People smuggling

Human Trafficking or Human Smuggling? Why the Two Crimes Aren’t Interchangeable

Human smuggling centers on transportation and evading the immigration laws of the United States, according to ICE. Human trafficking is based on the exploitation of people by fraud, force or coercion.

Human trafficking is also broken into two categories: sex trafficking and labor trafficking.

While sex trafficking relates to a person who is forced to engage in a commercial sex act, labor trafficking is when a person is subjected to involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage or slavery.

"This case of transporting people is being described as trafficking when it's about smuggling," Denise Brennan, a professor at and chairwoman of the anthropology department at Georgetown University, told NBC News. "It's about the transport of individuals. They're going to be transported over borders that they don't have legal access to cross. That's not trafficking."