The National Human Trafficking Hotline is a vital resource for victims of sex trafficking looking for assistance and liberation, but the organization tasked with running it has been accused of mismanaging it by failing to report tips to law enforcement.
“The National Human Trafficking Hotline had long been an integral part of our work, until it was discovered a few years ago that the organization awarded the grant to run the Hotline, Polaris, was no longer sharing tips from concerned citizens and distressed family members with local law enforcement. Without those tips, our law enforcement loses critical leads to dismantling trafficking operations. We also lose valuable leads to rescuing the victims of trafficking and helping them begin the road to recovery,” the AGs told Kennedy.
Fortunately for Polaris, its co-founder and former president Katherine Chon is a senior adviser at HHS and its director of the Office on Trafficking in Persons, according to her LinkedIn profile. The notice of funding opportunity for the human trafficking hotline indicates that the Office on Trafficking in Persons within the HHS’s Administration for Children and Families is the awardee of the grant.
The attorneys general emphasized the importance of awarding the human trafficking hotline grant to an organization willing to cooperate with law enforcement by sending forward tips from the public. Despite their insistence, Polaris rejected the attorneys general’s advice and continued to operate without delivering tips to law enforcement.
“We cannot stress enough the importance of ensuring that this year’s awardee is committed to notifying law enforcement of tips it receives from a vigilant public. As Attorneys General, we spent years attempting to engage with Polaris in an honest dialogue about how vital those tips are to our efforts to help human trafficking victims. But in the end, we were unable to convince them of this necessity,” the AGs added.
The National Human Trafficking Hotline is a 24/7, confidential resource for victims seeking help or citizens with tips on potential trafficking activities. Since 2007, the hotline has identified more than 100,000 cases of human trafficking involving 197,000 victims, according to statistics the hotline compiled.
In January, Senator Ashley Moody (R., Fla.) highlighted the hotline’s failures when she questioned the Trump administration’s FBI Director Kash Patel at his confirmation hearing. Citing her experience as Florida attorney general, Moody said human trafficking exploded under former President Joe Biden because of his disinterest in enforcing federal immigration law at the southern border.
“It might shock you to know that the National Human Trafficking Hotline that was funded by Congress to report tips to law enforcement in the last four years decided that they would no longer report tips to law enforcement,” Moody said.
Polaris recently hired a new CEO after its previous executive Catherine Chen stepped down in December following four years of leading the organization. It is unclear if Chen’s departure was connected to the incoming Trump administration’s strong support for law enforcement.
Over two years ago, Moody was part of a similar group of 36 state attorneys general that sounded the alarm about the failures of the National Human Trafficking Hotline. The AGs lambasted Chen’s approach and said Polaris’s slow reporting system was hindering law enforcement’s ability to assist trafficking victims.
“Possibly more alarming, some states are reporting that they receive tips from the Hotline a month, sometimes two months, after a tip of suspected trafficking is reported to Polaris. If the Hotline is not promptly sharing tips with law enforcement, law enforcement cannot act to help victims of trafficking,” the National Association of Attorneys General wrote in a 2023 letter to congressional leaders of both parties.
After the attorneys general’s concerns were raised, then-HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra told Senator Cindy Hyde Smith (R., Miss.) that the department was working on restoring the hotline’s close relationship with law enforcement, the AGs said in the most recent letter.
The AGs are hoping to work with Kennedy on restoring the integrity of the hotline and partnering with it on tackling sex trafficking. The Trump administration’s top law enforcement officials have stated their intention to make sex trafficking a priority, especially in the context of curtailing illegal immigration and gang activities.
