Immigration’s Morality Clause
For U.S. citizens, getting arrested on a misdemeanor charge might not pose an existential threat. But for the women targeted by DHS spa stings, it can upend their whole lives, and it doesn’t necessarily matter whether they’re actually engaged in prostitution. For those who have entered the country illegally, any encounter with authorities is fraught with deportation danger. Others may be here on valid tourist or student visas but not permitted to work, which means that even giving standard massages to pick up extra cash could be an official immigration infraction, thus triggering their removal. And even legal permanent residents can be arrested, fined, and jailed for up to 30 days if they don’t have their green card with them physically when federal agents show up.
Nor do those swept up in ICE’s vice stings necessarily have to be immigration scofflaws to face consequences such as deportation. Even legal permanent residents—i.e. “green card” holders—can be “removed” if found to be sex workers. Under the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, legal immigrants who have not been naturalized as citizens can become deportable for a variety of reasons, including managing or supervising a prostitution business, transporting someone for the purpose of prostitution, or committing crimes of “moral turpitude"—a nebulous concept defined at various points in immigration law as “conduct that is considered contrary to community standards of justice, honesty or good morals” or “an act or behavior that gravely violates the sentiment or accepted standard of the community.”
While federal officials don’t release data on how many people are deported for prostitution offenses or other crimes of moral turpitude, local news stories yield all sorts of stories suggesting that for some unlucky women, wiping a cop’s cum from their massage-table may be one of the last things they do outside bars in this country. And even when DHS isn’t directly involved in an initial sting, immigrant inmates may be held on immigration detainers by police who have agreements with federal authorities.
A 2016 sting on a massage parlor in Macomb County, Michigan, that led to the arrest of five Chinese women on prostitution charges has already led to the deportation of two of the women. Two others are still in custody, awaiting trial. The fifth woman, 50-year-old Meijuan Yu, just recently plead guilty to offering prostitution and was sentenced to two years probation—deferred so that Homeland Security could immediately take her into custody and get started on deporting her back to China.
On February 9, 2017, Homeland Security Investigations teamed up with two county sheriff’s offices to raid Donah’s Massage Therapy in Winnie, Texas, as part of an undercover investigation they’d been plotting since December. Three women—Song Ja Hyun, 59, Shunyu Quan, 53, and Ying Yu Jin, 53—were arrested and charged with misdemeanor prostitution; Jin was also charged with aggravated promoting prostitution, a felony. As of earlier this week, Hyun and Jin were being held in Chambers County Jail on ICE detainers, according to ABC affiliate 12 News Now.
In Amarillo, Texas, local police and Homeland Security worked “for months” investigating prostitution at the local Touch Spa. The fruits of their efforts? One 60-year-old woman arrested for prostitution in early February. “What we do with Homeland Security on this is standby and wait for them to give us information on what’s going on and for them to tell us, hey, we’re going to go in and make an arrest at this point,” Amarillo Police Officer Jeb Hilton told local News Channel 10.
if you’re interested in this, Policing Sexuality and Entry Denied are both very good books on the topic of US borders, racism, sex work, and migration.
Arrested for giving a hand job
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