Federal sex-trafficking prosecutions have fallen to their slowest pace since 2010 despite the Trump administration repeatedly describing human trafficking as a major Justice Department priority. A Reuters review of federal court records found prosecutors charged 73 people with sex-trafficking offenses through June, about 22% below the average for the first six months of the previous three years.
The decline in Trump sex trafficking prosecutions comes as current agents, former prosecutors and victim advocates say staffing shortages, funding reductions and the diversion of federal personnel to immigration enforcement have disrupted investigations. Justice Department officials dispute the suggestion that the issue is no longer a priority and say the administration remains committed to trafficking cases.
Trump Sex Trafficking Prosecutions Fall Sharply
Reuters examined publicly filed federal criminal cases and interviewed 25 former prosecutors, current agents and victim advocates. The analysis found only 73 defendants charged with federal sex-trafficking offenses through June 2026.
That was approximately 22% below the average number charged during the same six-month period over the previous three years and represented the slowest pace since 2010. Related federal sex-crime prosecutions also declined.
The Justice Department charged 1,230 people with child-pornography offenses through June, roughly 3% below the recent three-year average. Mann Act cases involving interstate prostitution fell more sharply, with 318 people charged, about 18% below the comparable average.
The decline was not confined to sex crimes. Reuters found federal charges for non-immigration offenses overall fell about 7% through June to approximately 22,000 defendants.
Immigration Enforcement Has Absorbed Federal Personnel
Former prosecutors and current agents told Reuters that immigration enforcement is one important explanation for the slowdown. Homeland Security Investigations personnel who traditionally worked trafficking, narcotics and financial-crime cases have been assigned heavily to the administration’s deportation effort.
That creates an unavoidable resource tradeoff. An agent spending weeks supporting immigration raids is not simultaneously building a complex trafficking investigation involving financial records, reluctant witnesses and potentially traumatized victims.
Reuters previously found that the majority of HSI agents were assigned to immigration duties during part of last year. People familiar with current operations said some offices have so few remaining investigators that supervisors compete for personnel to pursue existing trafficking cases.
The administration is entitled to make immigration enforcement a priority. It should also acknowledge the opportunity cost of reallocating investigators rather than implying federal law enforcement can dramatically expand one mission without affecting others.
Experienced Prosecutors Have Left the Department
Staffing problems extend beyond investigators. Seven former prosecutors with trafficking experience told Reuters that dozens of veteran Justice Department attorneys familiar with the cases have recently left federal service.
Trafficking prosecutions are unusually labor intensive. They can require investigators to follow money, reconstruct coercive relationships, obtain digital evidence and maintain trust with victims who may fear both traffickers and government authorities.
A shortage of experienced prosecutors can therefore stop a case even after investigators have developed evidence. Current and former officials described situations in which agents had difficulty finding federal prosecutors with enough capacity to take investigations forward.
The Justice Department’s national trafficking coordinator, Alessandra Serano, said attrition is not unusual because the work takes an exceptional emotional toll. She also said the department is actively hiring to rebuild staffing.
Justice Department Says Trafficking Remains a Priority
Administration officials reject the conclusion that lower prosecution numbers mean the government has abandoned trafficking enforcement. Attorney General Todd Blanche told Congress that combating human trafficking remains a department priority because of the seriousness of the harm involved.
The administration also appointed Serano, a career prosecutor, as national coordinator for child exploitation and human trafficking. She argued that lower numbers could partly reflect prosecutors spending substantial time litigating complex existing cases rather than opening new ones.
The Justice Department told Reuters that its own data show a smaller decline than the news organization’s court-record analysis. DOJ declined to provide sufficient underlying case figures for Reuters to replicate its result using publicly available information.
That disagreement is precisely why transparency matters. The department should publish standardized annual data on investigations, indictments, convictions and sentences so Congress and the public do not have to rely on competing methodologies.
Victim Support Grants Have Been Delayed
Investigations also depend on organizations that help victims remain safe and stable enough to cooperate with prosecutors. The Justice Department’s Office of Justice Programs typically distributes roughly $90 million annually in grants supporting emergency shelter, food, counseling and other services for trafficking victims.
Some nonprofit groups told Reuters that grants had been frozen or delayed amid the administration’s broader federal spending cuts. A Los Angeles organization, Saving Innocence, said two grants totaling $700,000 were delayed for nearly a year.
Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward said most grants from the previous year had been awarded and that remaining applications were being reviewed for consistency with administration priorities. Fiscal oversight of grants is appropriate, particularly when federal programs have weak controls or questionable outcomes.
But cutting a program without considering whether it provides essential support to criminal investigations can produce savings on paper while making prosecution of serious crimes more difficult. Lawmakers should examine whether grant delays are reducing federal case capacity or merely shifting costs elsewhere.
Immigration Policy Can Undermine Victim Cooperation
Perhaps the most serious problem identified by advocates involves trafficking victims who lack secure immigration status. Federal authorities have historically used T visas to give qualifying trafficking victims lawful status and encourage cooperation with criminal investigations.
The administration approved 354 T visas during the first six months of the current fiscal year, roughly half the typical pace over the previous decade. More than 71,000 applications are pending, according to DHS data cited by Reuters.
Immigration lawyers also described cases in which people cooperating with trafficking investigations were detained by immigration authorities. That creates an operational problem because witnesses may conclude that speaking with federal investigators creates a greater personal risk than remaining silent.
Government cannot effectively prosecute traffickers if victims believe cooperation may lead to detention or removal. Clear safeguards for qualifying witnesses can strengthen enforcement without creating a blanket exemption from immigration law.
Enforcement Priorities Need Clear Tradeoffs
Trump campaigned on restoring law and order and has repeatedly presented trafficking as a particularly serious crime. A federal government that aggressively pursues immigration violations while allowing trafficking investigations to stagnate would struggle to reconcile its stated priorities with measurable results.
That does not mean immigration enforcement should stop. It means federal agencies should assign personnel according to the severity of threats and ensure specialized investigators are not routinely diverted from cases requiring years of expertise.
Congress can help by requiring agencies to report how many HSI and FBI personnel have been reassigned from trafficking and exploitation work. Lawmakers can also examine whether grant reductions are producing meaningful savings or merely shifting costs to local governments and charities.
Clear numbers would improve the debate. If the administration believes Reuters’ prosecution figures understate its work, publishing comprehensive official statistics would provide a stronger response than assurances alone.
Sex Trafficking Enforcement Is a Test of Government Capacity
Human trafficking is precisely the kind of crime that justifies a serious federal role. Networks frequently cross state and international borders, rely on financial transactions spanning jurisdictions and exploit victims who may have limited ability to seek help from local authorities.
A limited-government approach does not require an ineffective government. It requires government to concentrate resources on functions it can legitimately and uniquely perform, including investigating organized criminal enterprises and protecting victims who assist prosecutors.
That makes the decline in federal sex-trafficking prosecutions worth scrutinizing without turning it into a simplistic partisan accusation. Some factors predate Trump, and DOJ says complex cases and staffing turnover complicate the raw numbers.
But the measurable decline is real in the court records Reuters reviewed. If trafficking is genuinely a top administration priority, the Justice Department should demonstrate that priority with personnel, transparent data and successful cases rather than relying primarily on rhetoric.
