Human trafficking, refugee status, "birth tourism"--add race into the pot and all you get is unappetizing hypocrisy

 

Ivanka Trump has had such a hard time justifying her artificially puffed-up position in the White House, that her father has had to invent things that she has “accomplished,” like personally “creating” six million jobs, or declaring her “qualified” to head the World Bank. Ivanka has invited a lot of flak lately for her vacuity and insensitivity, so father had to invent another “accomplishment” for her, this time with the cooperation of William Barr, to involve herself in some phony scheme to provide safe housing for alleged victims of alleged human trafficking, which seems to be something both the far right and far left can “agree” on.

The problem, of course, is that what exactly “human trafficking” is in this country is a matter of opinion. In general, adult sex workers make up the largest “victim” class of trafficking, although not because they are actually being “trafficked,” but because it was a choice “forced” on them by “circumstances”—at least according to those for whom round-ups of “johns” is mostly a public relations stunt.  Child prostitution (and human trafficking in general) has been wildly overblown in this country (as well as in the UK), with the author of an oft-quoted “study” claiming 300,000 has denied making any such assertion, pointing out that this number only represented the number of “runaways” at any given time.

Especially for “victims” who are working for money, or people who pay a “sponsor” to get them into the country, the UN definition of “trafficking” and the American highly politicized definition generally do not coincide. The “trafficking” issue has also been a part of the immigration debate, especially by the anti-immigrant far-right. It is preposterous that the far-right (such as Barr) can take the “high-ground” on the issue of alleged “human trafficking,” since in regard to persons allegedly trafficked into the country, their true goal is simply to prevent immigration from non-white, “shit-hole” countries, since not all “victims” of human trafficking are actually treated as if they are victims. I’m not sure that unaccompanied children who cross the southern border, for example, are actually “victims” of human trafficking, but they are no less so under the broad definition that encompasses sex workers who do so out of their own free will, for money.

According to a report in The Hill last week, Democratic senators questioned “acting” CBP commissioner Mark Morgan (practically every official in the Trump administration is “acting” at their job) about his previous assertion that "In a recent hearing before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee (HSGAC), you stated under oath that CBP is screening all unaccompanied children it encounters at the border for human trafficking and other protection concerns. In fact, in June alone, although CBP encountered over 1,650 unaccompanied children, it referred only 61, or less than four percent, of them to ORR (Office of Refugee Resettlement, as required by the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act). And operational guidance issued to CBP personnel concerning Title 42 expulsions fails to reference, much less require, screenings for unaccompanied children."

The Trump administration claims that it is only following the “guidelines” provided by the CDC, which have been themselves questioned for violating the Refugee Act. The Texas Tribune reported yesterday that “Since March, the Trump administration has pushed thousands of migrant children back to their home countries without legal screenings or protection, citing the risk that they could be carrying COVID-19 into the United States. But by the time the children are boarded on planes home, they’ve already been tested for the virus — and proven not to have it. Court documents, and information given by Immigration and Customs Enforcement to congressional staff last week, reveal that the Trump administration has agreed to test every child in its custody before sending them back to their home countries under the expulsion policy. ICE’s comprehensive testing appears to undermine the rationale for the mass expulsion policy: that it is necessary to ‘prevent the introduction’ of COVID-19 into the United States.”

The testing is being done ostensibly because their home countries will not accept them back if they test positive, but on the other hand it is indicative of the fact that while Trump has been critical of the CDC on its COVID-19 policy suggestions, it is more than willing to allow the CDC to provide cover for its anti-immigrant policies. Lewis Guttentag from the Stanford Law School wrote last April about the little reported CDC action. “The Trump administration’s novel COVID-19 border ban invokes the public health authority to erect a shadow immigration enforcement power in violation of the Refugee Act, legal safeguards for unaccompanied minors, and fundamental procedural rights. Relying on an obscure 1944 provision that provides no authority for immigration removals, the Centers for Disease Control purports to authorize summary Border Patrol expulsions of asylum seekers.” 

Thus we can see that there is no rhyme or reason to U.S. policy when it comes to defining what “human trafficking” is, since in regard to immigrants who are “trafficked,” it is quickly dispensed with. As usual, there are only “victims” if there is gender angle to it, since that makes for a “sexier” story, especially for the media.At almost the same time that CDC was providing Trump cover for unlawfully expelling virtually all refugees and asylum seekers, the national news media gave hardly a thought to another Trump brain cramp, this time putting out new rules allegedly intended to stop “birth tourism.” This has been a phenomenon largely restricted to European and Asian countries, particularly Russia and China. To quote from an NBC story last year in regard to Russian birth tourism in Miami: 

Lured by the charm of little Havana or the glamour of South Beach, some 15 million tourists visit Miami every year. But for a growing number of Russian women, the draw isn't sunny beaches or pulsing nightclubs. It's U.S. citizenship for their newborn children. In Moscow, it's a status symbol to have a Miami-born baby, and social media is full of Russian women boasting of their little americantsy.

"It's really common," said Ekaterina Kuznetsova, 29. "When I was taking the plane to come here, it was not only me. It was four or five women flying here." Ekaterina was one of dozens of Russian birth tourists NBC News spoke to over the past four months about a round-trip journey that costs tens of thousands of dollars and takes them away from home for weeks or months. Why do they come? "American passport is a big plus for the baby. Why not?" Olesia Reshetova, 31, told NBC News."And the doctors, the level of education," Kuznetsova added. The weather doesn't hurt, either. "It's a very comfortable place for staying in wintertime," Oleysa Suhareva said. 

And that’s not all: 

Condo buildings that bear the Trump name are the most popular for the out-of-town obstetric patients, although the units are subleased from the individual owners and it's not clear if building management is aware…Roman Bokeria, the state director of the Florida Association of Realtors told NBC News that Trump- branded buildings in the Sunny Isles Beach area north of Miami are particularly popular with the Russian birth tourists and Russian immigrants. "Sunny Isles beach has a nickname — Little Russia — because people who are moving from Russian-speaking countries to America, they want … a familiar environment. They go across the street, they have Russian market, Russian doctor, Russian lawyer," he added. "It's very comfortable for them." 

No wonder Trump likes those Slavic-types so much. Russian women proudly displaying their bulging bellies on Florida beaches is a common sight, and it is all “legal”—or at least, those U.S. officials stamping their “tourist” visas in Moscow don’t care if they are lying or not about the “purpose” of their visit; after all, they are not from a “shit-hole” country, just one that we are on another “cold war” footing with.

Meanwhile, California is where it is “happening” for Chinese “birth tourism.” For a “small” fee of say $40 to $80,000 pregnant Chinese women, according to another NBC News story, are “counseled on what lies to tell to obtain a tourist visa; how to fly through Hawaii, Las Vegas or Korea to avoid suspicious immigration officers at Los Angeles International Airport; and how to disguise their pregnancy in transit, according to search warrant affidavit unsealed Tuesday. The women were then set up at the Carlyle, which charges about $3,000 a month for a two-bedroom apartment and features amenities including private balconies, a resort-style pool, and cabanas with flat-screen televisions.” In 2015, 20 Chinese “maternity hotels” in the Los Angeles area were raided by federal agents, and arrests were made, mainly of the entrepreneurs of these establishments for tax evasion.

It is interesting to note how Russian and Chinese “birth tourism” seems to be treated differently, with Russian “birth tourists”  largely being allowed a free pass,  although ultimately the Chinese women were not themselves subject to arrest or deportation—but treated more like “victims” even though they all likely came from well-heeled households who could afford the payments.

The Trump rule ostensibly makes it “easier” for consular officials to deny a tourist visa to women who are clearly pregnant and intend to stay long enough in the country to give birth and claim U.S. citizenship for their child. One suspects, however, that enforcement of such a rule is strictly arbitrary and capricious, given the Trump administration’s Nazi proclivities on the “racial mixture” thing.  Russia and China are not part of the Visa Waiver Program, but still have relatively low B visa rejection rates. Never heard of the Visa Waiver Program? Well, the citizens of virtually every European country, as well as Japan and South Korea, do not need a visa to travel to the U.S., meaning that anyone from those countries can simply get on a plane and come here and disappear into the crowds and nobody would be the wiser. This explains why there is an estimated 50,000 people from Ireland currently in the country illegally. Naturally, what qualifies a country to have visa waiver status is racist and capricious: a country only “qualifies” if they have no more than a 2 percent B visa rejection rate. What countries have too high rejection rates? Do you really have to ask that question?  

Now back to media reports on that new rule. An Associated Press story written by Mathew Lee and Colleen Long went out of its way to point out that this rule did not apply to Visa Waiver Program countries, which of course defeats its purpose. The story only casually mention the two principle countries on B visa status which were principally involved in deliberately intended birth tourism schemes (Russia and China), instead focusing on the Trump administration’s problems with the “birthright” of Hispanic children. In fact, those providing Russian birth tourism “services” don’t expect the rule to affect their business at all. The rule is only expected to affect pregnant—or “suspected” pregnant—women at the southern border, who are to be immediately turned away, even those who are applying for asylum or refugee status. The “birth tourism” rule is obviously meant only to restrict any woman of color from Latin American or African countries from entering the country who “threaten” to give birth in this country.

 

So all this sounds like a mishmash of confusing and hypocritical policy agendas by the Trump administration? Of course, but they also show the shocking level of hypocrisy in American society itself when race and ethnicity are the principle variables that decide outcomes.