Morgan Hill is a city of approximately 45,000 residents located near Gilroy in southern Santa Clara County, California. Cases of prostitution (both at street-level and within adult-oriented businesses) and child sex trafficking have been reported in the city, and the area has been included in a list of sites targeted by the FBI’s anti-sex trafficking initiative Operation Cross Country.

In at least one instance, the Morgan Hill Police Department has consciously targeted underlying demand for commercial sex. In September 2006, the MHPD reported it had recently completed a web sting on Craigslist. Officers placed decoy advertisements offering and requesting commercial sex and arranged to meet with the individuals who responded. As a result, one sex buyer, one pimp, and one prostituted woman were arrested. All arrestees’ names and ages were released to the media. Following his arrest, the sex buyer reportedly told police “he needed to be released by a specific time to keep a dinner reservation with his wife for their anniversary.”

In October, 2008, three men were arrested for soliciting prostitution at a Morgan Hill hotel during a three-day nationwide child sex trafficking sweep conducted by the FBI. The Morgan Hill Police Department participated in the sweep, known as Operation Cross Country. On Oct. 23 and 24, officers from the MHPD Special Operations Division and the patrol division conducted a sting at a local hotel in an effort to arrest child sex traffickers and other sex crimes offenders. The hotel was not identified in the press release. The identities of the arrested individuals were publicly disclosed, and the list included men from Morgan Hill, Gilroy, and Hollister, CA. Nationwide, Operation Cross Country resulted in the arrest of 642 people for sex crimes, and the removal of 47 children from the cycle of victimization, according to the release. In the San Francisco Bay Area, 136 people were arrested. Eleven law enforcement agencies participated in the sweep.