Human Trafficking and Human Smuggling

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Human trafficking and human smuggling represent significant risks to homeland security. Would-be terrorists and criminals can often access the same routes and utilize the same methods being used by human smugglers. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Human Smuggling and Trafficking Unit works to identify criminals and organizations involved in these illicit activities.

Human Trafficking is the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for labor or services, through the use of force, fraud, or coercion for the purpose of subjection to involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage, or slavery. Sex trafficking occurs when a commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or when the person induced to perform such acts has not attained 18 years of age.

Human Smuggling is the importation of people into a country via the deliberate evasion of immigration laws. This offense includes bringing illegal aliens into a country, as well as the unlawful transportation and harboring of aliens already in a country illegally.

Some smuggling situations may involve murder, rape, and assault. The perpetration of violent crime in itself does not constitute human trafficking, because its elements remain fraud or coercion for commercial sex or forced labor.

In the fight against human smuggling and trafficking, ICE has developed highly successful initiatives that focus on attacking the infrastructure that supports smuggling organizations as well as the assets that are derived from these criminal activities. This might include seizing currency, property, weapons, and vehicles.

One of the new tools that helps ICE fight human smuggling and trafficking is the issuance of Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform Act (CAFRA) notices to property owners whose properties have been identified as being used to facilitate smuggling or harboring aliens. This is an important tool because many employers turn a blind eye to the facilitation of criminal activity on their properties.

ICE is committed to preventing the smuggling and trafficking of persons through initiatives, tools and resources that effectively impact organizations engaged in these practices.