Posted on 11/26/2006 3:49:57 PM PST by SandRat
A law passed nearly a year ago to help curb human trafficking in the state still has never been used to prosecute those suspected of enslaving immigrants, proponents of the bill said.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said he hoped the bill would be a national model in countering modern day slavery when he signed it into law last year.
The bill, he said, would end "a horrific crime that our society cannot abide."
But authorities say the law makes it too difficult to prove immigrant workers were being held against their will, one of the criteria for classifying victims of human trafficking.
Investigators also said victims often are reluctant to testify against their captors for fear of retaliation against family abroad, making it difficult to build a case.
"We certainly can see that the fear (on the part) of immigrants particularly has been even deeper than we expected," said San Francisco District Attorney Kamala D. Harris, a co-sponsor of the law.
Some 17,500 immigrants are enslaved in U.S. brothels, farms and factories-- with a large share in California, according to rough estimates by the U.S. Justice Department.
Harris maintains the state law will be a valuable tool in cutting down on human trafficking in the future. It provides penalties of three to five years in prison for traffickers _ four to eight if the victim is a minor. And an increase in California investigations after the law passed has led to tens of thousands in federal grants for local authorities.
Los Angeles County deputy district attorney Sally Thomas, however, is less confident the new law will be used often.
"We often find it's more appropriate to bring kidnapping, false imprisonment or extortion in these cases," said Thomas, who also helped draft the law.
Local detectives who in August uncovered a brothel staffed by Asian immigrants in Orange County's Little Saigon _ an area believed to be a center of human trafficking _ hit a wall when they tried to present a case to the Los Angeles district attorney's office, Police Lt. Derek Marsh said.
Prosecutors were unwilling to try the case under the state law despite suspicions that one suspect was recruiting women from Malaysia and a prostitute's statements about forced labor and abuse, Marsh said.
"This is the best, most convincing case we have found," he said.
Prosecutor Marcia Daniel said, however, there was no evidence the women had been enslaved.
"I don't think anybody enjoys it, but there's so much money involved," Daniel said.
Five men were charged with pimping and pandering, but not human trafficking.
Assemblywoman Sally Lieber, a Democrat from Mountain View and author of the bill, said she was disappointed it has not been used.
"We went through a lot of difficulty to get this bill passed, so it's obviously difficult to hear that the law is not being used more," she said.
A federal law against human trafficking passed six years ago also has reaped few convictions. Federal officials hoped local authorities would be better equipped to investigate trafficking and encouraged passage of the state law.
The Arizona legislature passed a human smuggling law in 2005, and several people have been prosecuted under its provisions. Dozens more have been charged in Maricopa County with conspiracy to violate the statute, but they were migrants being smuggled.
Can't 3/4ths of congress be charged with this?
Barney Frank had a Gay Whorehouse run from his Home and nothing happened.
States have no say so on immigration matters...it a Fed issue by law. Get it?
Maybe you were sick the day they covered this back in middle school.
Arnold knows it but he's an actor AND a politician. You probably already know that those types are notoriously undependable.
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