New ABA President Pledges to Address Human Trafficking, House of Delegates Approves Immigrant Detention Standards

 

New ABA President Laurel Bellows during the association’s Annual Meeting in Chicago announced that, during her presidency, she will focus on issues that she said will make the ABA stronger and more relevant to lawyers, the nation and the global community, including ending human trafficking.

Approximately 100,000 U.S. citizens are victims of human trafficking in this country, and thousands more men, women and children are illegally trafficked into the United States each year. To deal with this issue, Bellows has established a Task Force on Human Trafficking in the United States, which will combat the sex and labor trafficking of adults and children in this nation. “The ABA will harness its considerable expertise to work to end the shameful horror of human trafficking in the United States,” Bellows stated. “We will mobilize the legal profession to pursue justice for victims of the modern-day slave trade and to launch a national public awareness campaign about this pervasive problem.”

Also, at the ABA annual meeting, the House of Delegates approved Resolution 102, which adopts the ABA Civil Immigration Detention Standards, which provide the Department of Homeland Security with a blueprint for developing civil detention standards and are designed to help DHS and Immigration and Customs Enforcement reform the U.S. immigration detention system.

KJ