Those who believe human nature has evolved beyond the medieval had yet another wake-up call yesterday, including evidence from right here in Texas.
Texas has become a national center for trafficking in human slaves from Mexico and Central America, two federal prosecutors testified Wednesday.Texas-based U.S. attorneys Michael Shelby and Johnny Sutton told a Senate Judiciary subcommittee of several recent convictions in which people were smuggled across the border and forced to work without pay as laborers and prostitutes.
Despite increased focus on the problem of human trafficking since 2001, only a fraction of the estimated 17,000 people forced into slavery in the United States is found and freed each year, witnesses told the Senate panel.
"Human traffickers peddle in human misery," said Sen. John Cornyn, a Texas Republican who chaired the hearing. "They smuggle innocent human beings into the country and condemn them to lives of forced labor or sexual slavery. The American dream quickly turns into an American nightmare."
Experts told the panel that people forced into unpaid servitude are afraid of retaliation by their abusers and deportation by the federal government, fears that inhibit efforts to crack human trafficking rings.
Michelle Malkin says our "open door" policies are misguided...
What is desperately needed in the United States is not an open door, but a sturdy screen door--a door that keeps out slave-traders, murderers, terrorists, and other undesirables, while letting in hard-working folks who yearn to live the American Dream.
... and notes evidence of connections between the slave trade and terrorism in places like the Phillipines. One depravity feeds another.
Posted by Alan at July 9, 2004 06:32 AM