A Sept. 10 Trump administration memo changes the first step for reporting suspected labor or sex trafficking involving migrant children. Federal employees and care providers must now send concerns to the Office of Refugee Resettlement, which oversees the children’s housing and custody, rather than directly to the Office on Trafficking in Persons. ORR will review the reports and decide which should be referred to OTIP. The Los Angeles Times and Press Telegram, citing the directive and an Associated Press review of the memo, reported that it applies to about 1,800 children in federal custody and to others released under supervision.
What providers must do
The reporting route has changed, but the initial deadlines have not. Caregivers must screen an unaccompanied child for possible labor or sex trafficking within five days of admission to a shelter or facility. When the screening raises a trafficking concern, notification must be made within 24 hours—now to ORR, which can request additional information before deciding whether to refer the matter to OTIP, according to the Los Angeles Times’ account of the memo. The children covered by the system include those who arrived without parents and those arrested with parents who lacked legal status, the outlet reported.
Why the referral can affect a child’s options
A favorable trafficking determination can affect access to services and immigration remedies. Federal law provides that victims of severe forms of trafficking can receive federally funded benefits and services on terms comparable to refugees, without regard to immigration status, subject to the statute’s requirements, according to the federal statute. Guidance cited in the article says an OTIP Eligibility Letter can open access to programs including SNAP, TANF, Supplemental Security Income, Medicaid and specialized foster-care placements; it can also allow a certified minor to leave short-term housing, enter foster care and attend public school, according to the cited benefits guidance.
The determination does not itself prevent deportation, but it may support an asylum application or a trafficking-related visa application. Under information from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, a T nonimmigrant grant can provide as much as four years of temporary lawful status, work authorization, derivative status for eligible relatives and a possible route to permanent residence. Foreign national minors do not have to show force, fraud or coercion in a sex-trafficking claim when the commercial sex act involved a person under 18, and minors are exempt from the ordinary law-enforcement-cooperation requirement in the circumstances described by USCIS.
The administration’s stated rationale
ORR said the revised process follows a review of more than 9,000 reports. In the agency’s account, 95% were not viable trafficking leads for criminal investigators, with many involving alleged abuse or neglect rather than forced labor or commercial sex as defined by federal law. But shelter employees and case managers had classified 58% of the reports as qualifying for trafficking-related benefits, according to the Press Telegram’s report.
ORR said requiring its review before a referral reaches OTIP would improve the process’s integrity, reduce improper referrals and fraud, and help children who may have been trafficked receive support. Critics, as reported by the Los Angeles Times and Press Telegram, said the arrangement could delay or block referrals because the agency responsible for custody would control the initial review. Those are reported concerns about the policy, not an independent finding about how the new system will operate.
What earlier federal oversight found
Previous federal oversight has identified documentation problems in the care and release system, although the finding was provider-specific. In an audit covering fiscal year 2014, the HHS Office of Inspector General estimated that approximately 36% of children released to sponsors by the His House provider in Miami Gardens were associated with case files that were not properly documented. The number of children referred to HHS has also varied sharply. The inspector general reported 15,381 referrals of unaccompanied children in fiscal year 2020 and 124,047 in fiscal year 2021, after a court injunction and a policy change. Those figures provide context for the scale of the system in which providers must conduct trafficking screenings and report concerns.
A change in agency roles
The directive changes the agencies’ roles at the first review stage. OTIP was created in 2015 to centralize federal work on preventing human trafficking and assisting victims. ORR will now control the initial review of reports involving children in its custody and decide which cases receive OTIP’s further review. The practical question is therefore not whether providers must screen children, but which agency controls the decision about whether a report advances.
