This Week's Inquirer: Shipping migrants north is reprehensible. But is it ‘human trafficking’?

Critics were quick to call politicians' decisions to ship migrants north 'human trafficking.' That may not be a correct description, but that doesn't make it any less reprehensible.

When Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis loaded 50 people onto planes and dropped them in Martha’s Vineyard last week, he participated in an activity in which human beings were treated as possessions to be controlled and exploited — and that’s, as Hillary Clinton said on MSNBC, “literally human trafficking.”

Or is it?

Merriam-Webster’s definition of the term adds a few words, calling it “organized criminal activity in which human beings are treated as possessions to be controlled and exploited (as by being forced into prostitution or involuntary labor)” [emphasis added].

We can dismiss the parenthetical as merely an example, but “organized criminal activity” is the crux of the definition, and in DeSantis’ case, a lot harder to prove.

Read the full column at Inquirer.com.