Can the FBI just arrest Greg Abbot?

[moniss]

73. I hear you

but would point out that the migrant making a decision on their own to take a trip is one thing but these folks seem to have been targeted and bamboozled into thinking that things were waiting for them that the people "arranging the trips and getting signed waivers" knew was baloney. As far as liability goes, if the "arrangers" try to fall back on the idea that they were just repeating what they were told would be the case they would have a responsibility of reasonableness. In other words if you go out on the street selling trips to Jupiter leaving next month you don't escape liability just because the guy running the scam told you that it was true.

The chain of liability for making false promises/representations to these folks goes all the way back to the source of that info. Whoever started the lies rolling will have to defend against that and the only questions that need to be asked in court are "when and how did you verify the claims you made about jobs and conditions before you proceeded further and passed that information to others?" Abbott of course cannot defend it and isn't really worried in any event because he feels there will be no legal repercussions and that he will in fact get a political boost. He's probably right in that assumption but the fact remains that it is illegal to falsely entice or physically coerce someone into being transported across state lines for a financial gain or illegal purpose. The statutes for fraud and/or human trafficking are broad enough to make a case for action by DOJ. Abbott is receiving financial gain from this.

I would just point out that there have been several major migrant labor cases in the last few years where DOJ has used the fraud/trafficking/kidnapping statutes with respect to people similarly making false promises to workers about great jobs if they just go along with them. Then the folks are taken to a place half-way across the country and put under guard while they pick crops etc. Then it's on to the next place. Some of these people had been captive for years. Of course the people doing the guarding/transportation all claimed everybody came of their own free will and were free to leave at any time. Of course they couldn't leave because they had no money because their captors were keeping it so their slaves didn't run off. It was heartbreaking to see video of the ghastly conditions they were kept in and just how badly the physical/mental toll had been on them. Of course the growers/owners all claim they never knew a thing. "Harvest of Shame" never went away. They just got better at dressing it up a little or hiding it altogether.