Last month, the House of Representatives passed a massive reconciliation bill designed to decimate immigrants’ rights, cut access to lifesaving social safety net protections for millions, dismantle Trafficking Victims’ Protection Act protections for unaccompanied children, and quietly strip immigrant trafficking survivors’ access to social services. The bill has been framed as a “tax bill,” but tax breaks for billionaires are only a small part of this bill, which intends to destroy many of the programs that keep people safe from human trafficking.
When we think about how to prevent and address human trafficking, we have to think of how human trafficking is interconnected with inequality. You can’t prevent people from seeking work with an exploitative employer if they can’t afford to feed their family without the job. Immigrant survivors will be unable to come forward to seek help if they will be immediately deported or separated from their loved ones. If someone can’t access lifesaving medical care without insurance, they are more likely to take unsafe work where they are vulnerable to trafficking. This is why stripping access to public benefits puts people at risk of trafficking.
The reconciliation bill attacks protections that save survivors’ lives and prevent them from experiencing further exploitation, including:
- Banning the fee exemptions that make it possible for trafficking survivors to apply for T visas. Survivors rely on the promise of protections and services through the visa in order to flee trafficking situations. Visa fees add up to thousands of dollars, which survivors cannot afford when a trafficker has stolen their income. Fee exemptions take the power away from traffickers and give it to survivors, and banning them would do the opposite.
- Cutting trafficking survivors off from access to healthcare and affordable groceries by kicking them off SNAP and Affordable Care Act benefits. These programs give survivors access to the healthcare and food they need after escaping their trafficking situation, while they work toward financial stability. Removing this option means immigrant survivors will not be able to afford healthcare to treat disabilities caused or exacerbated by trafficking or feed themselves and their families, leaving them vulnerable to retrafficking.
- Dismantling the legal protections for unaccompanied children provided by the Trafficking Victims Protection Act. The Unaccompanied Children Program is the largest trafficking prevention program in the US and is designed to prevent children seeking safety in the US from becoming vulnerable to human trafficking. The program provides essential services so that children do not face immigration court alone, are quickly released from ICE custody into a safer environment, are screened for trafficking, and are placed with safe sponsors so they can go to school and access necessary social services. Any attacks on the program enable the trafficking and exploitation of these children.
The bill also makes communities more vulnerable to human trafficking by restricting critical resources that help prevent financial and social risk factors, including:
- Major cuts in access to Medicare, Medicaid, Affordable Care Act health insurance coverage, and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits that prevent families from going into debt or experiencing financial insecurity, which increase vulnerabilities to trafficking by forcing people to take unsafe jobs to pay their bills. Survivors without access to social safety net protections are more likely to remain in abusive situations for longer and face more challenges in rebuilding financial stability.
- Expensive new fees for immigrants seeking safety and working in the US, which put immigrants into more vulnerable financial situations. Almost every step in the immigration application process for refugees, survivors of violence, and other immigrants would have a new fee designed to prevent people from accessing relief. An unaccompanied child fleeing violence could face over $15,000 in fees, an amount almost no child can afford. A refugee would face a $1,000 fee just to apply for asylum, recurring $550 fees every 6 months to work legally, and a $100 fee every year the application is pending.
- Massive expansion of immigration detention and family separation, which push immigrants underground and increase their vulnerability to abuse in detention. Detention also makes it extremely difficult for a survivor to obtain legal representation and apply for survivor-based immigration benefits for which they are eligible.
- Massive budget cuts at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), which is responsible for helping survivors repair their credit and provide relief from identity theft. Without oversight from the CFPB, survivors may lose access to the only form of relief they have for debt taken out by their traffickers.
- A ban on gender-affirming care for Medicaid recipients that would prevent trans people from accessing healthcare that keeps them safe. LGBTQ+ people, especially trans people, are made more vulnerable to trafficking when they are marginalized and prevented from accessing their rights.
- Cuts access to the Child Tax Credit for kids with immigrant parents. The Child Tax Credit is a program proven to help reduce the number of children living in poverty, which in turn helps prevent children from becoming vulnerable to trafficking. Cutting families off the program because one or both parents are not citizens will force more families into poverty and increase their risk of trafficking.
FNUSA believes in solutions that protect everyone and promote widespread prevention of trafficking. This harmful bill does the opposite, by making both children and adults, US citizens and non-citizens, more vulnerable to trafficking. We oppose this harmful reconciliation bill because dismantling programs that keep people out of poverty only enables human trafficking, and we will not stand for attacks on policies that keep survivors alive.