The Contractable Victim

This chapter theorizes the racial figure of the modern-day slave in antitrafficking discourses and in the particular legal scheme of the Violence Against Women Act’s T visa, a temporary form of protection designed to address severe forms of human trafficking. The chapter analyzes the racial and gendered formations of injury, cooperation, and restoration produced through the modern-day slave as a category of the human. Interpretations and articulations from legal and social advocates discuss federal funding for the T visa and antitrafficking networks as well as complex expectations placed on advocates to participate in immigration raids, in addition to reflections on the limits of a “rescue” that places survivors and advocates in contact with enforcement.