From Desperation To Slavery: The Dark Side Of Illegal Immigration

Then, a man approaches you and promises to get you to America safely, offers you a job to send money back to your family, and gives you a shot at the American Dream. You agree and pay a sum in exchange for the journey and job connection. You join the primary and other boys your age on a gruesome trip to America, where some don’t make the journey.

You arrive at a small one-room home (again) with no bathroom, beds, or blankets. “This is where you’ll be staying while you work.” You’re confused, but remain hopeful as you’re transported to a Chicken Farm. You’re told you must work 12-hour shifts at the farm and pay back your expenses for the journey. Additionally, you’re obligated to pay for every day you stay in the cold, dim one-room home. The man also says you must pay for any food you receive, usually just bread and water. You are not allowed to return home or contact your family until you pay off your debt, and if you attempt to leave, they’ll kill you. Your debts exponentially increase, your body is exhausted, and the home and family you knew are now nothing but a distant memory. 

For the desperate, hope can be a powerful weapon—one that traffickers use to manipulate and trap victims into a lifetime of slavery. Sadly, Jose's story is a reality for thousands of immigrants and teenagers from Latin America. 

Weak border policies and unchecked globalization have created a system where human smuggling thrives with little resistance. In fact, illegal immigration harms the very immigrants it claims to help.  

The Victims of Human Trafficking 

There are more people trapped in slavery today than at any point in history, nearly 50 million. To put this into perspective, during the slave trade there was 12.5 million slaves sent to America. Today, there are nearly 4x the amount of slaves in the world. The pool of desperate migrants makes them ideal targets for traffickers with roughly 100 million migrants worldwide—around 4 million of whom are undocumented. Unlike drugs, which are single-use products, humans can be exploited repeatedly without the need for replenishment, making human trafficking exponentially more profitable than the drug and weapons trade. Despite America having labor laws to protect minors, illegal immigrants evade these protections, with 71% of trafficking victims being women and one in four being a child. The majority of labor trafficking victims are immigrants, with illegal immigrants comprising 67% and legal immigrants 28%, totaling 95%. Incentivizing illegal immigration by having loose policies and zero consequences for crossing doesn’t help the migrants. It empowers the traffickers to exploit more vulnerable people. 

Labor Exploitation and Modern-Day Slavery

McDonalds, Skittles, and Gerber are just a few of the brands whose production sites exploit migrant kids. Trafficked victims are given false hope and told they can buy or work in exchange for their freedom. When we hear of human trafficking, what we often think of is sex trafficking. However, human trafficking extends beyond just sex trafficking; it also encompasses labor trafficking. Labor trafficking specifically exploits migrant children. Kids and teens are manipulated into a perpetual cycle of debt, being told they need to work 12-hour shifts in poultry slaughterhouses and pay for food and living expenses, and any resistance toward their trafficker results in increased debt. These so-called "living" expenses often include a single room with multiple people and no working toilets, electricity, or beds.

Companies like Perdue Farms have come under investigation for employing children as young as 13 in slaughterhouses. Perdue Farms has been ordered to pay $4 million in restitution—compensating the children. Undocumented children, some as young as 12, are forced into hazardous construction jobs where they risk their lives daily. Some have fallen from buildings to their deaths, while others suffer devastating injuries, their bodies shattered beyond repair.

Loose border policies enable traffickers to move in and out of the U.S. quickly, allowing them to bring in cheap or free labor through trafficked victims who are unregulated and do not have to comply with U.S. laws.

Dangerous Journeys and Border Deaths 

Many unaccompanied minors at the border haven’t been separated by their parents, they’ve been separated from traffickers. Unaccompanied minors require a sponsor to pick them up, and often a non-family sponsor will pick up multiple kids. Some of these sponsors have been MS-13 Gang members whose motto is “rape, kill, control.” 

It’s challenging to know the exact number of deaths at the border. However, according to Border Control, there have been about 8,000-10,000 migrant deaths while attempting to cross the border due to drowning in the river or heat exhaustion in the desert. Some local rights groups believe the actual number could be as high as 80,000, including those reported as missing.

Illegal immigration isn't about compassion—it's about profit. Smugglers don't care about Latinos, neither do gang members—they see them as nothing more than dollar signs to be used and discarded. They have no concern for human life, having shown this by abandoning migrants in scorching Texas heat inside locked trucks, where temperatures soar past 100 degrees, condemning them to a slow and agonizing death.

If the left truly cared about migrants as much as they claim, they would take real action—ending illegal immigration and holding every criminal accountable for the lives lost. The deaths of women and children, from Laken Riley to the thousands of missing and trafficked migrant kids, are preventable. It's time to stop enabling this crisis and start protecting the innocent.

These past weeks, I've watched thousands take to the streets, burning the flag of a nation that has given them nothing but opportunity. But the American flag isn't what you should be burning—it's your sense of entitlement and the toxic open-border policies that fuel an industry built on human suffering. The U.S. welcomes immigrants—given that they go through the proper channels in order to ensure that both American citizens and migrants are safe from criminal exploitation. Your battle isn't with America—it's with traffickers and smugglers who prey on your desperation, manipulate your emotions, and sell people into slavery.

If you genuinely care about Latinos, you won't spit on the nation that offers the American Dream—you'll fight the real enemy: lawlessness, human trafficking, and the exploitation of your own people.