18 U.S.C. § 1592
Section 1592 · Unlawful conduct with respect to documents in furtherance of trafficking, peonage, slavery, involuntary servitude, or forced labor
This is § 112 of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000
Amended 2 times on record
Applied in 23 court decisions — leading case United States v. Sabhnani (2010)
Most recently applied in United States v. Mohammad Chaudhri (April 2025)
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year.Markers show enactment, consequential amendments, and circuit splits over this section — watch for a citation surge after a change or a disagreement. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
(a) Whoever knowingly destroys, conceals, removes, confiscates, or possesses any actual or purported passport or other immigration document, or any other actual or purported government identification document, of another person—
(2) with intent to violate section 1581, 1583, 1584, 1589, 1590, or 1591; or
(3) to prevent or restrict or to attempt to prevent or restrict, without lawful authority, the person's liberty to move or travel, in order to maintain the labor or services of that person, when the person is or has been a victim of a severe form of trafficking in persons, as defined in section 103 of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000,
shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for not more than 5 years, or both.
(b) Subsection (a) does not apply to the conduct of a person who is or has been a victim of a severe form of trafficking in persons, as defined in section 103 of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000, if that conduct is caused by, or incident to, that trafficking.
(c) Whoever obstructs, attempts to obstruct, or in any way interferes with or prevents the enforcement of this section, shall be subject to the penalties described in subsection (a).
Editorial notes U.S. Code · Office of the Law Revision Counsel
References in Text
Section 103 of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000, referred to in subsecs. (a)(3) and (b), is classified to section 7102 of Title 22, Foreign Relations and Intercourse.
Amendments
2008—Subsec. (c). Pub. L. 110–457 added subsec. (c).