Acting on an anonymous tip, Albuquerque authorities recently rescued 69 immigrants from a local stash house, with one man now facing federal charges.
KOB.com reports dozens of lives were saved by the raid, with all 69 of the victims being found in a trailer and as many as 26 of them being “observed lying on the floor of the main entryway attempting to hide under blankets."
A criminal complaint further details how dozens of males were found huddled together on the floor of two small rooms and about 14 females were stashed away in another small room.
“It seems like they’re doing it more and more often now,” said The Life Link’s Human Trafficking and Aftercare program director Lynn Sanchez. “And the conditions are atrocious. Often times they don’t have running water, there’s lack of food. They see dollar signs. And they have total disregard for their health, for their safety.”
With the victims now in the hands of government officials, experts say the real work now begins in earnest.
“The first thing we do is try and stabilize them because they’re in crisis," Sanchez added. “How they’re going first of all be safe, and then secondly where do they need to go where’s their support system do they have a support system."
Many of the victims told authorities the people in control often used threats, physical harm and coercion to keep them in line and make sure they did not attempt to flee from the home
“They talk about being gang raped, they talk about being beaten all the time, being humiliated,” added Sanchez. “A lot of them reported being in the same exact clothes for over thirty days. They were given a tortilla a day, they didn’t have food.”
Sanchez added her law enforcement partners report there’s been an increase in these types of busts in the last year, especially over the last three months.
“The trauma around that is very you know psychological, it’s physical, it’s emotional, it’s sexual trauma, it’s all of that," she said, adding the public is one of the best tools to help investigators stay on top of such abuse by immediately reporting it anytime they come across it.
