It is estimated that one million people, mostly women and children, are trafficked around the world each year, lured into involuntary servitude and sexual slavery. According to the Somaly Mam Foundation, a non-profit public charity committed to ending modern slavery around the world, global slave trade generates $12 billion annually.

In an effort to bring these issues to light, the University of Florida Levin College of Law will hold a Human Trafficking Symposium on Jan. 28 from 4:30 p.m. – 8 p.m. in UF Law’s Chesterfield Smith Ceremonial Classroom (room 180). Co-sponsors of the event include UF’s Immigration Law Association, LexisNexis, CaribLaw, Asian/Pacific American Law Association, and the Hispanic and Latino/a Law Student Association. The event is free and open to UF students. Presentation Schedule:

4:30 p.m. – 5:15 p.m. – Luz Estella Nagle, a professor of law at Stetson University College of Law and expert on human trafficking, will speak about the impact of globalization on human trafficking.

5:15 p.m. – 5:30 p.m. – Break

5:30 p.m. – 7 p.m. – The Human Trafficking Project, a New York-based non-profit organization that utilizes art and technology to raise awareness of modern day slavery, connect those working to combat the issue and support trafficking survivors, will present a film about international child trafficking titled, “Holly.” This film addresses child sex slavery in Cambodia. For more information on the film and The Human Trafficking Project, visit http://traffickingproject.blogspot.com/2007/12/human-trafficking-film-holly.html.

7 p.m. – 8 p.m. – Panel discussion and food. Panelist, including Professor Nagle, Tyson Elliot, detective, Alachua County Special Victims Unit and Sherry Kitchens, president, Alachua County Human Trafficking Task Force, will discuss current efforts to combat human trafficking in Florida.

For more information regarding the symposium, contact Justin Bleak, president of UF Law’s Immigration Law Society, at justbleak@gmail.com or call 352-262-1300.

Professors Diane Mazur, David Hudson and Juan Perea put the current debate over immigration in historical context, discussing past amnesty acts and the military’s role in the situation.

The event, which was sponsored by CaribLaw, Military Law Student Association and the American Constitution Society, drew a standing-room-only crowd that stayed afterward to continue the conversation over a Thanksgiving feast.

“There is a pre-existing conception of what Americans are supposed to look like, sound like,” said Perea. Perea took the position that, absent overpopulation, or high unemployment, there is no real “immigration problem,” despite much media commentary to the contrary.

According to Perea, although the concerns about immigration are rarely expressed in racial terms, the problem that many people seem to have with Mexican immigration is that the immigrants have brown skin and they speak Spanish, therefore threatening a pre-existing conception of the United States as a predominantly white and English-speaking country.

With regards to the guest worker program, he said, it was nothing new and had been done in the 1910s, 20s and 50s. Mexican immigrants come, and are invited to stay, because the United States is so dependent on Mexican laborers.

He pointed out that Mexican immigrants invited in during times of labor shortage were then expelled when the shortages ended. Mass expulsions of Mexican laborers occurred during the depression and after World War II to make room for American workers in the job market. Many U.S.-born American citizens, children of Mexican laborers, were expelled from the U.S. together with their parents.

“It is a cycle of invitation and expulsion,” he said.

Hudson said the immigration questions to be asked were whether they should be allowed to stay, and under what label, adding that the slate was unclear on the issue.

He spoke of previous amnesty acts that allowed those who had been here for at least five years to become naturalized, but denied naturalization to family members who were not in the U.S. with them. There are some good things that can be repeated and some things that can be changed, he said.

Mazur, who served as a captain in the United States Air Force, spoke about immigration concerns with respect to the military.

She spoke about the tension caused by dual state-federal command over National Guard forces. State governors may not want to assign these forces to border patrol, but federal law prohibits the President from federalizing them for that purpose.

Mazur supported Congress’ role in limiting the president’s power over state militia, saying, “We blur this very important civil military boundary that I think is implicit in the way the constitution was written.”