Indianz.Com > News > Cronkite News: Hearing on Capitol Hill examines human trafficking
Cochise sheriff: Border crime at ‘all-time high,’ immigration reform needed
Monday, May 2, 2022
Cronkite News
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Cochise County sheriff told a House committee last Wednesday that border-related crimes are at an “all-time high,” and would only get worse without comprehensive immigration reform.
Sheriff Mark Dannels, testifying to a House Judiciary subcommittee hearing on human trafficking, said that illegal border entries rose from 400 migrants a month to 8,000 migrants a month over a two-year period, based on images captured by a camera system run by his department.
“Our border is in really bad shape right now … and that’s saying it lightly,” Dannels testified. “We have to be actively engaged in securing our border, addressing immigration reform and start addressing collectively these issues down here. It’s only going to get worse.”

Human trafficking is “an underground crime” that requires coercion, said Sutherland, director of the network’s Training and Resources United to Stop Trafficking program. Smuggling does not involve coercion, although she acknowledged that individuals smuggled into the country can become trafficking victims. Sutherland could not comment on Dannels’ numbers, except to say that it “doesn’t mean there’s an uptick in crime. It just means we’re able to see the crime more clearly, see the victimizations more clearly.” But while DHS and Immigration and Customs Enforcement provide screenings at the border to identify human trafficking victims, Dannels said more needs to be done. “We got to come together to do a better job because citizens and those being trafficked are all victims” that local, state and federal officials took an oath to protect, Dannels said. “And right now we’re not collectively doing that. “This is not about politics, this is about people,” he said. For more stories from Cronkite News, visit cronkitenews.azpbs.org.It has been almost two centuries since the Thirteenth Amendment's ratification. Yet, there are thousands of individuals in the U.S. RIGHT NOW who are being coerced into forced labor and sexual slavery. pic.twitter.com/5vy0c2eC1D
— House Judiciary Dems (@HouseJudiciary) April 27, 2022
House Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security Notice
Oversight of Federal Efforts to Combat Human Trafficking (April 27, 2022)
Note: This story originally appeared on Cronkite News. It is published via a Creative Commons license. Cronkite News is produced by the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University.
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