Controversial anti-sex trafficking group is coming to Minneapolis

A controversial anti-sex trafficking group is planning to relocate to Minnesota and hoping to set up shop in a new city-owned public safety facility in Minneapolis.

The prospect that the group, Our Rescue, might be selected to train police on sex trafficking prevention in the new South Minneapolis Community Safety Center has drawn criticism from Minnesota anti-trafficking leaders who call Our Rescue’s approach outdated and poorly informed.

The city declined to discuss whether it planned to finalize any contract with Our Rescue. However, Our Rescue and other service providers said city staff informed them that they had been chosen.

Our Rescue was formerly known as Operation Underground Railroad. It’s moving from Salt Lake City to Minneapolis, where it plans to be part of the upcoming South Minneapolis Community Safety Center.

Operation Underground Railroad (OUR) was the focus of the hit 2023 Christian thriller movie “Sound of Freedom,” which depicts its former CEO Tim Ballard beating up traffickers and rescuing children from sexual slavery in Colombia. Multiple women later accused Ballard of sexual abuse under the guise of undercover role-play, and OUR ousted him following an internal investigation. Ballard denied wrongdoing. While Our Rescue has rebranded and hired new leadership, it continues to be named in a federal lawsuit.

Our Rescue’s new CEO Tammy Lee told the Minnesota Star Tribune she has experience in turning organizations around. “I go into burning buildings,” she said. “This was a burning building and there’s no doubt about it.”

But, the organization has completed a full turnaround, Lee said.

The South Minneapolis Community Safety Center is under development at 2633 Minnehaha Av. after the Third Precinct police station was torched amid the unrest following the murder of George Floyd in 2020. The city plans to house services related to human trafficking in the center alongside police when it opens in 2026.

In October, the city asked qualified organizations to apply for a place at no cost to Minneapolis. This means applicants would not compete for city money and would be expected to independently fund the services they provide.

While the city declined to discuss applicants, an Our Rescue news release last month hinted at its involvement in the center. Lee then told the Star Tribune that city staff had chosen Our Rescue to provide anti-sex trafficking law enforcement training.

Our Rescue hopes to equip Minneapolis police with AI technology to investigate online trafficking on the dark web and dogs trained to sniff out hidden electronic devices that may contain child sex abuse material. Its “trauma-informed” training helps police distinguish between someone who is doing voluntary sex work and a victim of human trafficking who should be helped, not handcuffed, Lee said.

The organization has also begun raising money to build a survivor care shelter in Minneapolis. It plans to move into its new headquarters in the Young Quinlan building at 901 Nicollet Av. this month.

“We have committed that we will offer at least $1 million in services for training and other support as part of being in there,” Lee said. “We very much wanted to be a part of Minneapolis’ commitment to ending human trafficking and fighting these heinous crimes, so we stepped up with a very large commitment to help lead in this fight.”

Our Rescue has drawn controversy over both its approach to fighting human trafficking and its characterization of the problem in Minnesota.

Our Rescue told the Star Tribune it’s moving to Minnesota partly because of the high amount of trafficking in the state. According to Lee: Minnesota is third in the nation for child sex abuse cases; Interstate 35W is a “hotbed” of victims being transported from Mexico to Duluth; the port of Duluth is a critical entry point for traffickers; and according to the National Human Trafficking Hotline, sex trafficking was the most common form of trafficking in Minnesota, with about one-fourth of victims being minors.

“We think that we are Minnesota nice, but it’s actually Minnesota nasty in terms of what’s happening right in our own backyard,” said Lee, who has done anti-trafficking work for several Minnesota companies.

The claims have riled local agencies, who say they’re unfounded.

“There have been no cases of port-related human trafficking in well over 20 years,” said Deb DeLuca, executive director of the Duluth Seaway Port Authority.

Minnesota Department of Public Safety spokesperson Laura Perkins said the state’s human trafficking investigators task force had no data on whether being smuggled along I-35 was an element of any sex trafficking cases.

As to the assertion that Minnesota ranks third in the nation for child sex abuse cases — it was once stated on a state court website. However, Minnesota Court spokesperson Kyle Christopherson said no one in his office knew the source of the oft-repeated claim, and old references to it are being removed.

Regarding statistics from the national hotline, longtime University of Minnesota researcher Lauren Martin criticized reliance on tips to extrapolate the prevalence of trafficking. The National Human Trafficking Hotline shows more sex trafficking than labor trafficking in all 50 states, she said, because it’s easier for people to recognize commercial sex when they see it.

“It’s harmful to take the most extreme, sensationalistic examples and put that out there because for a lot of people who are experiencing trafficking, that’s not what it looks like,” said Martin. “If people think that it involves chains, they might miss a huge swath of people who are experiencing emotional manipulation or economic exploitation, which are very common modes of trafficking.”

Three Twin Cities organizations that serve homeless and sexually exploited youths and adults — the Link, Cornerstone and the Family Partnership — also applied as a collaborative to work in the South Minneapolis Community Safety Center.

Beth Holger, CEO of the Link, said city staff told her in December that they wanted to contract for both survivor services and police training. The collaborative agreed. About a week later, city staff called back and said the police training aspect of the contract would go to Our Rescue instead, Holger said.

“Our Rescue does not operate with best practices for survivors of trafficking, so that part’s hard,” said Holger. “It was just really surprising, when the city of Minneapolis honestly has done a lot of really good work with us over the years on sex trafficking.”

Artika Roller, executive director of Cornerstone, said she did not think it was prudent for Minneapolis to align itself with an organization still dealing with its own sexual abuse controversy.

“I do know that this could be an attractive model for folks that like to rescue people and need some validation in that way, but that’s not what we’ve been centering in our community,” she said.

Minnesota has long taken a public health approach to sex trafficking that focuses on survivors’ needs — often for basics like housing and food — while limiting harms such as arrest. The research that has gone into the approach shows that people get involved with transactional sex for a myriad of reasons, and not all survivors of exploitation would be willing to be “rescued” by law enforcement.

Caroline Palmer, Safe Harbor director at the Minnesota Department of Health, coordinates anti-trafficking efforts across the state. She said Minnesota’s network of service providers and tribal nations are constantly gathering data and talking to people with experience in commercial sex to deliver accurate reports to the Legislature. Survivors show researchers what’s going on and where resources are needed, she said, cautioning against the plethora of bad data and outdated narratives that plague the anti-sex trafficking movement.

“As a state, we do welcome people who are committed to serving the needs of survivors,” including law enforcement, which also has a role to play, said Palmer when asked if there could be a role for an organization like Our Rescue. “Somebody coming new to the state, the hope would be that they see the model that’s there and work with the people who have put a lot of effort and time and commitment and passion into this model, and find a way to make that partnership work.”

Our Rescue has donated money and police dogs to several Minnesota agencies. The Hibbing Police Department and state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension have received dogs, and last month St. Cloud’s Terebinth Refuge and the Minnesota Indian Women’s Center in Minneapolis received grants.

“We look forward to earning the trust of our partners in the city of Minneapolis, law enforcement, other NGOs, training and education experts,” said Derek Benner, a former Department of Homeland Security human trafficking investigator who now oversees Our Rescue’s mission operations and survivor care. “We want to not only earn the trust, but look forward to contributing in a meaningful way to a problem that is so dynamic and ever-changing.”

Even though the contract for anti-sex trafficking resources in the South Minneapolis Community Safety Center is “no-cost,” staff will bring it to the City Council for review, according to city spokesperson Brian Feintech. It’s unclear when that might happen.

Dave Orrick contributed to this story.