Sabrina Talukder, a staff attorney at The Legal Aid Society’s Exploitation Intervention Project, is featured in a new article by Vice addressing the policing of massage workers in the wake of the deadly Atlanta shooting last week.

Concerns now run high among immigrant and sex-worker advocates across the nation that the high-profile incident may result in a law enforcement crackdown on massage businesses on the pretext of liberating sex trafficking victims. Advocates assert that, in fact, such a crackdown will amount to workers in legitimate businesses as well as exploited or trafficked workers – many of them undocumented immigrants – being arrested and subjected to the criminal justice system, and perhaps even deportation.

“They go in and arrest people for prostitution,” said Talukder. About half of Talukder’s caseload, she said, includes people who worked at massage businesses and have been arrested. “They do not come out wrapping blankets around trafficking survivors. They come out with people in handcuffs, arrested for deportable offenses.”