Introduction
It is no secret border security has grown stricter at the United States-Mexico border recently. The U.S. has roughly 700 miles of fencing along the border, record levels of immigration and customs staff, and exponential growth in immigration spend.1 Current immigration policies have been touted by supporters as beneficial, including through their prevention of human trafficking. However, key immigration policies such as increased border security and the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) have had the opposite effect–making traffickers’ jobs easier.
Human trafficking, the “crime of using force, fraud, or coercion to compel an individual to work or to engage in a commercial sex act,”2 is the world’s second-largest criminal industry, generating an estimated $150 billion annually.