ABSTRACT
Human trafficking presents numerous challenges for policymakers, law enforcement agents, service providers and others trying to formulate effective strategies to combat the practice. An essential first step toward creating a global environment in which all people can exercise their right to protection is to ensure that human trafficking is clearly defined and codified in the criminal statutes of all the world's countries. The challenges facing law enforcement officials in the US Mexico borderlands are obviously different from those in America's heartland. What is more than clear is that the current restrictive system promotes the exploitation of workers and the growth of criminality, and as long as it exists unchallenged, human trafficking will continue to flourish in the US Mexico borderlands. Particularly at the implementation phase, the challenges of cross-level coordination, conflicting political interests, limited resource availability, inconsistent definitions, regulations, and laws, and public ignorance and indifference, among other factors, create substantial barriers to formulating and implementing effective law enforcement strategies.
