“Many of these kids are trafficking victims and they deserve protections in federal law, at a minimum,”
Stripping legal protections from unaccompanied minors threatens to both put them in harm’s way and make it easier for abusers to evade justice, said Maggy Krell, a California assembly member who worked on human-trafficking cases over her two-decade career as a prosecutor.
“These crimes are vastly underreported, and now the government is setting up an additional barrier to threaten people with deportation if they have the courage to come forward,” said Krell, who signed the letter to the DHS. “It not only jeopardizes that person, it jeopardizes the entire prosecution.
“Many of these kids are trafficking victims and they deserve protections in federal law, at a minimum,” she added.
