Cameron County is located in the southernmost part of Texas, directly across the border from Matamoros, Mexico. The county has a population of approximately 423,000 residents and its county seat is Brownsville, TX. Prostitution and sex trafficking have posed to be persistent and visible problems within the county for at least two decades and have generated citizen complaints to police. Among the more serious issues associated with the county’s commercial sex market is international sex trafficking between the United States and Mexico. For example, in 2017, federal prosecutors unsealed an indictment against members of a southwest Texas gang, charging members of the Houston-based gang with sex trafficking and drug smuggling. According to the indictment, gang members would promise young girls from Mexico a job at restaurants the United States, where upon their arrival, the girls were sex trafficked in brothels in Houston and other locations in Southwest Texas such as Cameron County. Gang members tattooed their names on their victims. The gang was allegedly in operation from early 2009 until late 2017. According to the indictment gang members were charged with one count of conspiracy to commit sex trafficking by means for force, threats, fraud, or coercion; one count of sex trafficking of a minor by means for force, threats, fraud, or coercion; four counts of sex trafficking by means for force, threats, fraud, or coercion; one count of conspiracy to conduct transportation to engage in prostitution; five counts of transportation to engage in prostitution; conspiracy to entice and coerce another to travel in interstate or foreign commerce for prostitution; four counts of enticing and coercing another to travel in interstate or foreign commerce for prostitution; and a series of other drug trafficking charges.

Consumer level demand provides the revenue stream for all prostitution and sex trafficking, and has therefore been targeted by local law enforcement agencies as a strategy for prevention and response. Efforts to reduce the demand for commercial sex and sex trafficking have been implemented in numerous cities within the county such as Brownsville, Harlingen, and McAllen, since the late 1990’s, if not earlier. For example, in 2010, a street-level reverse sting conducted by the Brownsville Police Department resulted in the arrest of 12 male sex buyers. All 12 men were charged with soliciting prostitution and their identities and images were released by local law enforcement to media outlets. In 2015, a two-day reverse sting operation in Harlingen, funded by a Texas Border Star grant, resulted in the arrest of more than 30 male sex buyers for soliciting prostitution. The joint-operation was conducted by the Texas Department of Public Safety, Cameron County District Attorney’s Office, the Cameron County High Intensity Drug-Trafficking Area Office, and the City of Harlingen Municipal Court. In 2016, a similar operation, under the same grant, was conducted that resulted in the arrest of 15 male sex buyers in Harlingen. The offenders’ identities, photos, ages, locations, and charges were included in reports from local news sources. A third operation conducted in 2017, resulted in the arrest of 16 male sex buyers. Cameras were known to have been used by police to record both the 2016 and 2017 investigations.