A lawsuit by a national coalition of more than 50 organizations that fight human trafficking charges that the Trump administration’s bans on diversity, equity and inclusion efforts amount to unlawful censorship and undermine the US’s landmark anti-trafficking law.
The lawsuit alleges that two anti-DEI executive orders issued by Trump in January harm the ability of anti-trafficking groups to “zealously advocate for survivors” and violate the intent of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA), a quarter-century-old law designed to eradicate sexual slavery and forced labor.
“These policies silence survivors – and we will not self-censor,” said Karen Romero, co-executive director of Freedom Network USA, the coalition of anti-trafficking organizations that filed the complaint in federal district court in Chicago.
As a result of Trump’s executive orders, the lawsuit says, the Department of Justice has barred Freedom Network USA from using dozens of words – including “gender”, “race”, “ethnicity”, “accessibility” and “fairness” – in its federally funded work. Seventy per cent of the organization’s budget comes in the form of grants from the department’s office for victims of crime.
Sabrina Talukder, an attorney at the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, which is representing Freedom Network USA, described the restrictions as a “major civil rights issue”, noting that, according to justice department reports, 40% of sex trafficking survivors in the US are Black women. A disproportionate share of trafficking survivors are also immigrants or LGBTQ+ people.
The lawsuit says the creation of “forbidden terms” by the Trump administration undercuts the network’s ability to fight the “systemic disparities that render certain populations more vulnerable to trafficking. When it enacted the TVPA, Congress specifically found ‘discrimination’ as a gap that traffickers exploit for their gain, but ‘discrimination’ is a forbidden term in the DoJ-issued list.”
The suit comes after a Guardian investigation found the administration had rolled back efforts across the federal government to combat human trafficking. Trump officials deny the federal government has made any retreat on anti-trafficking.
The Department of Justice did not respond to a request for comment on the lawsuit, but earlier told the Guardian that it was fulfilling “President Trump’s promise to do everything possible to save child victims of human trafficking”. The White House previously said that Trump “implemented tough-on-crime policies” that go after human traffickers and “hold these disgusting monsters accountable to the fullest extent of the law”.
In its report last month, the Guardian found that, under Trump, key initiatives for fighting human trafficking had been cut back at the Department of Justice, Department of State, Department of Labor, Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Homeland Security. Senior officials and other staffers have been forced out, workers shifted to other priorities and grants delayed or cancelled.
Hailey Virusso, director of anti-trafficking services at Preble Street, a non-profit group in Maine, said it was forced to suspend emergency assistance to survivors – including groceries and bus tickets – when its last justice department grant expired on 30 September.
“When you’re turning away survivors of human trafficking, what does that mean for our values? This is not only an issue about Jeffrey Epstein,” she said, referencing the controversy surrounding the world’s most infamous sex trafficker.
The Trump administration never allocated millions of dollars appropriated to the justice department to help trafficking survivors last fiscal year, the Guardian found.
The Guardian also reported last month that the justice department had removed resources – including a human trafficking action research toolkit and a human trafficking taskforce e-guide – from its website, “in accordance”, the department said, “with recent executive orders and related guidance”.
Bernice Yeung and Noy Thrupkaew contributed reporting
