The Force Be With You: When Trafficking Victims Come Out of the Shadows

By Marivir R. Montebon 

When they finally got seated on the plane, the three burst in tears and hugged each other. This was freedom. And it was also scary. But they flew to New York with a different sense of hope.

The glimmer of the April sunlight streamed through the window of Mariel’s tiny bedroom. But she did not wake up to the sun’s kisses on her eyes that day. It had been raucous downstairs, and outside three vehicles pulled over.

Mariel stood hurriedly and went to see what’s going on. She saw a U-Haul truck, two vans and one car outside the apartment. A loud knock on the door startled her. It was Andrew, her recruiter. “Hey we are leaving for Miami in a hour. Get ready,” he told her.

“Now? What about our job?,” she asked. “There is no more job for all of you here in Little Rock. Sorry for the quick notice. But we have to leave soon,” Andrew said sternly and left.

Mariel sighed. She was exhausted. She had a fever that night and still felt weak. She stared at the picture of her two children, who were only five and two years old when she left, and husband on her night table. They had no idea how horrible life has been for her since she came to America. Once again, the memory rushed back. How she was fooled into believing that there was a lucrative job waiting for her in Arkansas, which pushed her pay a whopping $3500 in placement fees. She borrowed money from her brother and from the lending agency which her recruiter had endorsed just to work abroad.

Mariel was optimistic that she and her family would leave poverty behind the moment she boarded the airplane. Although nostalgic, she was happy at the thought that she will be earning $10 an hour for 40 hours a week. She would have free housing and transportation as well as overtime pays. How lucky could one get, she excitedly thought. But all these were baloney. She lived in hell the moment she set foot in Arkansas. Once again, Mariel felt sorry for herself.

The door swang open and her roommates Linda and Jen came in. “We just prepared sandwiches and water for our trip. It will be a long one,” said Linda who begun to put her clothes into a huge trolley.

“I just hope Miami will be better for us. Are you okay now? No more fever?'” Jen asked Mariel.

“I hope so. We just got in here five months ago. And I thought we will have a new employer next week,” said Mariel as she started to pack her things up.

The drive from Arkansas to Miami took two days. Carlo, the driver, did not have any reliever.  They almost figured in accidents several times because he was clearly exhausted for having very little rest. The contingent of three cars had mostly women passengers. Mariel felt uneasy why they were instructed to eat inside the car and to try not to be seen by anyone. They stopped only to relieve themselves in public toilets. 

In the mid of April 14, Mariel and her colleagues, all 15 of them we arrived in Miami and went straight to their apartment in Pinewood. Andrew gave her a single key to a small unit meant for two people. But there were four of them assigned to stay in apartment A, hence they were inconveniently crammed. Andrew told them that each one will pay a rent of $600 a month which will be proportionately deducted from their weekly salaries.

Linda had later found out that the rent was only $700 a month. “The agency earned a total of $2400 by making each of us pay $600 each,” she told her friends. They however did not complain for fear of being booted from their jobs as hotel housekeepers.

Linda, Jen, and Mariel were recruited by Andrew’s company, the Worldwide Placement Agency in Manila. Each of them paid enormous amounts in placement fees and were coached by the agency to never divulge to the consular officer of the US Embassy that they made such payments. If they did, the recruiter said, their work visas will be denied. They were also told to dress up and talk smartly.

Mariel said she was happy that the officer who interviewed did not ask her if she paid anything to be placed in a job in the US. “I was glad I wasn’t asked so I did not have to lie as the agency instructed,” she said.

Thousands of Filipinos troop to the US embassy to apply for an H2B visa with this kind of mindset, as instructed by their recruiters. Battered by poverty in the Philippines, they bite the promises of an hourly pay of about $8-12 for 40 hours a week, with plenty of overtime work and chance to do extra work, as well as health benefits. Housing and transportation were promised to be free as well. Who would not want that opportunity?, queried Mariel.

She and her husband decided to borrow money from her brother and the lending agency which the recruiter had recommended to her to cover for the entire $3500 fees. When she arrived in the US in 2007, none of these promises were fulfilled. She was even made to pay $50 for the hotel pickup.

Mariel only worked for 20 hours a week, and she had to pay rent for a tiny room in a trailer house in Little Rock for $380. She paid for her own transportation in going to and from her work place at the Western Eagle Suites in Little Rock. The expenses were more than half of what she actually earned, that sending money for her family and to pay her debt made her broke every after payday.

“What difference does this make? I am poor and away from my family. This was worse than I thought,” Mariel reflected.

Temporary guest workers are forcibly required by their recruiters to pay a rollover fee of about $500-$800 to have their work visas renewed by another employer. The recruiter makes a fortune out of this having the knowledge of the hotel networks and the required documentation processes for guest workers. Mariel and her colleagues paid Andrew $500 each as a rollover fee for the new job in Miami a week before they left Arkansas. They also paid $100 each for their transportation.

Mariel’s first day of her official job was for a grand wedding at the banquet hall as preparer and server.  She worked from six in the morning till midnight. For a 17-hour non-stop work, she was paid $150, or $20 short of her actual rate of $10 per hour. Mariel questioned the management for the discrepancy. But Andrew apologized to her, explaining that there was a computer glitch in the agency’s system. 

Every week, however, there was a computer glitch in the system that was made as an excuse to salaries that are not fully paid or accounted for.

Mariel had spent many sleepless nights over her miserable situation. She was constantly stressed and worried about finances. Feeling helpless in providing adequately for her family and paying her mounting debts, she has developed migraine and insomnia. Her other colleagues have begun to escape, one by one. They would call their family or friend and make arrangements to purchase their plane ticket and leave unnoticed by the recruiter.

One day,  Linda told Jen and Mariel that she will escape from their situation and asked if they both wanted to the same. “Yes, I will escape too,” Jen said. “How do we go about it? What if they will find out and we will be deported,” asked Mariel.

“Many people have left this agency because it has become so unfair and mean to us. No reason to stay here,” Linda said assertively. “But I do not want to be deported,” Mariel insisted. “I don’t think we will. There is a way. A friend of ours has asked for help from an immigration expert. We will do that too,” Jen said.

The three women decided to escape the following weekend after they called their relatives in San Francisco, Austin, and New York to buy them tickets out of Miami to New York where their friend who applied for immigration relief was working. On a very early Sunday morning, they bade their trailer home goodbye and headed to the airport for their flight. They asked Linda’s friend from the local church to drive them to the airport that day, instead of picking them up for church service.

No one suspected that they were escaping. “We told our friends we will go to church that day,” said Linda. They placed a few of their clothes in gift boxes so that it would seem they were headed to a birthday party in their church. 

When they finally got seated on the plane, the three burst in tears and hugged each other. This was freedom. And it was also scary. But they flew to New York with a different sense of hope.

Linda’s friend Carmel, a neighbor in her hometown in Cavite, and her husband Rico met them at the JFK. It was a happy and tearful reunion. Carmel knew about Linda’s situation only recently. “I wished you told me soon enough and I could have helped you much earlier,” she said, crying.

Carmel welcomed Linda, Jen, and Mariel to her home in Forest Hills that night. The three were dead tired but elated with their trip. It was the first time in eight years that Mariel had slept soundly.

The following day, the three women went to meet Leslie Silva, the immigration consultant who helped Linda’s friend Charice apply for a T visa.  After they told Leslie their stories, they were assured that they have grounds to pursue against their traffickers and could apply for T visas too like Charice.

Fast-forward, Mariel, Jen, and Linda have been granted immigration relief five months since their application.

“I am absolutely happy and forever grateful to Ms. Leslie. I cannot thank her enough. Having a T visa is like having a new lease on life. Freedom is the best gift ever,” said Mariel. She went home for the first time in the Christmas of 2015. It was the sweetest of all homecomings, to see her children grown much taller than she is and her husband who continually prayed for her safe return.

In April this year, Mariel’s family joined her in New York. They were whole again and facing new challenges in living in America. “But it was important to be together,” said Mariel who works as a babysitter while he husband as plumber. Jen is awaiting for the coming of her family in the summer and Linda is reunited with her mother and sister in the Christmas of 2015. Linda said, “they were my best gifts that Christmas.” (Photos by Ms. Daisy Benin)

*Human Trafficking is real although silent. The names of persons and places were changed to protect the persons who are silently going through the painful process of immigration relief.

Related links:

https://www.splcenter.org/news/2011/01/30/fighting-modern-day-slavery

https://www.splcenter.org/20130218/close-slavery-guestworker-programs-united-states