How Lack of Data Contributes to Guestworker Trafficking Despite clear evidence of human trafficking taking place under nonimmigrant visas, workers, anti-trafficking advocates, and policymakers alike face an alarming dearth of information about these visa programs. The sprawling, employer-driven web of visa categories is little understood, and lack of unified and transparent data about visa programs increases worker vulnerability to trafficking, hampers prevention efforts, and blocks policymakers from crafting effective, bipartisan reforms to improve guestworker programs.
Lack of Data Makes Workers Vulnerable to Trafficking Without access to reliable data about temporary foreign worker programs, migrant workers are less able to identify and avoid human trafficking schemes. Workers in foreign countries seeking temporary employment in the United States have virtually no way to assess the accuracy of advertised job offers. Migrants usually have no reliable source of information they can turn to in order to verify job offers, check if the employer listed on the offer actually exists, and see whether the employer obeys the law and pays workers.15 Temporary foreign workers who have been trafficked and exploited often report that the reality did not match the job that was promised before they left their country of origin. Temporary foreign workers often arrive Change This
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