In the United States, human trafficking tends to occur around international travel hubs with large immigrant populations, notably in California, Texas, and Georgia. Those trafficked include young children, teenagers, men, and women; victims can be domestic citizens or foreign nationals.
Under federal law (18 USC § 1589), it is a crime to make people work by use of force, coercion, or fear. U.S. State Department's Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons placed the country in "Tier 1" in 2017.
On April 11, 2018, U.S. President Donald Trump signed the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act into law to close websites that enable crime and prosecute their owners and users.
Terminology
Human trafficking is a form of slavery, involving the illegal smuggling and trading of people for forced labor or sexual exploitation.
Trafficking is officially defined as the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring, or receipt of persons by means of coercion, abduction, fraud, deception, or abuse of power from a position of vulnerability for the purpose of exploitation. With an estimated 27.6 million victims worldwide at any given time, human traffickers prey on people of all ages, backgrounds, and nationalities, exploiting them for their own profit. Human trafficking is not synonymous with forced migration or smuggling.
Reports
According to the Department of State 2011 Trafficking in Persons Report, the United States is a Tier 1 country for trafficking. Tier 1 means that the government is in compliance with the U.S. government's minimum standards of the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000 to eliminate trafficking. The minimum standards as listed in section 108 of the legislation are
The government of the country should prohibit severe forms of trafficking in persons and punish acts of such trafficking. For the knowing commission of any act of sex trafficking involving force, fraud, coercion, or in which the victim of sex trafficking is a child incapable of giving meaningful consent, or of trafficking which includes rape or kidnapping or which causes a death, the government of the country should prescribe punishment commensurate with that for grave crimes, such as forcible sexual assault. For the knowing commission of any act of a severe form of trafficking in persons, the government of the country should prescribe punishment that is sufficiently stringent to deter and that adequately reflects the heinous nature of the offense. The government of the country should make serious and sustained efforts to eliminate severe forms of trafficking in persons.
The U.S. is working to eliminate human trafficking in the U.S. and worldwide. Each year, the Department of State releases data compiled on the state of human trafficking in many different countries, including the U.S., in accordance with the Trafficking Victim Protection Act of 2000's standards. It also releases data on trafficking cases under federal prosecution and estimates of those trafficked; however, the report cautions that the data may not be representative of the number of individuals actually trafficked due to both the lack of cohesion between many states and agencies battling human trafficking and the inability to account for undiscovered victims. Below is a compilation of data from a variety of U.S. agencies and the United Nations.
Attorney General
According to the Attorney General's 2005 report, an estimated 14,500–17,500 victims are trafficked into the United States each year, although that figure may be overstated.
2011 Department of Justice report
The findings of the U.S. Department of Justice's 2011 report, "Characteristics of Suspected Human Trafficking Incidents, 2008-2010", include: From 2008 to 2010, Federal anti-trafficking task forces opened 2,515 suspected cases of human trafficking. 82% of suspected incidents were classified as sex trafficking and nearly half of these involved victims under the age of 18. Approximately 10% of the incidents were classified as labor trafficking. 83% of victims in confirmed sex-trafficking incidents were identified as U.S. citizens, while most confirmed labor-trafficking victims were identified as undocumented immigrants (67%) or legal immigrants (28%). 25% of the confirmed victims received a "T visa," part of a federal program designed to aid victims of trafficking.
While the findings represent the government's best estimate, the authors caution that "the data described in this report reflect the information that was available to, and entered by, these state and local law enforcement agencies", and such data systems are still being established and are likely not recording all incidents.