Theresa Vargas, Washington Post, March 7, 2008
The business cards handed to men at a North Woodbridge grocery store didn’t say much. Just a first name, a cellphone number and the phrase Casa de Carne, or House of Meat.
But their simplicity made clear the illicit purpose: sex.
Authorities say the cards solicit customers for highly organized prostitution rings that cater to Hispanic immigrants and chauffeur women from out of state. Although prostitution crosses ethnic and racial lines, these immigration-related cases raise complex questions about the interplay of local and federal law and are likely to pose special challenges for Prince William County police in the push against illegal immigration that began this week.
The police department has said it will treat illegal immigrants who are criminals differently from those who are crime victims. But in prostitution cases, the women involved might be both.
“A lot of girls we’ve interviewed don’t even know what city they are in or what state they’re in,” said 1st Sgt. Daniel Hess, commander of a street crime unit that has handled several of the prostitution cases.
Victims or criminals?
Before county police began the illegal-immigration initiative, they tried to prepare for every scenario. But a closer look at the rings reveals that the line between the local crime of prostitution and the federal crime of sex trafficking is often blurred in subtle details. Did the women knowingly choose to work as prostitutes? Or were they pushed into it by force, fraud or coercion?
Under county policy, officers are ordered to check the immigration status of crime suspects when they have probable cause to think they are in the country illegally. Victims and witnesses of crimes will not be subject to those checks.
{snip}
The department’s new Criminal Alien Unit is expected to investigate these prostitution cases and matters such as fake-identification mills, gangs and illegal drugs. The six officers who make up the unit, working under the supervision of federal immigration officials, will have some federal authority, unlike the rest of the department’s more than 500 officers.
{snip}
In the prostitution cases uncovered locally, law enforcement officials say women get about $30 for 15 minutes and are allowed to keep half of that.
“They are called las treinteras,” after treinta, the Spanish word for 30, said Dilcia Molina, a human rights advocate. “In the world of sex work, they are usually the cheapest and the poorest. They are the ones who are usually on the periphery.”
{snip}
Scott Hatfield, chief of the human smuggling and trafficking unit for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said the agency takes a “victim-centered” approach to such cases, not deporting women who are found to be victims. He said federal officials often reach out to local police to teach them the signs of sex trafficking. One is whether someone else is holding a woman’s travel documents. Another is whether she fears for her family, whether in the United States or overseas.
Well-organized circuits
Montgomery County police, active in investigating this type of prostitution, said women travel well-organized circuits from hubs such as New York and New Jersey to states such as Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania.
“They might be in Prince William this week, in Philly the next week and then the following week here in Gaithersburg,” Montgomery vice Detective Thomas Stack said. “We’ve come across address books and cellphones, and you can see there are brothels in every Latino community in the East Coast.”
{snip}
Unlike massage parlors that sell sex, the prostitution rings are harder to track because they move from one short-term rental home to another. Hess said it is not unusual for police to receive complaints about a home, go to it and find evidence that the operation has just shut down. A search of a Hylton Avenue home led to several arrests, Hess said, but there was evidence that others had just left. Mattresses without sheets lay in every room with condoms and lubricants.
{snip}
Original article
(Posted on March 7, 2008)
Comments
I am sure these “ladies of the night” will have a lot to offer our country when they get their Green Cards. They have no education, they are criminals, and the only work they know how to preform is on their knees. Perhaps they could teach a diversity class. They certainly have the right qualifications. Or we can deport them.
Posted by Rex the Toad at 6:24 PM on March 7
Why should these women stay here? What skills do they bring? They should be deported immediately. Americans are the real victims here, ongoing, paying for all of this mess. And we are the victims of incompetent “officials” sucking us dry while failing to do their jobs. Enough already.
Posted by terry at 6:48 PM on March 7
They are PROSTITUTES for petes sake! Send them back HOME! They aren’t “victims” and I am sick of hearing about how they come here and were “tricked” into it or threatened into it! I really don’t care! Send them back home and then lock the gates. They aren’t the kind of people that made America great, they are the type that will destroy America!
Posted by at 8:33 PM on March 7
This is utterly absurd nonsense.
A day will come when Mexican “migrants” will hop the border in pairs. Once on American soil, one will attack and beat another. The assailant will be deported (and will hop the border again later) and the “victim” will be given green card, driver’s license, and public assistance so that he can live in the U.S., bring his family for re-unification, and spawn plenty of kids.
The above scenario is going to happen if the Liberals and compassionates, particularly those in judiciary system, are allowed to continue with their moronic “logic” that pushes America towards national destruction.
Posted by A Reader at 9:01 PM on March 7
California budget for K-12 education is roughly $50 billion per annum. About 48% of enrolled students in public K-12 schools are Hispanic, about half of whom speak little or no English. It doesn’t take an Einstein to figure out where did they come from. It’s clear that if it weren’t for almost two decades of uncontrolled and mostly illegal immigration from Mexico to California, there would have been 25% - 40% less students in our public schools. These students cost the state from est. $12 billion to $20 billion annually. They are the ones who put us in the red, and now state universities, already underfunded, are going to suffer because of that.
Posted by A Reader at 9:23 PM on March 7
If a woman/girl truly was forced into prostitution and brought into the country against her will then we, as decent Human Beings, should treat them differently than common criminals. There should be a mechanism in place to ensure their safety. Provisions should be made with the government of their country of origin toward that end. Only then should they be deported. Since those governments cannot usually be trusted, third party organizations should also be involved.
Posted by jewamongyou at 10:59 PM on March 7
Sounds like my neighborhood where illegal girls under 15 are brought into USA and lie in on the ground near the creek on weekends ($5 or $10) for many illegals who live there. Babies are delivered right behind the county health services building so mothers & babies can use the bath rooms during the day. The problem has improved since the amnesty was defeated.
The houses across the street and next door are empty. It was only a month ago they were filled with many families/people.
I have heard Mexican women tell others they can get citizenship if they divorce due to abuse. This is common tactic. The young prostitutes here were also found in an apartment where the pimps held 15 all in a one BR. When they were busted the police could not get them to testify. A big article was written in the Reader to garner sympathy for the girls. The courts were held up for over a year trying to determine what to do. It just disappeared from the news like most of these illegal offenses.
Enforcement ends at the courts. They just let them go. Illegal women use births as first door opener. Beleive me these girls are not strangers to sex. By the demonstrations of grades they want to drop and hang ASAP. As long as they are on US soil it is a free ride. V
Posted by Vickie at 2:02 AM on March 8
House of Meat, huh? Hey, I have never accused Mexicans/Hispanics of not having a sense of humor. In fact, when it comes to movies, some of the older Mexican ones are quite funny. For example, the cult horror movie “The Brainiac”, translated into English and staring the well-known actor Abel Salazar, is a riot in the way it characterizes certain types of people. I would suggest a few beers before viewing it, for added effect.
Posted by Bobby at 4:55 AM on March 8
Thanks to our politicans, (Ted Kennedy) this class of people is flooding our country, and because of our liberal PC laws, we are schooling their offspring, in many cases feeding, housing and clothing them. We have lost the war, because of our leaders.
Posted by tall one at 5:17 AM on March 8
In other words, the reward for knowingly and willingly violating US immigration controls for the purpose to engage in prostitution is the conferring of the hallowed ‘victim’ status and the prize of citizenship.
Posted by Kenelm Digby at 7:44 AM on March 8
Why is it, two people have sex, and the man must pay? This is a crime against men, much the way drug use, gambling, pornography and movies and literature can be a crime against those who use. Citizens need to be protected from exploitation, and sometimes from themselves.
Posted by at 11:27 AM on March 8
In the prostitution cases uncovered locally, law enforcement officials say women get about $30 for 15 minutes and are allowed to keep half of that.
“They are called las treinteras,” after treinta, the Spanish word for 30, said Dilcia Molina, a human rights advocate. “In the world of sex work, they are usually the cheapest and the poorest. They are the ones who are usually on the periphery.”
Excuse me - this is $60 an hour! Also, I doubt they were “smuggled” into the country against their will - they might not have known the outcome, but I don’t believe they were forced to come her illegally…
Posted by at 10:40 PM on March 8
How will they figure out in the future that the woman was forced into prostitution and did not just discover a new way to be able to stay in the US?
Posted by Martel at 7:04 AM on March 9
Re: “Why is it, two people have sex, and the man must pay?”
Well, not entirely. Often enough, men pay for sex, women pay for relationships. But that being said, why so sensitive? It’s a matter of supply and demand. Men want it more and more women can always be supplied to fit demand. In the event of over-supply, prices are driven downwards. Then what? Persuade Congress to impose tariffs on these additonal imports? They’re kind of busy now tracking steroid use while our currency is freefalling.
I just want my government to protect the solvency of my nation. No amount of intervention will resolve personal problems without the person’s inner sense of responsibility.
Posted by at 10:06 AM on March 9
In the case of prostitution, who really exploits who… the man or the woman? Think about it. But in a time when homosexuals can marry, isn’t silly anyway to focus on the morality of it?
And another thing. If prostitution was legal, I bet there’d be less interracial marriage because of less responsibility required to just try something out? Maybe less homosexuality too which was why the Church always tolerated the oldest profession throughout history.
Posted by never neo-conned again at 7:34 PM on March 9
These women are just doing work American women won’t do. It is free enterprise at it’s finest. Getty up Capitalism. At least they aren’t section 8 entitlement junkies who eat and never produce. These women are producing and producing and producing. Let them alone.
Posted by Johann von Braun at 7:37 PM on March 9
“Victims or criminals?”
Wrong question. It doesn’t matter whether they’re victims or criminals. Their aliens, and don’t belong here. We don’t need to leave a whole new criminal underclass here, just because they were exploited by their countrymen.
I have sympathy for them - but not enough to really care. Ship them home.
Posted by CSinAL at 2:17 AM on March 10
If I’m supposed to feel bad for these women…”victims”…I DON’T!…according to the immigration laws…MORAL TURPITUDE…is grounds for DEPORTATION!…being in the country ILLEGALLY is grounds for DEPORTATION!…they fit BOTH grounds…they need to GO!
Posted by Suzan Donoghue at 12:28 PM on March 10
Does this explain why Elliot Spitzer is so keen on illegals?
Posted by Hugh Lincoln at 5:38 PM on March 10
Ask Eliot Spitzer what he thinks about this.
Posted by gee vee at 7:11 PM on March 11
