand profits under the guise of filling a shortage of labor for substandard or scarce skilled jobs. The book shows how worker migration and guest worker programs weaken the power of labor in both sending and receiving countries. The in-depth case studies of the rapid expansion of technology and industrial workers from India and hospitality workers from Jamaica reveal how these programs expose guest workers to employers' abuses and class tensions in their home countries while decreasing jobs for American workers and undermining U.S. organized labor. Where other studies of labor migration focus on undocumented immigrant labor and contend immigrants fill jobs that others do not want, this is the first to truly advance understanding of the role of migrant labor in the transformation of the working class in the early twenty-first century. Questioning why global capitalists must rely on migrant workers for economic sustenance, the book rejects the notion that temporary workers enthusiastically go to the United States for low-paying jobs. Instead, the book asserts the motivations for improving living standards in the United States are greatly exaggerated by the media and details the ways organized labor ought to be protecting the interests of American and guest workers in the United States.

scholarly journals Child Labor Trafficking in the United States: A Hidden Crime

2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 59-68 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katherine Kaufka Walts
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Child Labor ◽  
Sex Trafficking ◽  
The United States ◽  
Research And Practice ◽  
Labor Trafficking ◽  
Domestic Servants ◽  
International Laws ◽  
Trafficking Victims ◽  
Sexual Services

Emerging research brings more attention to labor trafficking in the United States. However, very few efforts have been made to better understand or respond to labor trafficking of minors. Cases of children forced to work as domestic servants, in factories, restaurants, peddling candy or other goods, or on farms may not automatically elicit suspicion from an outside observer as compared to a child providing sexual services for money. In contrast to sex trafficking, labor trafficking is often tied to formal economies and industries, which often makes it more difficult to distinguish from "legitimate" work, including among adolescents. This article seeks to provide examples of documented cases of child labor trafficking in the United States, and to provide an overview of systemic gaps in law, policy, data collection, research, and practice. These areas are currently overwhelmingly focused on sex trafficking, which undermines the policy intentions of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (2000), the seminal statute criminalizing sex and labor trafficking in the United States, its subsequent reauthorizations, and international laws and protocols addressing human trafficking.

scholarly journals The New Virtual Crackdown on Sex Workers’ Rights: Perspectives from the United States

2019 ◽  
pp. 189-193 ◽  
Author(s):  
Meghan Peterson ◽  
Bella Robinson ◽  
Elena Shih
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Sex Work ◽  
Sex Workers ◽  
Sex Trafficking ◽  
Online Advertising ◽  
The United States ◽  
Safety Practices ◽  
Consensual Sex ◽  
Trafficking Victims ◽  
Share Information

On 11 April 2018, the Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA) was signed into law in the United States. FOSTA introduced new provisions to amend the Communications Act of 1934 so that websites can be prosecuted if they engage ‘in the promotion or facilitation of prostitution’ or ‘facilitate traffickers in advertising the sale of unlawful sex acts with sex trafficking victims.’ While supporters of the law claim that its aim is to target human traffickers, its text makes no effort to differentiate between trafficking and consensual sex work and it functionally includes websites where workers advertise services or share information, including safety tips.[3] Following the law’s passage—and even before its full implementation—sex workers felt its impact as websites began to eliminate platforms previously used to advertise services. Backpage, an adult advertising website, was pre-emptively seized by the FBI. Other platforms began to censor or remove content related to sex work, including Google, Craigslist, and many online advertising networks. Sex workers in the United States have denounced the passage of FOSTA for reducing workers’ ability to screen clients and ensure safety practices. This paper provides an overview of the findings of a recent survey with sex workers in the United States, details the advent of similar initiatives in other countries, and explores how the legislation conflates trafficking with consensual sex work.

Determinants of county migrant regularization policymaking in the United States: Understanding temporal and spatial realities

2018 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-111 ◽  
Author(s):  
M.Anne Visser ◽  
Sheryl-Ann Simpson
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Labor Market ◽  
State Government ◽  
Migrant Workers ◽  
National Level ◽  
The United States ◽  
Migrant Labor ◽  
Policy Adoption ◽  
Unique Type ◽  
Nation States

While immigration policymaking has traditionally been the sole prerogative of nation states, research has documented increased instances of migration policymaking at sub-national levels across migrant-receiving societies. This paper examines the temporally and spatially distinctive dynamics that underscore the adoption of these policies at the county level in the United States. The study considers the implementation of migrant labor market regularizations (LRs) for the time period 2004–2014. LRs are defined as discrete arenas of policymaking at the sub-national level that affect aspects of migrant workers’ status in labor markets and include laws and ordinances related to: anti-solicitation, language access, local enforcement of federal immigration law, and employment verification. Utilizing a multilevel event histories model, we analyze data from a unique dataset of over 5000 LR policies across 2959 counties in the United States, and address two research questions: (1) What are the social, economic, and political factors that influence the adoption of LRs by counties and municipalities in the United States; and (2) do policy adoption trends that occurred during 2004–2014 indicate a unique type of diffusion pattern? We find that the adoption of LRs by county governments are influenced by the racialization of immigration discourse and by policy behaviors at the municipal and state government levels, while economic characteristics of the local labor market and perceived ethnic competition from migrants have little direct impact on the probability of policy adoption.

Challenging Employer Control within the H-2A and H-2B Visa Programs

2019 ◽  
Vol 684 (1) ◽  
pp. 241-254 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bryan Moorefield
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Migrant Workers ◽  
Legal Status ◽  
Current System ◽  
The United States ◽  
Undocumented Migration ◽  
Labor Migrants ◽  
Migration System ◽  
The U.S ◽  
Risk Loss

Migrants holding H-2A and H-2B visas—contracted labor migrants—predominate in the new migration system that has emerged between Mexico and the United States. These migrants have been growing numerically in an era when net Mexico-U.S. migration has fallen to zero and undocumented migration is negative. These migrants are committed to contracts that require them to work for one employer, at a specified job, in a particular place, for a set duration of time, or risk loss of legal status and deportation. When visas were scarce, as they have been historically, this effectively gave employers monopoly over their contracted workers. This article describes the current system, particularly with respect to the U.S. labor market and the geography of both Mexico and the United States. With more employers now seeking H-2A and H-2B workers, the current moment may provide migrant workers with greater leverage to challenge the dominance of labor contractors and employers by moving among firms, industries, markets, and states from one contract to the next.

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