Despite receiving more funding to help tackle human trafficking in Texas, Attorney General Ken Paxton's Office secured less than half the number of convictions during the pandemic than it did four years ago.
The Houston Chronicle reported that Texas is the second highest in the nation for reported human trafficking cases. According to World Population Review, Texas ranks 10th highest in the nation in terms of human trafficking rate, which is 3.59 for every 100,000 people and comes in second based on volume, totaling 1,080 cases.
"I started a human trafficking unit my first year in office. And I did it because — largely because of the border," Paxton told then-President Donald Trump in 2019 during a Border Security Roundtable. "We have the second-highest human trafficking rate in the country. Over 300,000 people are victims of that crime every year. That's the research. Houston is the worst city in America and so we're addressing that."
The state's funding for the human trafficking unit increased by a factor of four from $740,000 in 2019 to more than $3 million in 2022. According to the Houston Chronicle, this was prompted by Paxton successfully pressuring the legislature to make such an increase.
Even with that extra cash, the attorney general's office didn't have any human trafficking convictions in 2020, and only produced four in the following year compared to 10 total in 2018. The Houston Chronicle reported two of the four cases in 2021 resulted in what's known as "deferred adjudication" which could give those defendants a chance to avoid having the conviction on their records. This comes as the state broke a record by opening 24 cases in 2021.
"Based on the numbers provided, the number of convictions are disappointing," Sen. Joan Huffman (R-Houston), a former prosecutor, judge and chair of the Senate Finance Committee, said in a statement to Hearst Newspapers, the parent company of the Houston Chronicle. "With limitations on prosecutions due to the pandemic and current law only allowing the Office of the Attorney General to assist in the prosecution when the local district attorney requests assistance, there are definitely obstacles to overcome if the number of prosecutions is to increase."
The Polaris Project saw an increased number of calls during the pandemic, and a 22% uptick in the amount of online parties recruiting people to be trafficked, the Houston Chronicle reported.
According to statewide data on the Texas Attorney General's office website, local authorities made 20 more human trafficking arrests in 2020 than they did in 2019.
"Attorney General Paxton has no higher priority than ending modern-day slavery, and our team is working tirelessly to prosecute these vicious, evil criminals," Alejandro Garcia, a spokesperson with Paxton's office, told the Houston Chronicle.
The Houston Chronicle reported a former staffer once noted in an exit memo that the agency had the resources "but not the output, to effect change in eradicating human trafficking in the State of Texas."