Portland Named to Federal Anti-Trafficking Coordination Team
Tuesday, December 22, 2015
The teams are part of a joint initiative to track down on human and sex trafficking in the United States. These teams will lead Phase II of the ACTeam Initiative, an interagency effort to streamline federal criminal investigations and prosecutions of human trafficking offenses.
Cleveland, Ohio; Minneapolis, Minnesota; Newark, New Jersey; Portland, Maine and Sacramento will also host new ACTeams. Each team will serve under the leadership of the local U.S. Attorney and the highest-ranking federal investigative agents in the regional field offices of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Department of Labor.
"Human trafficking robs victims of their liberty, exploits them for labor and for sex, and infringes not only on their rights, but on their essential humanity," said Attorney General Loretta Lynch. "Through the ACTeam Initiative, we are harnessing resources across the federal government to ensure that our multi-agency fight against human trafficking is as comprehensive and effective as possible. In the days and months ahead, the Department of Justice will continue to work alongside our federal partners to prosecute wrongdoing, support survivors, and bring this devastating crime to an end."
The teams were unanimously selected by a federal enforcement group after what was described as a rigorous, competitive and nationwide selection process. The group includes subject matter experts from the Department of Justice (including the Civil Rights Division's Human Trafficking Prosecution Unit, the Executive Office of U.S. Attorneys, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Civil Rights Unit); the Department of Homeland Security (including U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Homeland Security Investigations' Human Smuggling and Trafficking Unit); and the Department of Labor (including the Office of the Inspector General and the Wage and Hour Division).
"The Anti-Trafficking Coordination Team Initiative is an important tool in our collective ability to combat sex trafficking, forced labor and domestic servitude here in the United States," said Secretary Jeh C. Johnson of Homeland Security. "It highlights our commitment to increase capacity to rescue victims and bring perpetrators of these terrible crimes to justice. Our collective efforts are amplified when we work together in furtherance of shared missions like this. And, through DHS's Blue Campaign, we will remain focused on ending human trafficking in the United States."
The teams will collaborate with human-trafficking experts in federal law enforcement to put in a place a new strategic action plan in each district. Teams will then be expected to develop high-impact federal investigations and prosecutions, dismantle human-trafficking networks, vindicate the rights of human-trafficking victims, and bring traffickers to justice over the next two years.
"A trafficking victim shouldn't have to spend time trying to determine whether they have a Department of Labor issue or a Department of Justice issue," said U.S. Secretary of Labor Thomas Perez. "Their basic rights are being violated, and we can accomplish so much more to redress those crimes when we work together. The Anti-Trafficking Coordination Team Initiative, by bringing our respective departments' collective resources and expertise to bear, is helping us build a whole even greater than the sum of our individual parts."
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