Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., expressed outrage after she saw tweets from a man who was questioned by U.S. Border Patrol on a bus.



One of these days, I hope people realize that the idea that ICE should be scrapped isn’t so crazy after all.



ICE jails children in for-profit detention centers funded by private equity grps. Kids are dying w/ 0 accountability. If that’s not totally broken, I don’t know what is. https://t.co/AlMgLiHVnu — Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) January 28, 2019



Putting aside the fact that comedian Mohanad Elshieky and Ocasio-Cortez mistook Border Patrol agents for ICE, the congresswoman from New York may want to consider all of ICE's functions before calling for it to be "scrapped."

ICE will be at the forefront of investigating the illicit sex trade at Super Bowl LIII in Atlanta this week. Yes, the same ICE synonymous with immigration enforcement will deploy teams of special agents to combat the sex trade in Georgia.

The Atlanta Division of ICE, specifically their Homeland Security Investigations division, is operating at full speed, even with the government shutdown. HSI has two complete investigative groups carrying out proactive enforcement operations leading up to and after the Super Bowl is over, targeting the felonious sex trade in the metro Atlanta area. ICE is partnered with numerous key law enforcement partners such as the Atlanta Police Department to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to the FBI in this initiative.

Last week, I reached out to DHS Press Secretary Tyler Q. Houlton to see what they had planned for the Super Bowl to thwart the sex trade. Houlton provided the following information:



“Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Atlanta is a key member of the Human Trafficking Operations component of the Super Bowl LIII Crisis Management Committee. As such, HSI Atlanta is partnering with various federal, state and local law enforcement partners to conduct proactive enforcement operations targeting the illicit sex trade, to include sex trafficking and child exploitation.”



According to Houlton, ICE is also going to employ undercover operations “designed to identify criminal organizations involved in child sex trafficking and those individuals seeking to have sex with minors.” At last year’s Super Bowl in Minneapolis, authorities made 90 felony arrests in similar operations.

Who takes part in the illicit sex trade? Last year, National Public Radio interviewed Marc Chadderdon, a criminal investigator in Minnesota, about sex trafficking and the Super Bowl. Chadderdon conducted undercover sting operations and “found that basically, the individuals we've arrested is a good makeup of our community. We've had every age, every race. We arrested a cop out of Texas. We've had teachers, we've had a department of corrections worker, a pastor. Every socio-economic background you can think of, we have encountered [paying for sex].”

The Polaris Project, a nonprofit with a mission to fight modern slavery, helps the public and private industries identify victims of sex traffickers. Polaris states the sex trafficking trade transpires in numerous venues “including fake massage businesses, via online ads or escort services, in residential brothels, on the street or at truck stops, or at hotels and motels.” The Polaris Project maintains the National Human Trafficking Hotline and one of the most comprehensive databases of human trafficking statistics. In the first half of 2018, 3,718 reports of sex trafficking were reported to their hotline.

The sex trafficking business doesn’t stop and end at the Super Bowl, it operates well beyond that one day a year. The sex trade is apparent at conventions and throughout the casino industry. A human body, whether a child, woman, man, or member of the LGBTQ community, is a profitable commodity in the sex trade. Homeland Security works sex trafficking cases year-round, not just the Super Bowl or special events. They also partner with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to raise awareness of the sex trade.

ICE tracks international organizations that fuel the sex trade. They recently tracked two sex trafficking brothers to Mexico that were operating a multinational criminal enterprise in the U.S. With these arrests, ICE showed that they will even track heinous sex traffickers outside our country.

Sex trafficking is a bipartisan issue. Anyone, whether a facilitator or those who pay for sex, is in the crosshairs of ICE and every federal, state, and local law enforcement official. I would ask Ocasio-Cortez to take a short walk down to the ICE headquarters a mile or so from the Capitol to chat with the men and women she wants to have unceremoniously “scrapped.”

Jason Piccolo (@DRJasonPiccolo) is a former Border Patrol agent, ICE special agent, and DHS supervisor. He is a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom and author of Unwavering: A Border Agent’s Journey from Hunter to Hunted .