Immigration-Linked Prostitution Cases Pose Challenge

Molina, who works with the District-based La Cl¿nica Del Pueblo and founded a Virginia-based human rights organization for Latinas, said many of the women go from poverty in their countries to poverty in the United States and find themselves bound emotionally, psychologically and economically to the men who brought them across the border. Breaking that bond is one of the biggest challenges, she said.

"It's a mixture of hatred and thankfulness," she said. "They know they are exploited and being abused, but this is the same person who helped them cross the border. This is the same person who helped bring all the members of their family and who is going to bring their children."

Last month, Molina said, she met a 28-year-old Mexican woman who became pregnant by her trafficker and had several other children. For about a day, Molina and others struggled to find a place for the woman's family to stay. Then she returned to her pimp.

"So the system lost her," Molina said. "We don't know where she is."

Scott Hatfield, chief of the human smuggling and trafficking unit for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said the agency takes a "victim-centered" approach to such cases, not deporting women who are found to be victims. He said federal officials often reach out to local police to teach them the signs of sex trafficking. One is whether someone else is holding a woman's travel documents. Another is whether she fears for her family, whether in the United States or overseas.

Montgomery County police, active in investigating this type of prostitution, said women travel well-organized circuits from hubs such as New York and New Jersey to states such as Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania.

"They might be in Prince William this week, in Philly the next week and then the following week here in Gaithersburg," Montgomery vice Detective Thomas Stack said. "We've come across address books and cellphones, and you can see there are brothels in every Latino community in the East Coast."

From the well-kept ledgers investigators have found, Stack said, they know the women average about 15 clients a day. In one case the total was 55.

Last year, Prince William police made 44 prostitution arrests. Although many of those cases were unrelated to immigration, Hess said the reach of rings that target Hispanic immigrants "is far greater than what we know."

Unlike massage parlors that sell sex, the prostitution rings are harder to track because they move from one short-term rental home to another. Hess said it is not unusual for police to receive complaints about a home, go to it and find evidence that the operation has just shut down. A search of a Hylton Avenue home led to several arrests, Hess said, but there was evidence that others had just left. Mattresses without sheets lay in every room with condoms and lubricants.

Police said the business cards are also a tip-off.

Last month, Leesburg police arrested a man and woman, both illegal immigrants from Mexico, on prostitution charges. Police said the suspects carried two business cards listing the cellphone number of the man, who would deliver women to the callers.

One card advertised mechanic work, the other housecleaning.