The Human Side of Human Trafficking

In 1996 FLSNY's outreach workers were hearing about various wage violations and exploitative conditions of farm workers who were recruited and supervised by crew leader Maria Garcia-Botello and her family (sons and husband).  Every week FLSNY's outreach workers visited the camps and talked to the farm workers.  Wage issues, living conditions, pesticide exposure and general legal rights were discussed and literature was shared with them.  None of the farm workers would complain outright about the situation they were in - they were afraid.  FLSNY kept returning to the camps, kept talking with the farm workers, and developed the trusting relationship needed to begin to change the conditions under which they were "employed".

After four years, a change finally occurred.  As in the past Maria Garcia transported  undocumented workers from Arizona to work in the camps of upstate New York. During the trip here they were guarded, threatened, and told they could not leave the van for any reason.  When they arrived in New York, they were put in an old farm house with 30 other workers.  The toilet facilities were broken, the food was inadequate, and there wasn't even enough sleeping facilities for all the workers.

After working in the fields for weeks without pay, a group of six farm workers decided to do something about it - they left the camps and contacted FLSNY!  That's when FLSNY learned the full story of their captivity - the workers were being held at gun point, in locked barracks and were not allowed to leave the camps except to work and shop and then only under the watchful eyes of the Garcia family.  The six young men hadn't just left the camp, they escaped late at night and watched from a nearby railroad bed as armed men searched frantically for them.  In rural New York State, FLSNY had the first case of human trafficking - modern day slavery.  FLSNY's continual outreach and our actions that evening and the weeks to come would prove to be turning point in the prosecution of the traffickers under the newly enacted anti-trafficking legislation.

These workers were still not safe, they required services far beyond the usual legal services FLSNY provides.  They needed safe emergency housing, financial support, food and medical care.  They also needed a legal way to stay in the United States to help with the prosecution of the traffickers.  FLSNY began negotiation with law enforcement about securing legal status for the workers and insuring that the workers would not be deported while the investigation and litigation of their case proceeded in the courts.

In 2004, Maria Garcia and her family of traffickers pleaded guilty to a variety of criminal charges.  She was sentenced to 4 years in prison, one of her son's, Elias Botello was sentenced to 37 months in prison, and her second son, Jose Garcia and Garcia' husband were sentenced to less than a year.  

The case is not over - this lengthy legal case is still in litigation as it winds its way through the civil courts to really bring justice to the workers.  To read about the case as presented in the news paper articles, click here.

The outcome of this case also has reverberated throughout New York and the nation as the Human Trafficking Task force for the Western District, an alliance of law enforcement and non-governmental organizations, was formed to addressed the unique needs of the victims of trafficking.