Balancing the equity of mental health injuries: examining the “trauma exception” for sex trafficking T-VISA applicants

Author: Greer, Benjamin Thomas & Dyle, Scott Davidson

Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to explore and expand the legal discussion on T-Visa requirements and how it can be better structured to provide support for victims of sex trafficking that suffer from severe mental health injuries. The authors conducted extensive US legal and sociological research compiling human trafficking mental health report data, primarily conducted in Europe. Based on these finding, the authors interviewed practitioners in the legal field to verify assumed legal hurdles. Once validated the author's attempted to address and design an equitable approach towards mitigating the demonstrated legal shortfall. There is a dearth of US research on mental health trauma survivors of trafficking endure. This void prevents the legal system from adequately addressing likely outcomes suffered by the victims of this crime and prevents policy makers from structuring legal requirements equitably. Policy makers often need concrete examples of problems before reacting. This paper attempts to demonstrate how the current T-Visa requirements fail to fully recognize mental health injuries of sex trafficking and begins to provide a pathway to balance. While the statistical data was previously conducted by outside sources, the legal analysis is completely original by the author's and is likely to have a very high value to policy makers when addressing these issues. This paper also highlights the need for a more robust research program into human trafficking and mental health injuries within the US so that many of the analogies and assumptions can be supported.

Keywords: immigration, human trafficking, I-914, Sex trafficking, T-Visa