The end of a pandemic-era rule aimed at slowing the spread of COVID-19 across the United State's southern border had at least one Albuquerque-area anti-human trafficking advocate concerned about what might come next.
Lynn Sanchez, director of The Life Link's Human Trafficking Outreach & Aftercare department, said that her organization was bracing for a further strain on their resources in a KOB4 news story shortly before Title 42 expired.
"I think we were hoping that it wouldn’t be quite so soon," Sanchez said in the recent KOB4 news story. "We're all concerned about what this is going to mean. Because based on the numbers we saw just from the six operations in November and December, we’re talking, you know, hundreds and thousands of people."
The lead-up to the pandemic-era public health restriction Title 42 expiration and the pre-pandemic Title 8 restoration was greeted by widespread concern about chaos, particularly in Albuquerque, where concerns about migrants were already high.
KOB4's news story referred to drugs and 29 undocumented migrants from Mexico and Guatemala found by investigators in a small West Side Albuquerque house in late September, and three kidnapping victims and 58 undocumented migrants rescued by special agents in southeast Albuquerque in November.
The news story also mentioned the anonymous tip law enforcement received in December, leading them to 69 people in an Albuquerque trailer.
"Crimes are committed against them, you know, sexual assault, physical assault, the psychological abuse, physical abuse, so I think they endure a lot," Sanchez said.
With the expiration of Title 42, Sanchez said she feared more people would try to enter the U.S. and risk enduring similar dangerous situations.
"I don't know what the answer is, and really what’s going to happen in the next couple of months," Sanchez said. "But I imagine that it's going to be just a very unsatisfactory solution. Maybe they came into the country illegally, but it doesn't give somebody else the right to sexually abuse them or, you know, harm them in any way or steal from them and things like that."
Issued during the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, Title 42 allowed authorities to turn away migrants at the U.S. borders, ostensibly to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.
Migrant crossings across the U.S. southern border with Mexico dropped after Title 42 expired, according to various news reports, including CBS News.
KOB4 noted that all crime victims are entitled to receive help in New Mexico.
The Life Link partners with The New Mexico Dream Center and First Nations for clothing, medical care and transportation. The groups accept donations for hygiene products and other necessities.
"We should care about what happens to them," Sanchez said. "And we definitely do, but you know, I think as a society, you know, in the U.S., we should care about them."