
Difference Between Human Smuggling and Human Trafficking
Difference Between Human Smuggling and Human Trafficking
Human Smuggling | Human Trafficking |
---|---|
Crime committed against a country. | Crime committed against a person. |
Persons are free to leave, change jobs, etc. | Persons are enslaved, subjected to restrictions, or had documents confiscated. |
Persons who are smuggled are complicit in the smuggling crime and are not necessarily victims of the crime. | Persons who are trafficked are victims of a crime. |
The person being smuggled is generally cooperating, voluntarily entering into an agreement with the smuggler. | Must contain an element of force, fraud, or coercion (actual, perceived, or implied), unless victim under 18 years of age is involved in commercial sex. |
Does facilitate the illegal entry of person(s) from one country into another. Smuggling always crosses an international border. | Does not need to involve the actual movement of the victim. There is no requirement to cross an international border. |

Select each card for more information.
Human Smuggling
Human Smuggling
Human smuggling is the facilitation, transportation, attempted transportation, or illegal entry of a person(s) across an international border, in violation of one or more countries' laws, either clandestinely or through deception, such as the use of fraudulent documents. People who are smuggled are complicit in the smuggling crime and are not necessarily victims.
-- from the United States Attorney’s Office: https://www.justice.gov/usao-ut/immigration
Trafficking in Persons
Trafficking in Persons
Trafficking in persons is the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining, patronizing, or soliciting of a person through the use of force, fraud, or coercion for purposes of commercial sex or the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person by force, fraud or coercion for purposes of forced labor. Trafficking does not need to involve the actual movement of the victim. People can be trafficked in their own cities. It is not necessary for the trafficker or victim to cross an international or state border. The person trafficked is a victim.
Case of Human Trafficking that Started as Human Smuggling
Case of Human Trafficking that Started as Human Smuggling
Smuggling cases can turn into trafficking cases. The following summary is from the U.S. Department of Justice press release about the Cadena case:
“After illegally smuggling women and girls into the United States, Cadena-Sosa and other family members imposed a smuggling debt and used brutal physical force and violence, sexual assaults, and threats of death and bodily harm to the victims and their families to compel the victims to engage in prostitution 12 hours a day, six days a week and turn over the proceeds to the defendants to pay down the smuggling debts the defendants imposed.”