Although prosecutions in the U.S. for human trafficking are few and far between, those who are convicted are receiving severe sentences.

Case in point: the 24-year sentence given to an illegal Mexican alien who trafficked two teenagers into the U.S. to work as prostitutes in California migrant camps, according to news accounts.

All the elements of the classic trafficking situation — fraud, coercion and vulnerability — were present in a case involving Adrian Zitlalpopoca-Hernandez, 33, who was prosecuted for 10 counts of sex trafficking by force and harboring illegal aliens.

Zitlalpopoca’s case ranks possibly in the top five of “serious” and “callous” criminal behavior that U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez said he’s seen in his 13 years on the bench.

Benitez told the defendant that he preyed upon the emotions of the 17- and 18-year-old illegal immigrants, promising them a better life than they had in Mexico. “You promised them marriage. You promised them love,” the judge told the defendant. “You were their entire world. I can’t believe that anybody could really do this.”

In addition to the 292-month sentence, Benitez ordered Zitlalpopoca to repay the victims $1.4 million to cover what they could have earned had they not been forced into prostitution and cover therapy and other necessities. Once his prison term is completed, Zitlalpopoca faces deportation back to Mexico.

While it is uncertain whether severe sentences like the one Zitlalpopoca received actually deter others from trafficking, there is one undeniable benefit from such convictions: the news media perks up and pays attention, which helps raise awareness of the ugly presence of modern-day slavery.

PARKING NOTICE: Central Riverfront Parking Garage will be charging $15.00 to park tomorrow, Saturday, July 31st after 12:00 p.m. due to the Cincinnati Reds game at 4:10 p.m.

The ongoing controversy over Arizona’s new illegal immigration law will likely drag on for months and may eventually end up before the Supreme Court.  As the issue unfolds, we could be hearing echoes of a much earlier battle that split the United States over a similarly divisive issue: slavery.

The Arizona law, parts of which have been temporarily placed on hold by a U.S. District Court judge, clamps down hard on illegal immigrants drawn to the state — as have millions of others from outside our borders — by the promise of a better life.  The provisions blocked would require police to check individuals’ immigration status; would require legal immigrants to have their citizenship papers with them at all times; would allow officers to make arrests without warrants of suspected illegal immigrants; and would ban illegal immigrants from seeking work in public areas.

These restrictive provisions appear to be popular with the majority of Arizona residents, but they are vehemently opposed by the state’s large Hispanic community and by civil libertarians.  Supporters say the law was the direct result of frustration over inaction by the federal government on stemming the flow of illegals.  Critics say the law completely negates a bedrock principle of American jurisprudence: the presumption of innocence.

There is a second issue swirling around the Arizona law that proponents are using to — so far — good effect:  states ought to be able to control their own borders, especially if Congress can’t or won’t enact comprehensive national immigration legislation.  It’s an attractive position politically because it enables backers of the Arizona law to wrap themselves in the flag of “states rights,” while leaving opponents — including the Obama Administration — to advocate on behalf of people who are in this country illegally.

Something startlingly similar unfolded in the decades leading up to the Civil War.  As the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center’s exhibition “From Slavery to Freedom” makes clear, the issue of states rights was a critical component of the South’s political strategy to protect slavery.  From John C. Calhoun to Jefferson Davis, Southern political leaders attempted to position slavery not as a moral issue, but rather as the flashpoint of the deeper issue of  shielding state sovereignty from the encroachment of the anti-slavery federal government.

It was a clever strategy, but one doomed to failure.  Ultimately, the states rights argument could not overcome the moral repugnance of chattel slavery.  The Civil War and 600,000 deaths proved the point.

Yet the issue of states versus federal authority has not gone away, by any means.  The Arizona immigration law is just the latest challenge of federal authority.  Other states are considering similar bills.  Meanwhile, several states have gone to court to contest the government’s authority to implement the recently passed health care program.  And earlier this year, Texas Governor Rick Perry took to the political stump to suggest that the Lone Star State might be better off leaving the Union instead of accepting federal stimulus dollars (Perry ultimately accepted millions of federal stimulus funds).

The critical observer of these contretemps should not be misled.  The fundamental issue is not legal wrangling over state sovereignty.  Something far more important is at stake:  how this nation lives up to the promise, embedded in our Constitution, and enshrined in our laws and our customs that all men truly are created equal, whatever their race, beliefs or legal status.

Henry Baker who was enslaved in Alabama participated in a 1938 interview at age eighty-three in Alabama by Thomas Campbell. In this interview he declares that; We sut’only wuz happy in dem days tuh learn dat we wuz free.  We don’t have Church now lack we did den.  Folks talkin’ ‘bout servin’ de Lawd.  We served de Lawd sho nuff aftuh we wuz sot free cause we had sumpin tuh be thankful fer.  Aftuh Surrender, “niggers” dey sung, dey prayed, dey preached, yassuh.  A’nt Ca’line Calloway, A’nt Mandy Phillips en Emeron White en Racheal MacMullens dem wimmen, dey wuz a sight, dey sut’only did know how tuh worship God.  Dey wuz de leaders in prayin’ tuh de Lawd fer our freedom.

In muh time when I wuz uv de world, preachers, preached hell en damnation.  Dey tole me tuh go pick me out a place tuh pray, so I went out en picked me outer place lack dey sed, way out in de woods.  A nice quite place.  I went out en prayed, prayed hard but I couldn’t find no ‘ligion.  I didn’t wanner go tuh hell so I sed I’m gonner clam up dies tree en fall.  So I clam’b up de tree en got ready tuh fall out.  But ‘fore I did dat a spirit come tuh me en sed God don’t want nobody tuh hurt demselves fer him.  I got down outta de tree en went home….

George Ross was interviewed at age forty-six in 1863 in Canada.  He was enslaved in Maryland as a waiter and driver. He says; I came from Hagerstown, Md., & have been here twelve or thirteen years.  I had a pretty hard time for three years, when I worked on a farm, but principally I was a waiter and driver.  I came away because I was standing in fear of being separated from my wife and children.  That was one of the principal reasons of my coming away, for I had lived pretty well, say for the last 25 years.  I got my family all away.  I had religious privileges at the South just the same as here.  Sundays, I had my regular work just the same as I have here, and used to go to church three times a day on Sunday, and in the week, if I chose to go….The religious feeling is used to induce the slaves to feel that they owe a duty to their masters & mistresses, more than to their great Maker above.  Certain parts of the Scripture, about obeying masters and mistresses, they quote very much, but not in the right light. I have known instances where clergymen owned slaves—Methodist preachers & Presbyterian preachers, I believe.  We had one in our place that owned seven or eight, and also sold them.

Charity Bowery was interviewed in 1847-1848 in New York at age sixty-five by Lydia Maria Child. She had been enslaved as a house servant. She says that on Sundays, I have seen the Negroes up in the country going away under large oaks, and in secret places, sitting in the woods with spelling books.  The brightest and best men were killed in Nat’s time.  Such ones are always suspected.  All the colored folks were afraid to pray in the time of the old prophet Nat.  There was no law about it; but the whites reported it round among themselves, that if a note was heard, we should have some dreadful punishment; and after that, the low whites would fall upon any slaves they heard praying or singing a hymn, and often killed them before their masters or mistress could get to them.

C. H. Hall was interviewed in 1863 in Canada at at fifty-two. He was enslaved in Maryland where he was born. He states that it was a rule in that country, that a slave must not be seen with a book of any kind; but old madam Bean, my mistress, belonged to the Baptist Church, and she said we might all learn to spell and read the Bible.  The old man fought against it for some time, but found it prevailed nothing.  After she got to work pretty well, she used to teach me with the children.  I learned how to spell considerable, and afterwards I got so I could read a little.

Tickets are now available online for the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center’s International Freedom Conductor Award luncheon honoring His Holiness, the 14^th Dalai Lama.

Registration for the event is scheduled for 11:00 a.m. at the Duke Energy Center with the luncheon beginning at 11:30 a.m. on October 20^th.  The luncheon program will conclude at 2:00 p.m.  Ticket prices start at $125.00 and can be purchased on the Freedom Center website at: www.freedomcenter.org/dalailama. 

 “We are tremendously honored and gratified that His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, will accept our Freedom Conductor Award, and we are pleased to invite the general public – and all defenders of freedom – to participate in this momentous occasion,” said the Freedom Center’s CEO and President, Don Murphy.

Previous IFCA honorees have included civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks, South African Bishop Desmond Tutu, Dorothy Height, The Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Center for Human Rights and, most recently, in 2007, former Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton.

 The Dalai Lama will receive the IFCA honor, speak and answer audience questions.  For questions regarding this event please contact Jamie Brandt at 513.333.7598 or jbrandt@nurfc.org.

Betsy Crissman who was enslaved in Virginia, Mississippi and Tennessee as a field hand states in her 1866 interview at age seventy-six that just then the churches were needed, and I set in to help put all I could into their treasuries, until every house was finished, five in number. Now, instead of our own people having a place to worship God, we had to take boards for seats and go to the graveyard, rain or shine, cold or wind. It was the only place we could meet, but there, on our humble seats, we met and praised God, until one of my boarders, who had been traveling through the State, said the colored folds had churches in other places, and I determined we would have one also, and set to work immediately. I first counted how many brothers and sisters could each pay one dollar toward the work. I next got a white gentleman to write a paper for me, and I carried it around to all that I knew could pay. And, by the Lord’s help, we soon raised enough money to start the work; and it went on so fast, that in three weeks from the time we commenced building, our first service was held and three souls converted to the Lord, who live until this day as a seal that the work is the Savior’s, and I say bless the Lord.

Andrew Evens stated in his 1932 interview at age eighty-four that that he religion is something that is very close to this soft-spoken Negro. Like other members of his race, he regards it with an ardent fervor that permeates his every waking moment. “I belong to the Church of God in Christ,” he said. “we are sanctified people. We speak the truth and know God. That’s the trouble with the world today. It doesn’t know God. Our people have taken out after sin and have forgotten religion. I can’t understand why people live in sin. It’s just as easy to live without it. In everything, there is right and wrong. All one has to do is to choose the right road and let the wrong alone. There’s nothing difficult about that. It’s no trouble at all to live out of sin.” But one must not think that because Evans is a man of intense religious fervor, he disapproves of the normal pleasures of modern life. He goes to motion picture shows now ands then, although not much of late. He owns an automobile and, although he does not act as his own chauffeur, he and his grandson take frequent excursions into the Ozarks and touring is one of his chief pleasures.

In a 1910 interview, Bill Pickens gave an account about a former Alabama slave who succeeded in attending a Missionary Baptist Church in Alabama. The former enslaved man, as Pickens tells, went to his master and asked if he could attend the church. The master responded angrily and had him whipped for asking. The enslaved man did not give in and stood strong during the ordeal. The master finally gave in and allowed him to attend the Missionary Baptist Church.

From Harriett Jacobs Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861) A clergyman, who goes to the south, for the first time, has usually some feeling, however vague, that slavery is wrong. The slave holder suspects this, and plays his game accordingly. He makes himself as agreeable as possible; talks on theology, and other kindred topics. The southerner invites him to talk with these slaves. He asks them if they want to be free, and they say, “O, no, mass.” This is sufficient to satisfy him. He comes home to publish a “Southern Side View of Slavery”, and to complain of the exaggerations of abolitionists. He assures people that he has been to the south, and seen slavery for himself; that it is a beautiful “patriarchal institution;” that the slaves don’t want their freedom; that they have hallelujah meetings, and other religious privileges. What does he know of the half-starved wretches toiling from dawn till dark on the plantations? of mothers shrieking for their children, torn from their arms by slave traders? of young girls dragged down into moral filth? of pools of blood around the whipping post? of hounds trained to tear human flesh? of men screwed into cotton gins to die? The slaveholder showed him none of these things, and the slaves dared not tell of them if he had asked them.

No wonder the slaves sing,—

“Ole Satan’s church is here below;

Up to God’s free church I hope to go.”