The Definition of “Human Trafficking“
Though euphemisms seem perfectly harmless and inoffensive, they encourage a soft denial of reality that long ago became a staple of American culture. The world is scary and confusing, and with the luxuries afforded to those in developed countries, hiding from reality is often easier than facing it head-on. In so doing, concepts that make people uncomfortable (disability, aging, death, etc.) need to be wrapped in ever more lengthy and convoluted linguistic evasions — and this trend goes far beyond mere pleasantries.
Jacob Repkin, “Euphemisms are powerful — and dangerous”
There are some topics like rape, suicide, death, genocide, slavery, etc. that are difficult to discuss, and so we have invented a number of ways to get around saying the words that make us uncomfortable. Instead, we say “grape”, “unalive”, “passed away”, “ethnic cleansing”, “forced labor”, etc. It is a terrible thing to imagine someone being “forced labor”, but it is another thing altogether to remember that much of the world’s economy functions because of slavery.
The United States has a long, brutal, and ugly history of enslaving people, and while many of us were taught in our high school history courses that slavery was abolished after The Civil War of the 1800s, this was a lie. Slavery was not abolished, it merely rearranged itself to be more palatable to the public. The Thirteenth Amendment reads
“Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”
This exception is crucial to understanding why we must abolish our prison system, as it allows for slavery as punishment so long as a person can be convicted of a crime. All the government would need to do to maintain a permanent “slave class” is to disproportionately police Black and Brown neighborhoods and promote recidivism through policy.
From fighting wildfires to toiling in the kitchens of some of the country’s most popular food franchises, incarcerated workers perform vital functions across the United States and produce billions of dollars in value for the public and private sectors. Yet they are paid very little (between 13 and 52 cents an hour on average)—if at all— and are excluded from the basic rights and protections afforded to most workers.
These exploitative dynamics are rooted in slavery and are particularly extreme in the South, which incarcerates people—primarily Black men—at the highest rates in the world and is more likely than other regions to force incarcerated people to work for nothing at all. Forced prison labor is one aspect of the racist, anti-worker Southern economic development model, which relies on inhumane, regressive forms of revenue generation and masks the true costs of incarceration.
This should concern all of us, not only because of the harm to BIPOC communities that has continued unabated since this country’s inception, but because of the potential ways an ego-driven despot who wants to punish his political opponents could exploit this system. In a system where you can be disenfranchised for committing a crime, all that stands between you and becoming a slave is the breaking of a law (or the fabrication of a crime).
However, our prison system is just one way that the United States continues to use slavery to underpin its economy. Businesses that don’t want to pay fair wages have found another way to “hire” “laborers” to “work” for little or no wages: they prey upon immigrants. By using the labor of undocumented immigrants and migrants, employers are more easily able to abuse, threaten, intimidate, and coerce because workers are in a precarious position and are often afraid to report workplace violations.
As the Trump administration1 has ramped up their efforts to “detain” and “deport” people, they are also in the process of building additional “detainment centers” to house people, including “Alligator Alcatraz”, which is expected to have “5,000 immigration detention beds by early July”. This begs the question (and hopefully you already know the answer), why is the government building beds to house people in prisons for being here “illegally”?
To put it plainly, the United States government and the capitalist class are doing what they have done since the country was founded: they are using slave labor to maintain their wealth and spreading propaganda to convince Americans that the horrors being done in their name and with their tax dollars are justified.
ICE are human traffickers working for the government to force people into slavery and if we allow them to, they’ll come for us next.
In this series of posts/lessons I’ll be presenting a word/phrase which is important to understanding our current political context. I’ll provide a definition for the word and links to several articles where the word is used or not used, and then some questions for homework/self-reflection.
Click the arrow for resources that are helpful for evaluating sources.
Read through the definition for “human trafficking“. After you’re finished reading, click on the links to find articles related to the definition, then answer the questions below.
Human Trafficking
The crime of human trafficking consists of three core elements: the act, the means, the purpose. Physical and sexual abuse, blackmail, emotional manipulation, and the removal of official documents are used by traffickers to control their victims. Exploitation can take place in a victim’s home country, during migration or in a foreign country.
ACT
The trafficker must do one of the following to peopleMEANS
+
Using one or more of these methodsPURPOSE
+Recruit Threat or use of force For exploitation Transport Coercion Transfer Fraud Harbour Deception Receive Abuse of a position of vulnerability Giving payments or benefits Abduction
Click the arrow to find links to additional articles related to ICE (these are only a starting point but will help you to answer the questions below).
Don’t think ‘it can’t happen here’ — it’s already happening
In recorded calls, reports of overcrowding and lack of food at ICE detention centers
Maxwell Frost: ICE ‘human trafficking’ migrants to other nations
ICE Impersonations Proliferate Amid the Agency’s Undercover Tactics
‘No Vigilantes Act’ would require those doing immigration raids to identify themselves
‘They’re Not Breathing’: Inside the Chaos of ICE Detention Center 911 Calls
Plan to open California’s largest immigration jail sparks outrage
Mahmoud Khalil pens op-ed comparing ICE detention to Nazi concentration camps
INVESTIGATION: CoreCivic’s Plan to Turn Leavenworth Into an ICE Concentration Camp
Click the arrow for a list of questions to answer about the definition of “human trafficking” and the accompanying readings.
- Is human trafficking wrong? This is a yes/no2 question (no equivocating or qualifying).
- Do you believe that the sources were credible? Why/not? (Do they seem biased? Is the publication reputable? What are the author’s credentials? Are there experts cited in the body?)
- Do any of the articles rely on euphemisms? What effect does this have on the perception of the events the article is trying to convey?
- Do the articles seem to be obfuscating or equivocating?
- Is ICE a human trafficking ring, based on the definition above?3 This is a yes/no question (no equivocating or qualifying).
I write this letter as the sun rises, hoping that the suspension of my rights will raise alarm bells that yours are already in jeopardy. I hope it will inspire your outrage that the most basic human instinct, to protest shameless massacre, is being repressed by obscure laws, racist propaganda and a state terrified of an awakened public.
Mahmoud Khalil
I hope this writing will startle you into understanding that a democracy for some – a democracy of convenience – is no democracy at all. I hope it will shake you into acting before it is too late.
- I specify the Trump administration merely because that is the current administration. Presidents Obama and Biden were also responsible for maintaining and expanding this system. ↩︎
- The reason I have specified that some questions are yes/no is that too often in discussions about difficult topics we have a tendency to say something like, “well yes, genocide is wrong, but . . .” and then we list all of the reasons why this particular case is different. I would like to posit that this is one of those examples of an issue that has become overcomplicated. Either we believe that genocide is wrong or it’s not; it should not matter who is perpetuating the genocide or whether you “like” the community that they are destroying — you either find it to be an acceptable measure or you don’t. ↩︎
- If you answered yes, in what ways have you spoken out or acted in support of the people being taken by ICE and “detained” in prisons? ↩︎
The Tower is Falling 
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