U.S. policies like Title 42 make migrants more vulnerable to smugglers

Title 42 has been in the news and likely will continue to be with a case challenging the Title 42 order on the Supreme Court docket.  Ivan Padilla-Rodriguez notes how the Title 42 order and other border enforcement measures make migrants more vulnerable to smugglers.  He concludes:

“If the U.S. government really wanted to end human smuggling and eliminate migrants’ vulnerability for trafficking, it would disinvest from the flawed and deadly logic of immigration deterrence and open up pathways for safe and lawful entry that would make it unnecessary for people to turn to unscrupulous actors in the first place. Until then, U.S. policymakers and others will continue to be complicit in and responsible for the very harms they claim to be combating.”

On December 27, 2022, President Biden signed the “Countering Human Trafficking Act of 2022,” which codifies and expands the Department of Homeland Security’s Center for Countering Human Trafficking (CCHT). The bill authorizes $14 million to carry out the Act and ensures that the CCHT is staffed with at least 45 employees to carry out the Department’s critical work to combat human trafficking.   

KJ