Two Latina minors, aged 14 and 17, have been freed from their exploiter in Chester County, Pennsylvania, the state’s attorney general announced Monday. Ramiro Caal Jolomna has been charged with human trafficking, involuntary servitude, and related offenses. Pennsylvania Attorney General Dave Sunday filed charges against him for forcing the girls to work without pay under the threat of deportation.
Experts note that this case is one of countless others that never come to light. Investigations into trafficking and human exploitation have lost momentum because U.S. President Donald Trump’s deportation campaign has absorbed resources from other agencies that previously focused on combating labor and sexual exploitation. Since Trump’s return to the White House, detaining and deporting undocumented immigrants has become the top priority for many agencies that formerly investigated other crimes.
According to data obtained by the CATO Institute, 42,153 personnel — including 28,390 from federal law enforcement agencies — have been redirected to assist U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). “This diversion has significantly curtailed the government’s capacity to address criminal activity in the United States,” said David J. Bier, Director of Immigration Studies, when presenting the data.
At the State Department, the Trump administration cut more than 70% of the staff at the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons (TIP), which is responsible for leading anti-trafficking initiatives across the federal government.
Advocates against trafficking warn that the reduction in personnel threatens to undo decades of progress in the fight to stop sexual slavery, forced labor, and sexual exploitation. Minors and women are easy targets for human trafficking networks, which exploit their vulnerability as they flee violence, exploitation, and poverty in their home countries.
According to the Pennsylvania trafficking investigation conducted by the state attorney general’s office and the state police, the young women incurred a “debt” after Caal Jolomna brought them to the country. The victims were expelled from school and subjected to long work days in exchange for little or no pay.
The 14-year-old girl was brought to Pennsylvania from Mexico and forced to work 16-hour shifts, seven days a week, only to have her wages transferred to Caal Jolomna and his wife. She was also forced to perform domestic chores, such as cleaning her employer’s house.
As for the 17-year-old, Caal Jolomna sponsored her to come to the United States from Guatemala and kept her in similar conditions. The young woman wanted to support her ailing father and other relatives in her home country, but after the detainee took most of her salary, she had very little money left.
A memorandum submitted on September 16 by Democratic Congressman Jamie Raskin of Maryland reveals that drastic Trump administration cuts at the State Department have gutted the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons. Raskin’s report notes that “roughly half of the federal law enforcement personnel who might be assigned to track terrorists, human traffickers, and other criminals have now been assigned exclusively to immigration enforcement.” The TIP is required to produce an annual report on anti-trafficking efforts, which was due June 30 but has not yet been made public.
Raskin says that the Department of Justice has also canceled hundreds of grants awarded to state and local law enforcement agencies to help prevent, investigate, and prosecute violent crimes, as well as those assisting survivors of sexual and domestic violence. Furthermore, Trump has closed crucial agencies and offices that combat human trafficking, such as the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), which collected crucial information on emerging trafficking routes and networks.
According to data obtained by the CATO Institute, ICE is receiving assistance from nearly 17,000 personnel from other agencies, including 14,500 federal law enforcement officers. One in five federal marshals (650 out of 3,892); one in five Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents (2,840 out of 13,700); half of Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents (2,181 out of 4,620); more than two-thirds of the Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) agency (1,778 out of 2,572); and nearly 90% of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) personnel (6,198 out of 7,100) have been transferred to assist ICE, according to CATO.
“In the labor-intensive fight against sexual exploitation and human trafficking, the diversion of law enforcement resources will almost certainly have deadly consequences,” warned the memorandum, which was signed by the Democratic Staff of the Committee on the Judiciary. In 2023, Homeland Security Investigations rescued 1,806 children and arrested 4,214 suspects for crimes involving the sexual exploitation of children. “With 90% of the agency now assigned to the President’s immigration agenda, these efforts have all but stopped—and the government is left with few resources to stop the criminals who engage in child exploitation, trafficking, and worse," argued the memorandum.
The Trump administration has downplayed the impact of these reassignments. Speaking to The Guardian, Tricia McLaughlin, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) assistant secretary, said that under President Trump and DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, the United States is “dismantling sex trafficking networks and saving children from sexual exploitation and abuse.”
Trump and Epstein
Raskin argues otherwise. In his memorandum, titled “Epstein is the Tip of the Iceberg: The Trump Administration is Dismantling the Anti-Human Trafficking Infrastructure and Coddling Human Traffickers, Sexual Predators, and Rapists,” Raskin argues that “President Trump has aligned himself with human traffickers, sexual predators, and other violent criminals. The pattern is obvious, it is alarming, and it is a far bigger problem than the files of Jeffrey Epstein.”
Raskin was referring to the president’s friendship with the millionaire pedophile who died by suicide in his Manhattan jail cell in 2019 and his accomplice, who is serving a 20-year sentence for conspiracy and sexual trafficking of minors. The memorandum also notes that several high-ranking officials in Trump’s administration, including Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Secretary of Health Robert F. Kennedy Jr., have been accused of inappropriate conduct.
The memorandum further mentions that the government facilitated the return of misogynistic influencer Andrew Tate and his brother Tristan from Romania, where they were facing rape charges. Dozens of individuals pardoned in connection with the January 6 insurrection had also faced charges related to trafficking and sexual abuse before and after storming the Capitol.
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[SRC] https://english.elpais.com/usa/2025-09-24/reassigning-federal-agents-to-ice-is-hurting-the-fight-against-human-trafficking.html
