Background

Trafficking visas can provide status for criminals.

Congress established the T visa program in 2000 through the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000, creating a nonimmigrant classification for illegal aliens who allege they are victims of a “severe form of trafficking in persons,” as defined by federal statute. To qualify, an applicant must establish that force, fraud, or coercion was used for the purpose of subjecting the individual to involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage, or slavery, and that the applicant is physically present in the United States on account of that alleged trafficking. Importantly, the statutory framework does not require that the applicant’s underlying conduct have been involuntary at inception, allowing claims to proceed even where the individual initially engaged in unlawful activity voluntarily.

As a legal matter, the T visa framework departs significantly from traditional criminal-law adjudication. USCIS—not a court—determines whether trafficking occurred, and relief may be granted even where no trafficking investigation is opened, no charges are filed, and no prosecution results. Law-enforcement certification is optional, and claims based on fraud alone may satisfy the statutory “means” requirement, even absent corroborated criminal findings, so long as the applicant can administratively link the alleged fraud to a qualifying trafficking purpose and satisfy the remaining statutory elements.

Once granted, a T visa provides substantial immigration benefits, including lawful status for up to four years, employment authorization, derivative benefits for family members, and eligibility for adjustment of status and eventual citizenship. As reflected in agency adjudications and advocacy guidance, fraud-based T visa claims are complex, fact-intensive, and frequently litigated, with denials often turning on technical elements—such as trafficking purpose, physical presence, or extreme hardship—rather than on any adjudicated criminal conduct. The result is an allegation-driven immigration benefit that operates largely independent of criminal enforcement outcomes, raising persistent concerns about evidentiary rigor, incentive structure, and program integrity.