Where’s the help promised for prostitutes, lawyer wants to know

By Timothy Pratt

Tuesday, May 8, 2007 | 7:38 a.m.

On Sunday, April 22, Metro Police held a news conference at 3 a.m. to reveal the results of a two-year-old federal and local investigation into a prostitution ring.

Apart from the odd hour, the case was noteworthy because it would be the first major test of the Anti-Trafficking League Against Slavery (ATLAS), a federally funded group formed this year to protect women brought to the United States against their will or through deception.

More than two weeks later it remains unclear where the 25 women swept up in the case are - physically or legally.

But at least one partner in the newly formed league said the women were not given the help they needed, pointing to a failure in its freshman effort.

The women captured in the sting allegedly were working as prostitutes, while seven people, mostly men, ran the business, according to authorities. Most of the men and women came from Asia.

The anti-trafficking league's work rests on coordinating law enforcement agencies, often the first to come across foreign women forced into prostitution, with different social services and immigration law agencies.

The idea is to gain the women's trust, offer them food and shelter and interview them about how they came to the U.S. If it is determined that they might be victims of human trafficking, they are led through the process of applying for a special visa that allows them to stay in the U.S. and build new lives.

But the one member of the league with expertise in the issue of immigration law - David Thronson, one of the founders of the UNLV immigration law clinic - was never contacted to help determine the status of the women in the recent bust or to advise them of their rights.

Additionally, Metro officials stated in newspaper accounts and interviews that the women would be deported, only to be contradicted later by other members of the league quoted in the press as saying the women would not be deported.

Other contradictions and unanswered questions make this initial attempt at springing the group into action less than a success.

"I think it shows we have a lot of room for improvement," Thronson said.

The UNLV professor has worked on human trafficking for years, helping organize a 2003 conference with federal officials, local law enforcement and national experts. He is one of the few immigration lawyers locally who has shepherded cases involving human trafficking victims through the federal law.

Several times in recent years federal officials have named Las Vegas as a potential hot spot for human trafficking, though a lack of data makes it difficult to confirm whether that is so.

The league was formed to make sure women who wound up in Las Vegas to work in prostitution or in other jobs would be located and helped.

Three days after the recent bust, when the Sun called Thronson to ask about how that process was working for the 25 women, he said: "I read about it in the paper."

Initial stories reported that police thought most of the women would be deported. But they also said police believed the women had been brought to the U.S. against their will or forced into prostitution , which means they could qualify for help under federal law and not be deported.

Thronson said the league is supposed to provide legal assistance in such a case.

"Under this set up, it (the assistance) should be me and no one else," he said.

But when Thronson called other members of the group, he was told there was no one to interview.

Terri Miller, director of the league and a civilian employee of Metro, would not comment on the case.

Lauren Hermosillo, who works under the federal grant at the Salvation Army to provide social services to victims of human trafficking, would not comment in detail. But she said federal immigration authorities were "never involved," meaning that none of the women faced deportation.

Virginia Kice, spokeswoman for the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency, said in an e-mail that she thought the agency might have checked immigration records for some law enforcement agencies involved in the bust, "but that was the extent of our participation." She later added that the agency could confirm whether any of the women faced deportation orders only if she knew their names.

Lt. Dave Logue, who headed the investigation for Metro's Criminal Intelligence Section, said last Thursday that police are "pretty much leaving it up to ICE."

"It appeared most of the women didn't have legal status ... (and) being in the country illegally usually means you're deported," Logue said.

But he also said: "Do I feel they're victims? Absolutely." Even so, he added: "Based on what I know , they will not be staying in this country. This can apply to most of them."

The next day the Review-Journal had a story with the headline, "Women nabbed in raid to stay." Metro officials were not quoted in the story, but Hermosillo was, saying: "We don't deport victims."

Thronson said he had seen Hermosillo earlier the same day for the first interview he had conducted during the whole case. That woman, he said, seemed ready to return to her home country of her own free will.

As for the other women involved in the bust, "I'm absolutely confident there is no ongoing interviewing services being provided," Thronson said. He also said he knew of no deportation orders.

In any event, it would be difficult to sort out what did or didn't happen, or what might or might not happen, to the remaining two dozen women found in several brothels last month.

"We don't know where they are," he said.