Texas reports more human trafficking cases than any state except California. Since 2007 the National Human Trafficking Hotline has identified 10,997 trafficking cases in Texas involving 24,876 victims,1 and a 2016 University of Texas study estimated that roughly 313,000 people in Texas are victims of trafficking at any given time.2
Elijah Rising has been combatting human trafficking in Houston since 2012. One of the ways we educate people about trafficking in Houston is through our Awareness Van Tours. What people say most often on our van tours is that they had been driving past these buildings for years without registering them: a cantina off the freeway, a spa in a strip center, a house on a street where families live.
No one has a comprehensive count, because most trafficking is never reported. What the existing research shows:
The research shows us that there is a real need to not only prevent human trafficking but also provide services for the people who are survivors of this egregious crime.
If you have taken a training course or a college class on this subject, you have probably seen the question: a UT School of Social Work study found that at any given time, there are approximately ______ victims of human trafficking in Texas. The answer is 313,000.
The figure comes from Human Trafficking by the Numbers, a 2016 study by the Institute on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault at the University of Texas at Austin.2 The researchers did not count reported cases, which miss most victims. They estimated prevalence: how many people in high-risk populations fit the legal definition of a trafficking victim, whether or not anyone ever filed a report. That method is why the number dwarfs the case counts, and why the study is still the Texas benchmark almost a decade later.
Texas shares more border with Mexico than any other state, and I-10, I-35, and I-45 run from that border through San Antonio, Houston, and Dallas to the rest of the country. This creates an easy access point to move people across the country.
Then there is the size of the economy. Texas has three of the country’s ten largest cities and its busiest port by tonnage. Construction, agriculture, and hospitality here run on cheap labor, much of it undocumented and unlikely to call anyone. The commercial sex market runs through illicit massage businesses, cantinas, strip clubs, hotels, and online ads.
None of it would exist without buyers, which is the part that rarely makes the news. Texas eventually wrote that into law (more on that below).
Trafficking follows people and money, so it concentrates in the big metros and travels the corridors between them.
Houston is the epicenter. It ranked first among the 100 largest U.S. cities for cases reported to the hotline from 2007 to 2016,4 and the Texas Attorney General’s task force found the Houston metro has the highest number of online trafficking ads per capita in the state.5 We have written a separate, deeper page on human trafficking in Houston.
We can be specific about Houston because it is where we work. Elijah Rising began in 2012, the year a cantina called La Costenita on the east side was shut down after seven years as a brothel. Investigators found girls as young as 14 living in sheds and plywood rooms. Our first negotiated closure was Angela’s Day Spa near the Galleria, which was trafficking Thai women. Since then our teams have gone out on outreach more than three dozen times a year, and we have driven more than 11,000 people past locations like those on our Awareness Van Tour.
Dallas-Fort Worth and San Antonio carry the same pattern at scale: large populations, major highways, big commercial sex markets, and heavy labor demand. San Antonio sits directly on the I-35 corridor from the border. DFW is one of the country’s largest metro areas and a national logistics hub.
Smaller cities and rural Texas are not exempt. Cases have been identified in oil field towns, agricultural regions, and along every major highway. People email us to ask whether their town is “one of the big trafficking areas.” Usually the honest answer is that nobody knows, but our experience shows us that traffickers exploit people wherever there are vulnerabilities. It doesn’t matter if it is urban or rural, large or small.
Texas Penal Code Section 20A.02 makes trafficking of persons a felony. The law covers both labor and sex trafficking. Trafficking means compelling someone into labor or commercial sex through force, fraud, or coercion. Trafficking is generally a second-degree felony, and it becomes a first-degree felony, with sentences up to life, when the victim is a child or the case involves aggravating factors.6 For anyone under 18 in commercial sex, the standard is stricter still: no force, fraud, or coercion needs to be proven at all.
Texas has also moved against the demand side. Since September 2021, soliciting prostitution has been a state jail felony in Texas rather than a misdemeanor, and the state Attorney General’s office called Texas the first in the country to punish sex buyers with felonies.7 The argument for it was that demand is what pays for the trade.
This is a summary, not legal advice. The Attorney General’s Human Trafficking Section handles enforcement questions, and the full statutes are public.6
Most victims pass through public places, gas stations on the interstate, clinics, schools, hotels, where somebody could notice. Signs worth taking seriously:
In Texas specifically, we would add: pay attention around illicit massage businesses, cantinas that operate as fronts, truck stops along I-10, I-35, and I-45, and labor sites that house their own workers. A federally funded survey of Houston construction workers found more than one in five had experienced labor trafficking,8 an industry most people never think to look at.
Any one of these has an innocent explanation. Several of them at once, especially when someone else keeps answering for the person, is worth a phone call.
The Attorney General’s office runs a dedicated Human Trafficking Section and a statewide prevention task force that coordinates prosecutors, law enforcement, and state agencies.5 The Texas Health and Human Services Commission operates a Human Trafficking Resource Center, and state law requires human trafficking prevention training for healthcare workers and other licensed professionals.9 On the criminal side, the 2021 solicitation law moved enforcement toward buyers,7 and prosecutors have kept grand jury resources pointed at trafficking networks rather than individual arrests.
Because trafficking goes on unreported, there are many challenges in shutting down establishments that exploit others. Identification still begins with a person noticing something and picking up a phone. Ministries like Elijah Rising help women out of trafficking and provide safe housing and programs to help them get back on their feet.
If someone is in immediate danger, call 911.
Otherwise, call the National Human Trafficking Hotline at 1-888-373-7888 or text 233733. It operates around the clock, it is confidential, and it takes reports in more than 200 languages. The hotline routes tips to law enforcement and connects victims with services anywhere in Texas.
If you are not sure whether what you saw counts, call anyway. The specialists on the line sort that out for a living.
A number like 313,000 makes this look like a problem only a government could touch. What we actually see is smaller and slower: one woman leaving one place, usually after months of somebody showing up.
Go through the Sex Trafficking Museum. It is online, so you can do it from anywhere in Texas. The exhibits cover how trafficking operates here, including illicit massage businesses, cantina bar brothels, and street prostitution.
Go on an Awareness Van Tour if you can get to the Houston area. We drive groups past real locations while survivors, investigators, and law enforcement officers explain what they are looking at. The tours are free, and more than 11,000 people have taken one since 2011.
Volunteer. Our intervention and outreach teams run on volunteers, and plenty of roles never involve field work.
Give. Donations fund survivor care and keep our teams on the streets.
And wherever you are in Texas, put 1-888-373-7888 in your phone now, while you are thinking about it.
How can you tell if someone has been trafficked?
Look for the cluster: someone else controlling their ID, money, or movement; scripted answers; fear of authorities; signs of abuse or exhaustion; a minor in any commercial sex situation. No single sign proves trafficking, and victims rarely identify themselves as victims. If the pattern is there, call the hotline at 1-888-373-7888 and let specialists assess it.
What is Texas doing to prevent human trafficking?
Texas runs a statewide prevention task force out of the Attorney General’s office,5 operates a state Human Trafficking Resource Center with mandated training for licensed professionals,9 and in 2021 became the first state to make buying sex a felony.7 Identification is still the weak point: an estimated 313,000 victims,2 and 900 identified cases in 2023.3
What are the 5 P’s of human trafficking?
The framework most governments actually use is the “3 P’s” from the federal Trafficking Victims Protection Act: prevention, protection, and prosecution. The U.S. State Department later added a fourth, partnership.10 Versions with five P’s add policy. Which number you were taught depends on who wrote the curriculum.
What tier is the US in human trafficking?
Tier 1, the highest ranking in the U.S. State Department’s annual Trafficking in Persons Report.10 Tier 1 does not mean a country has no trafficking. It means the government meets the minimum standards for trying to eliminate it.
Last updated August 2026.
The mission of Elijah Rising is to combat human trafficking through prayer, awareness, intervention, and restoration.
