Last Updated on February 11, 2020
President Donald Trump is committed to “eradicating human trafficking from the Earth,” in his words, but his efforts to stop the slavery plague are facing opposition from Democrat politicians and left-wing activist groups.
The labor union American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) local 2830 has filed a whistleblower complaint to the Department of Justice inspector general after Trump’s DOJ gave grant money to the evangelical Christian anti-prostitution group Hookers For Jesus, run by a survivor of human trafficking, and the Lincoln Tubman Foundation instead of giving money to the anti-Trump advocacy group Chicanos Por La Causa and the Democrat-linked Catholic Charities outfit in Palm Beach, Florida.
Annie Lobert, founder of Hookers For Jesus, is a dedicated and respected Christian activist who helps women get out of the life, as evidenced by her appearance on The 700 Club.
“We filled a need because more than 15 years ago there weren’t ANY services for us,” Hookers For Jesus told me in a statement. “Throw rocks all you want media but we are survivor led and KNOW the harms and effects of trafficking and complex trauma, and how to heal. We’ve worked hard when no one else had the guts to attempt to do this!”
Supporters rallied around Hookers For Jesus following the public revelation of the whistleblower complaint.
Annie, thank you for rescuing so many girls out of trafficking. I have followed your mission for more than 10 years and saw your story on Nightline years ago. I saw your name trending on twitter! #hookersforJesus
— Natalie Taylor (@Natalie5472) February 11, 2020
Ppl who knock a ministry doing all they can to give struggling ppl another alternative, need to take up a hobby.
— Jonathan “caring” Carson (@Conquistador314) February 11, 2020
In January 2019, Chicanos Por La Causa was profiled as one of the Chicano groups embracing undocumented immigrants. Chicanos Por La Causa was also profiled in 2019 for launching a campaign to raise up to $5 million to pay for college tuition for undocumented immigrant DACA recipients.
Chicanos Por La Causa’s Phoenix headquarters were raided by Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s Maricopa County Sheriff’s office in 2009 and six employees had their computer hard drives seized in connection to the sheriff’s investigation into alleged corruption by county supervisor Mary Rose Wilcox, who took loans from Chicanos Por La Causa and also voted to award the group taxpayer money. Wilcox was not charged and later sued Arpaio and others and gained settlement money, thanks to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
The Phoenix New Times reported in December 2009: “Deputies seized general computer equipment at Chicanos Por La Causa’s Phoenix headquarters, in addition to paperwork related to an indicted County Supervisor, records show…Deputies took hard drives from the computers of six employees…Wilcox received $297,500 in loans, the search warrant documents state. Three loans totaling $177,500 were made from 2000 to 2006, when Wilcox was voting with the other supervisors to give money to Chicanos Por La Causa…In 2008, the Chicanos group lent an additional $120,000 to the Wilcoxes’ business, Grant Park Enterprises, the records state.”
Meanwhile, Democrat Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib and Sen. Bernie Sanders have co-sponsored the Safe Sex Workers Study Act which seeks to critically examine President Donald Trump’s 2018 FOSTA-SESTA law, potentially to lay the groundwork for a repeal of Trump’s law, according to insiders.
Trump’s FOSTA-SESTA law stripped websites that knowingly provide platforms for “prostitution” of their federal Communications Decency Act protections, scoring a big Internet-wide blow against sex trafficking. The law pre-emptively forced the closure of the Craigslist Personals section. But critics on the Left — including the ACLU and comedienne Amy Schumer — came out against it. A common left-wing criticism of the law states that sex workers become less safe if they can no longer advertise their services on the Internet.
When President Trump hosted his recent White House summit on human trafficking — against the backdrop of partisan impeachment drama — some anti-human trafficking groups protested. The head official at Freedom Network USA, a coalition that includes the Southern Poverty Law Center Immigrant Justice Project, publicly skipped the White House summit along with some other groups, stating opposition to a Trump administration policy that makes it possible to deport illegal immigrants who get denied human trafficking survivor visas, or “T” visas. A Freedom Network USA official also provided critical commentary for press coverage of the DOJ whistleblower complaint.
The ACLU fought hard against President Trump’s policy of cheek-swabbing migrant children and their handlers when they come up over the border and rapid-testing the results to determine whether or not the kids are actually related to the adults transporting them. Trump’s pilot program at the border had massive success.
“I also learned of a recent pilot program that used rapid DNA tests to discover whether these family units were real. Nearly 30 percent were found to be fraudulent in the Rio Grande Valley-in other words, the adults bringing kids into the United States illegally weren’t related to the children,” Texas Sen. Ted Cruz said on the Senate floor.
Attorney General William Barr directly addressed the scourge of human trafficking in the American child welfare system in his speech at the White House summit on human trafficking. (RELATED: Ex-CPS Worker Charged With Human Trafficking).
“Emblematic in many ways is one horrific case I was briefed on recently in the Southern District of New York. A very dedicated team of prosecutors doggedly pursued a few little leads and ended up convicting 19 defendants in Manhattan with sex trafficking of minor girls and young women in the New York State child welfare system. In other words, children who society had a special obligation to protect ended up being instead exploited,” Attorney General Barr stated.
The DOJ announcement on that case makes clear the chilling level of manipulation that went into procuring sex victims from a Westchester County residential treatment facility.
In August 2019, I exposed child molestation and child prostitution allegations in a California child welfare system in my Epoch Times piece “A Betrayal of Trust,” which sparked discussions on the for-profit industry of child removal by Child Protective Services agencies, (READ: How The Clintons Turned The CPS System Into A Monster).
President Donald Trump’s effort to stop human trafficking goes forward with the full weight of the federal government behind him.
“In the last 3 years, ICE has arrested over 5,000 wicked human traffickers — and I have signed 9 pieces of legislation to stamp out the menace of human trafficking, domestically and around the globe. My Administration has undertaken an unprecedented effort to secure the southern border of the United States,” President Trump stated in his State of the Union address Tuesday night.
President Donald Trump convened the White House Summit on Human Trafficking early Friday afternoon to stress his administration’s commitment to “eradicating human trafficking from the Earth.”
President Trump proposed not sending foreign aid to countries who — like “Washington politicians” — are all talk, no action on stopping child sex trafficking.
The president gave special credit to White House point person Ivanka Trump and to ambassadors in the audience including Calista Gingrich, Sam Brownback, the attorneys general of Florida and Georgia, and the lieutenant governors of Florida and North Carolina. Attorney General William Barr and Vice President Mike Pence were also in attendance at the Summit.
“In the modern age, the level of evil is unbelievable,” said President Trump, who has dramatically increased human trafficking arrests.
“Human trafficking is worse than ever before…An estimated 25 million people around the world today are being held captive, manipulated or abused by human traffickers,” Trump stated.
“When I took office, ISIS controlled over 20,000 square miles…We have totally defeated the ISIS caliphate in Syria and Iraq,” Trump said, highlighting one of the world’s worst recent offenders in the human trafficking business. ISIS also recently controlled Syrian oil wells, with the complicity of the previous Obama administration.
“I’ve signed 9 pieces of bipartisan legislation aimed specifically at combating human trafficking” domestically and internationally, President Trump said.
“And we’ll do what’s necessary. We will do exactly what’s necessary. There’s nothing more horrible than this,” Trump said.
Lots of countries, like Washington politicians, are all talk no action, and Trump said he will not send them money any more.
“We will not rest until we have stopped every last human trafficker and liberated every last survivor,” President Trump said before turning the microphone over to a female survivor of human trafficking who will now advise the Trump administration on its anti-trafficking efforts.
