American Civil Liberties Union

Last week in Little Rock, Ark., Attorney General Eric Holder spoke eloquently and forcefully on the problems of human trafficking in the U.S. Holder noted the problem — one of "crisis proportions" — takes place both outside and within our borders:

In communities nationwide, human trafficking victims often are hiding in plain sight: the young woman who traveled to America for the promise of a new life, but finds herself enslaved and sold for sex. The child who was born here, but ran away from home and, in desperation, accepted help from the wrong person. The migrant worker who is deprived of identification, transportation, health care, and access to money in order to ensure complete dependence on his employer. Or one of the many young girls regularly shuttled to truck stops along I-40 — who is filled with shame and empty of hope, living in fear of incarceration and in doubt of her ability to survive on her own.

Holder described the current administration's adoption of many far-reaching measures by numerous government agencies to eradicate trafficking wherever and however it occurs, and stated that the U.S. has a "'zero-tolerance, one-strike' approach" to the problem.

Today, we filed a lawsuit to enforce an earlier Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request aimed at tackling the underreported problem of trafficking and abusive treatment of foreign workers on U.S. military bases in Iraq and Afghanistan. More than 70,000 low-wage workers, commonly known as third country nationals or “TCNs,” work for U.S. military contractors to provide the U.S armed forces with essential services on military bases in Iraq and Afghanistan, including construction, cooking and cleaning. As recent media reports indicate, many of these workers often end up on these military bases through a convoluted system of sub-contracting rife with corruption, debt bondage, coercion and other abuse.