ICE Agents Get Caught Paying for Sex in Sex Trafficking Scheme

Reason reported that Department of Homeland Security (DHS)  agents have been combating human trafficking by sending federal immigration agents to compel suspected victims into partaking in paid sex acts.

Authorities later used these acts to justify arresting women who consented to them, seized their assets, and tell the press it was these women who were the real predators.

Federal agents allegedly had at least 17 sexual encounters with “Asian females” who were employed in massage parlors around Mohave County, Arizona during a five-month period in 2018, per research from the Howard Center for Investigative Journalism at Arizona State University (ASU). According to internal ICE documents, these activities received the blessing of agents’ supervisors.

When it was all said and done, the multi-year operation only produced three misdemeanor charges coming from a single sexual encounter which authorities walked into during a raid.

Elizabeth Nolan Brown noted the following:

The Mohave County investigation—dubbed “Operation Asian Touch”—exclusively targeted Asian massage businesses and spas. Police from Bullhead City and Lake Havasu City began the investigation in 2016 after allegedly receiving reports that some employees at these businesses would provide erotic extras along with back and foot rubs.

Local law enforcement suspected that these businesses were likely fronts for human tracking after discovering that all of the masseuses were Asian women, according to a Homeland Security memo regarding the investigation. In the spring of 2018, Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) took on this case.

Nolan Brown highlighted the case of a Chinese immigrant Yuqin Shu:

One of the women charged in this operation was Yuqin Shu, an immigrant from China in her mid-50s who ran a licensed foot massage business in Bullhead City. Shu’s case first came to my attention last fall, via the Mohave Daily News, which reported that Shu’s lawyer was questioning how DHS agents having sex with suspected abuse victims helps protect national security.

“It is unclear how an ICE officer having sexual relations with human trafficking victims in Mohave County, Arizona, protects the nation from terrorist attacks or secures the borders,” stated attorney Brad Rideout in a motion attempting to find the real names of the undercover agents. The agents in question were identified in police documents only as “Arturo” and “Sergio.”

Such cases show the tough kind of work ICE has to put up with.

Like all government agencies, ICE must be held accountable when it’s in the wrong.

Nevertheless, its image should not be besmirched because of the wrongdoings of a few.

With increased immigration, however, America will continue to face socially tense situations like the one in Arizona if never-ending waves of migrants continue landing America.

A sensible way to handle these issues is by passing a moratorium on legal immigration and stopping illegal immigration in order to encourage assimilation and keep migration stable.

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