Two bills currently before the NC General Assembly tackle the related but different phenomena of human smuggling and human trafficking.
Create Crime of Smuggling Human beings, sponsored by Rep. Curtis Blackwood (R-Union) and cosponsored by Rep. Dale Folwell (R-Forsyth), would make it “unlawful for a person to engage in the smuggling of human beings for profit or commercial purpose,” with “smuggling of human beings” meaning “the transportation, or procurement of transportation, by a person or entity that knows or has reason to know that the persons transported, or to be transported, are not United States citizens, permanent resident aliens, or persons who are otherwise lawfully present in the United States.”
Guilford County Sheriff BJ Barnes told a predominantly Latino audience at an April 1 forum in Greensboro: “This law is too vague, and I personally don’t think they’ll end up getting it passed. I, for one, am not an advocate for a bunch of more laws.” He added later: “I will definitely be calling [legislators] tomorrow to tell them not to [approve the bill]”
Greensboro police Chief Tim Bellamy added, “I think it’s very broad. I would be scared of the police because it’s going to give some police the idea that every time a truck or van goes down the road to stop it and say, ‘Let’s detain someone and question them.’ I have a lot of issues with this legislation.”
The critical difference between smuggling and trafficking persons has to do with consent.
The Justice Department defines human smuggling as “the facilitation, transportation, attempted transportation or illegal entry of a person(s) across an international border, in violation of one or more countries’ laws, either clandestinely or through deception, such as the use of fraudulent documents.” A section.” A 2005 Justice Department report adds that “human smuggling is generally with the consent of the person(s) being smuggled, who often pay large sums of money” and that “the vast majority of people who are assisted in illegally entering the United States are smuggled, rather than trafficked.”
In contrast, the United Nations defines human trafficking as “the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons, by means of threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, or abduction, of fraud, of deception, of abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation.”
The NC Human Trafficking Commission bill sponsored by Sen. Eleanor Kinnaird (D-Orange) serves an entirely different purpose and addresses a different issue.
The bill would create a state commission to, among other things, “explore the specific ways trafficking is occurring in North Carolina and the links to international and domestic trafficking” and “to contribute to efforts to inform and educate law enforcement personnel, social service providers, and the general public about trafficking so that traffickers can be prosecuted and victim-survivors can receive appropriate services.”
Cosponsors from the Guilford County delegation include Sen. Katie Dorsett and Sen. Don Vaughan, both Democrats, and Sen. Stan Bingham, a Republican.
More on this from Ben Holder, AKA Troublemaker.
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