‘A hidden crime' — Labor trafficking goes underreported in Wyoming, Montana

SHERIDAN — About ​​27.6 million people globally are stuck in cycles of forced labor.

The crime is a human rights violation, happening when individuals are “compelled against their will to provide work or service through the use of force, fraud or coercion,” as defined by the Department of Homeland Security. 

Those living in vulnerable conditions — struggling with poverty, living without strong support systems, suffering from disability or experiencing unstable immigration status and language barriers — are often targeted to work against their will under debt bondage and wage theft, often in difficult and inhumane living conditions.

But is it really happening in Wyoming?

Lt. Derek Morrell with the Sweetwater County Sheriff’s Office said the crime is prevalent across the state, perhaps even more so than sex trafficking. But labor trafficking goes largely unreported, slipping through the cracks and out of the minds of the general public. 

“It’s very hard to prove,” Morrell said. “But those are things that are a lot more prominent, they just don’t grab the headlines.”

While all forms of human trafficking are a concern, nine of Wyoming’s 17 confirmed cases National Human Trafficking Hotline in 2024 were labor-trafficking related. 

Wyoming-based calls, short message service reports and web chats to the National Human Trafficking Hotline in 2024 were labor-trafficking related. Three were related to the agriculture industry.

Labor trafficking continues to be “a hidden crime,” according to the South Carolina Law Review. Labor trafficking stays hidden from law enforcement under the guise of legitimate businesses and standard practices.

It fuels a cycle in which people in jeopardy choose not to disclose their situation because they fear the justice system will change nothing, and criminals continue to exploit without enduring any lasting consequences.

Cara Chambers, Director of Wyoming Division of Victim Services, said these human rights violations should be a concern.

“When you have a vulnerable population and you have your criminal who is willing to exploit humans, it’s a terrible combination for exploitation,” Chambers said.

How it’s happening

While few cases have enough evidence to be prosecuted in court, Morrell said labor trafficking crimes often take place in certain industries in the state.

“We see it a lot in agriculture, where people are brought up from different countries to run herds of sheep, cattle or work in the fields,” Morrell said. “I hate to say it, but your tourism areas, your hotels and the construction areas… they all have abundant issues with labor trafficking.”

In nearby Montana, Andrew Yedinak, a supervisory agent in charge of human trafficking for the Montana Department of Justice, said the state’s seen an unfortunate growth in labor trafficking cases corresponding with the state’s rapid population growth five years ago. 

“We see a lot of migrant victims being forced into labor trafficking in our construction industries, but we also see it in our hospitality industries, ranching industries, all across the board,” Yedinak said. “It’s becoming a bigger and bigger problem that we really want people to be aware of and willing to notify us about.”

Both Morrell and Yedinak said a person’s documentation and immigration status is often used to manipulate them. Sometimes perpetrators will withhold work visas or passports, effectively forcing them to work with no way out.

“They have you convinced that if you cooperate with law enforcement, if you tell them anything, they’re going to have you either deported or hurt your family back in your home country,” Morrell said. 

In Montana, Yedinak said he has witnessed people living in conditions mirroring those of modern-day slavery. He’s seen mothers being charged $600 a month to live next to basement storage, and men charged $300 to live in stairwell closets, often paying to use the kitchen and the bathroom. Meanwhile, these same people are working for their landlord and earning incredibly low wages.

“It gets to this point where the money they were supposed to be making, they’re incurred all this ‘debt’ to their trafficker that needs to be paid off so that there’s no money left over (to send back to family),” Yedinak said.

Despite these conditions, many are reluctant to come forward, and may spend years living in these conditions before anyone outside learns something is awry. Yedinak said this situation is only heightened by the current political climate as undocumented immigrants fear deportation.

“People have this misconception of law enforcement in some ways, that all we’re looking to do is find these illegal immigrants and arrest them,” Yedinak said. “That’s just not the case, at least not here in Montana. Those are the victims, and we see them as such.”

Another common industry for labor trafficking disguises itself as a legitimate business. 

A nationwide syndicate of illicit massage parlors became a booming industry in Montana and Wyoming, according to past reporting from The Sheridan Press. These businesses coerce their employees into performing non-penetrative sexual acts for paying customers.

Terri Markham, executive director of the Wyoming-based, anti-trafficking nonprofit Uprising, said the presence of illicit massage parlors in Wyoming communities is a continued concern at the intersection of both sex and labor trafficking. But she also has a growing concern for seasonal labor at hotels, especially when the workforce is brought in from other countries.

According to a 2025 report from Reuters, approximately one-third of hospitality industry employees in the U.S. are immigrants, with 34.3% working in housekeeping, and 24.4% in laundry and 24% in kitchens. Markham worries many of these employees working at peak tourist season are at risk for labor trafficking. Many labor trafficking tips that come through her office are related to this industry.

“As we have looked into it, (hotels) usually use third-party companies that they pay to supply this workforce, so it’s very hard to track down if there is actual trafficking occurring,” Markham said.

Often overlooked

Despite its presence, labor trafficking remains a hard crime for advocates and law enforcement to identify.

Nationwide sources, such as the South Carolina Law Review, claim labor trafficking has often taken a backseat to sex trafficking — generating less headlines than the other form of human trafficking. This has prevented law enforcement from acquiring the training and skills needed to investigate it.

Morrell said officers deal with a large variety of situations that could be labor trafficking. Oftentimes, they are civil disputes where an employer withholds a paycheck and not necessarily a full-blown labor trafficking case. Morrell said it takes an educated officer to know what to look for.

“We’re been trying to do that for the last several years — educate (officers),” Morrell said.

In Sheridan County, Sheriff Levi Dominguez said he is open to training related to labor trafficking for his staff. 

“If we’re seeing an issue within our community, we’ve got the ability to work with DCI or other federal law enforcement partners to where we could put together a task force and investigate those,” Dominguez said. 

From Morrell’s experience, the media's underreporting on this issue has prevented the issue from reaching the hearts and minds of the general public. But he said another obstacle comes from the grasp the traffickers have on their victims, preventing them from speaking to law enforcement and disclosing their information.

It keeps a majority of cases in the dark.

“It’s so hard to get them to cooperate,” Morrell said, adding that law enforcement sometimes focuses on equipping victims to get out of the situation, as the lack of evidence and victim cooperation makes it a difficult crime to prosecute.

“Sometimes it’s easier to say, ‘Hey, we’ll get you a bus to get out of here,’ or, ‘We’ll set you up with this place that can house you for a while, and you can get employment somewhere else,’” Morrell explained. “We try to look on the resource side of things of helping them out.”

In Montana, Yedinak said the Continued Presence Program with the Department of Homeland Security empowers victims to disclose their situation to the police without fearing deportation based on their immigration status. While it’s a positive start to catch more of these cases, Yedinak said DHS is the only federal agency that can offer this type of program.

“It puts a victim’s immigration status into what’s called a deferral status, and it means they’re still not here legally, but they can’t be deported,” Yedinak said. “They’re recognized as victims of this crime… They do have to cooperate with law enforcement, but we will also couple them alongside victim advocates that will then try, if it is the wish of the victim that they want to become a citizen, to work with them through that process to get their citizenship.”

The temporary immigration designation allows individuals to remain in the U.S. during the ongoing investigation, and the program applies to victims of sex or labor trafficking.

Yedinak said the program has been “a great success” in Montana, and law enforcement has recovered numerous human trafficking victims in the last two years and enrolled them in this program.

Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation Commander Ryan Cox said the state of Wyoming has not done extensive work with the Continued Presence Program, and labor trafficking cases are few and far between. 

The largest case Cox has seen related to labor trafficking was investigated by DCI, the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation, the Wyoming Department of Audit and the California Department of Tax and Free Administration 2016 and 2022. 

"The (U.S. attorney for the district of Wyoming) did not charge the labor trafficking and went with the charges listed in the article," Cox said.

Cox said Wyoming DCI partners with federal agents for these cases because they often cross over into other state lines or require resources more readily available at the national level.

“We most often partner (federally) on these (cases),” Cox said. “We rely upon their direction and their abilities and what they have in their toolkit to address these.”

Yedinak said law enforcement interaction and federal interaction holds traffickers accountable, but the issue should be a public concern, too. The crime is propagated when it lives in the darkness.

"The one thing that doesn't get talked about a lot is labor trafficking," Yedinak said.

This story was published on May 21, 2026.