Women were routinely denied food and water until they were willing to submit to intercourse with the crew. And the abuse suffered by smuggled immigrants frequently continues even after arrival in the United States. Those who are apprehended and placed in INS detention are, in one sense, the lucky ones. Some were severely tortured and threatened with death if they could not secure payment quickly enough to satisfy their creditors. It is particularly important to remember that, among those who enter into this devil's bargain by contracting with smugglers to reach the United States, many do so because it is their only means of escape from countries where they suffer profound violations of basic human rights.
International law protects the right of all individuals to flee in such situations.
Those who exercise this right no longer benefit from the protection of their home countries and, thus, are entitled to special protection by the international community. The United Nations Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, on which the 1980 Refugee Act was grounded, outlines U.S. obligations towards those who meet the requirements of refugee status. We must be conscious of these obligations, grounded in fundamental principles of human rights law, when formulating a domestic legal framework for dealing with those who attempt to enter the United States clandestinely. I do not contend that all, or even most, of those who attempt to enter the United States in this manner fall into this category. From our perspective, this is the wrong pressure point to solve the problem.