Human Trafficking & Homeland Security

This blog post may be a little off topic when you think of Homeland Security. I promise you it is a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issue. What am I talking about? Human trafficking.

According to the DHS;

“U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Homeland Security Investigations investigates incidents of human trafficking, arrests traffickers, protects victims, and provides short-term immigration relief for foreign victims;

U.S. Customs and Border Protection interdicts traffickers, protects victims, and disrupts human trafficking schemes at our borders;

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services provides long-term immigration relief to foreign victims of human trafficking through its T and U visas; and,

The Federal Law Enforcement Training Center coordinates with the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Office of Health Affairs to develop human trafficking awareness training for law enforcement and first responders. “

Our society is not only seeing an increase in the number of human trafficking incidents, but we’re seeing an increase in the amount of children being used. These children are trafficked for a variety of reasons, but mostly for drug mule or sex slave purposes! We should all be outraged right now.

January is National Human Trafficking and Slavery Prevention Month. As business owners and everyday people, we need to be on the lookout for indicators of trafficking and then report any suspicious activity. Know that you can report suspicious human trafficking activity, or get help from federal law enforcement, by calling 1-866-347-2423.

The DHS has a Blue Campaign running right now and the public is encouraged to educated themselves about the things to watch for and how to become involved. Here is the link: https://www.dhs.gov/blue-campaign/take-action

I’m hopeful you will take the time to visit the link above and share this information with others. Let’s all work together to stop this from happening again.

Twyla Garrett, CEO of IME