After months of advocacy from anti-trafficking organizations and Congress, the US Department of State finally released the 2025 Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report on September 30, 2025, three months after its legal deadline had passed. While the report includes most of the expected standard information, survivors from certain marginalized communities were removed entirely. The US narrative also insufficiently reflects the mass rollbacks in anti-trafficking efforts under the Trump Administration. Removing information about LGBTQ+ and immigrant survivors does not magically erase their unique vulnerabilities to human trafficking, and hiding information about attacks on services and survivors does not change reality.
Earlier this year, expert consultants with lived experience were informed that the section they had been working on to highlight the unique needs and challenges of LGBTQ+ survivors would be dropped from the 2025 TIP Report. On top of this, the US narrative no longer mentions LGBTQ+ survivors. Instead, a single sentence mentions that advocates noted there were insufficient specialized services for “victims who identify as lesbian and gay.” FNUSA was one of the advocates who provided input, and we specifically mentioned that services are insufficient for all members of the LGBTQ+ community, especially trans and gender diverse survivors. By removing Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, and other survivors from the report, the State Department has attempted to hide their experiences and distract from the US government’s attacks on the community. When survivors are told they should stay quiet and there aren’t services available to them, they are less likely to come forward and will remain in trafficking situations for longer.
Throughout the US narrative, mentions of how the US immigration system makes immigrants more vulnerable to trafficking have been almost entirely removed. The US asylum system has few preventative measures to help refugees protect themselves from exploitation. At the border, agents have been turning away asylum seekers fleeing human trafficking. Despite the immense need for a more protective asylum system to prevent trafficking, the word asylum does not appear a single time in the US narrative.
Similarly, the Trump Administration has attacked other protective programs that keep immigrants safer from human trafficking. Legal services for immigrants faced an illegal stop-work order in February. US Citizenship and Immigration Services has created a growing backlog of T Visa applications, greatly increasing survivors’ wait times for protections. Despite an updated process to provide temporary protections to survivors awaiting their T Visa decisions, USCIS is not providing survivors with work authorization and protection from removal. During the last three months of the reporting period, USCIS denied more T Visa applications than it approved, placing survivors in danger of deportation and re-exploitation.
While we celebrate the release of the 2025 TIP Report, we denounce the State Department’s removal of information about LGBTQ+ and immigrant survivors. The Trump Administration’s attacks on these communities only make them more vulnerable to human trafficking by reducing their access to social services and protections that help keep them safe. Erasing survivors from the administration’s narrative of human trafficking does not erase the real need these communities have for labor protections, safer immigration systems, human rights, and social protections. Survivors from these communities are less safe and afraid to come forward due to these policies.
