A 17-year-old girl was smuggled from Guatemala to the U.S. border over a grueling 10-day stretch.
Had she known what she would go through after arriving in the United States, she would not have made the trip, she later told investigators.
A relative of the teen, a 40-year-old West Palm Beach woman, was arrested by the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office’s Human Exploitation and Trafficking Unit while she was working at a Worth Avenue restaurant on Thursday afternoon. Investigators charged the woman with labor trafficking of a minor and with child neglect without great bodily harm. The woman is being held without bail at the Palm Beach County Jail, court records show.
The Palm Beach Daily News is not naming either the woman or the restaurant to protect the teen’s privacy.
The sheriff’s office began investigating the teen’s treatment last year after she reported it to the state Department of Children and Families, an arrest report said.
The girl told PBSO investigators she was smuggled from Guatemala to the U.S.-Mexico border, where she was taken into custody by agents of the U.S. Border Patrol. While in detention — the arrest report does not mention where she was held — the teen first contacted the woman, whose relationship to the teenager was redacted from the report released by the Palm Beach County Clerk’s office.
Border Patrol agents asked if the woman was willing to sponsor the teen as an unaccompanied minor entering the U.S., and the woman said yes, the arrest report said.
The two had not met before the teen arrived in the U.S. They soon met in person when the teenager arrived on June 4, 2023, at Palm Beach International Airport. There, investigators said, the woman and her three children whose ages ranged from 13 to 17 years old picked up the teenager and took her to their home in West Palm Beach.
There, investigators said, the teenager stayed for three or four months while being forced to work and made to pay for rent, food, a couch to sleep on, medical care — all “basic life necessities” that are required by state law to be provided to minors, the arrest report noted.
The teen was forced to pay $470 a month for rent, which was due on the 30th of every month, the report said. The woman also charged the girl $60 every Sunday for food, the cost of her cellphone bill and $500 for a sofa as a place for the teen to sleep in the family’s living room, investigators said.
The woman also made the teen pay $100 for fake documents to be able to work and $120 for work uniforms, the report said.
When the teen first went to live with the woman, she said she wanted to enroll in school. It’s unclear if that happened.
It appears from the arrest report that within two weeks, the woman asked the teen to work. When a social worker from the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement visited for a welfare check, she told the woman that the teen could not work, and the woman could not make the teen pay for basic life necessities, the report said.
Instead, the woman found a job for the teen where she could work using the fake documents. The teen was let go from the first job because the business entered the slow season, so the woman found a new job for the girl, investigators said.
“When asked if the suspect had forced her to work, the minor victim stated she had not directly forced or threatened her to work but that she felt the suspect indirectly did force her and forgo her original plans of going to school when she placed all the debts on her in order to live at the home,” the arrest report said.
During this time, the teen was sick and asked to see a doctor. She told investigators that the woman said the teenager would have to pay out of pocket to see a doctor, and the woman would not cover that cost.
The teen went to work at a restaurant and hesitated telling investigators the name of the business because it provided her with food, the report said.
This was particularly important to the teen because the woman began restricting the girl’s access to food after the girl reported the woman to DCF and law enforcement, the report said.
After the teenager reported the situation to the DCF, the woman placed a camera in the girl’s living space, which made the teen feel even more uncomfortable, investigators said.
“The suspect also reportedly had told the minor victim that the welfare checks from the O.R.R. social workers were becoming cumbersome,” investigators wrote. “The suspect demanded the minor victim change her work schedule to avoid detection by the social worker that the minor was in fact working.”
About this time, the teen bought a bicycle to get to and from work because the woman said she would charge her for gas, the report said. The girl’s work hours were about 3 p.m. to midnight, and the girl told investigators she was scared sometimes to leave work so late and ride her bike home in the dark in a city and country that was unfamiliar to her.
While talking to investigators, the girl said that if she had known that she would have to pay so much money to be able to live in the United States, she would have waited to make the trip. She cried and said she felt trapped and didn’t know what to do, and that’s why she went to DCF for help, the report said.
“The minor victim was adamant that if the aforementioned conditions would have been known to her prior to arriving in the United States, she would not have made the voyage simply to be exploited and taken advantage of in America,” investigators wrote.
Starting Sept. 14, 2023, the girl was removed from the woman’s custody as PBSO investigated her care.
On March 26, investigators went to the woman’s home, where the woman confirmed some of what the girl has told police. When asked where the girl slept, she first took investigators to a bedroom with two beds and said the girl slept in one, but then recanted, the report said.
The woman confirmed that she knew the girl was under the age of 18. Much of what the woman told investigators during that visit to her home is redacted from the report.
Investigators said they found that the teen was exploited, threatened to work or be kicked out of the home and ordered to pay for basic life necessities.
“In addition, the disparity between the manner in which the suspect demanded payment for items from the minor victim and not from her own children who were similar in age makes her actions even more egregious and malicious,” investigators wrote. “At no time did the suspect appear remorseful for any actions.”
When the woman was arrested Thursday in Palm Beach, PBSO investigators were serving a subpoena on the business where she works to receive work records, the sheriff’s office said.
If you suspect a child is being abused, neglected or exploited, call the Florida Department of Children and Families’ 24-hour hotline at 800-962-2873.
Kristina Webb is a reporter for Palm Beach Daily News, part of the USA TODAY Florida Network. You can reach her at kwebb@pbdailynews.com. Subscribe today to support our journalism.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Daily News: Palm Beach restaurant worker charged with labor trafficking of a minor
