Gov. Glenn Youngkin laid out his plans to address human trafficking during an annual conference Tuesday, saying the Trump administration has been a shot in the arm to state law enforcement as it attempts to tackle the elusive issue.

Youngkin, joined by Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares and other state attorneys general, compared human trafficking enforcement to addressing transnational gangs.

"We must have multi-state and federal support in order to dismantle the networks, not just arrest an individual, we've got to unpack the networks," Youngkin told a crowd of a few hundred.

The Trump administration has been a boon to human trafficking enforcement efforts, Youngkin said, noting he met with top Justice Department officials at the White House after the inauguration to discuss the matter and found them receptive. Virginia law enforcement has since been coordinating with the federal government to take down foreign gang operations, which Youngkin said overlaps with the human trafficking space. Youngkin used the example of gang crime inside correctional centers, which he said was the first "thread" his team pulled.

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"We were able to unpick [MS-13 gangs] from their phones," Youngkin said. "What we found was an immense network being run out of incarcerated criminals, and once the FBI tools and the Homeland Security tools and the state police tools could all be unleashed, in the FBI regional headquarters here in Northern Virginia, a map went up on the wall of the organization, and it's just like any other work chart."

Miyares said in an interview with Fox News Digital he made requests to the Biden administration for an interagency task force to address MS-13, Tren de Aragua and other gangs but that the requests were made "on deaf ears." He said that, by contrast, the Trump administration has acted quickly.

"It's not just drug trafficking. Human trafficking is a huge component of it.… Within 30 days, [the Trump administration] had both approved it and given us interagency space at the FBI field office in Manassas, a huge space where we had both federal, state and local law enforcement working together," Miyares said.

In March, the U.S. attorney for Eastern Virginia announced the task force had made 342 arrests, "many of them with illegal status," and that 81 had "gang or transnational crime affiliation."

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Human trafficking violations are governed largely by the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, a law passed more than two decades ago. Incidents can involve a person forcing or coercing another person into performing labor or sexual acts. The perpetrators tend to target children, women and vulnerable people, such as those living in economic hardship, fleeing natural disasters or struggling psychologically.

Youngkin said human trafficking is an "ill-defined" problem.

Miyares echoed those sentiments, saying human trafficking violations were "multifaceted." He cited instances of missing children in his state and an arrest made in 2022 after migrants were discovered working illegally in a laundry facility in Williamsburg.

West Virginia Attorney General JB McCuskey told Fox News Digital in an interview after the event that trafficking cases "all look so very different" but that foster children in his state were particularly susceptible. He said he hopes to harness artificial intelligence to use data across agencies to get a firmer grasp on the issue.

"I think the biggest next step is building these communication bridges between agencies.… Because once a kid is found, [police] need to know everything immediately, and it needs to all be in one centralized place so that a correct decision can be made very, very quickly," McCuskey said. "Because these things happen fast, and a kid's life can be ruined in a day and a half because an adult made the wrong decision based on bad intervention."

The U.S. State Department found that the human rights situation in South Africa has "significantly worsened" over the past year, citing reports of "extrajudicial killings" and repression against racial minorities.

The State Department conducts an annual review of the human rights situations in countries across the globe, and it targeted South Africa with new criticism in the 2025 report released Tuesday. The report, scheduled to be sent to Congress on Tuesday, pointed to the U.S. receiving several reports of the South African "government or its agents" carrying out extrajudicial or arbitrary killings, as well as repression of Afrikaner minorities.

"In July the provincial police commissioner confirmed that as of April, police shot and killed at least 40 criminal suspects in shoot-outs. On September 2, police reported six suspects wanted for homicide and extortion were shot and killed by Durban police in a shoot-out. According to Reuters, eight of the police officers involved were placed on administrative leave with full pay pending investigation," the report said.

"Watchdog groups noted deaths in custody often resulted from physical abuse combined with a lack of subsequent medical treatment or neglect," it continued.

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"According to data compiled by Agence France-Presse, there were 447 murders on farms and smallholdings between October 2023 and September 2024. In recent years, extremist political party the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) encouraged attacks on Afrikaner farmers, reviving the use of the song "Kill the Boer [Farmer]" at its rallies and otherwise inciting violence," the report added.

The State Department went on to criticize wider repression tactics against Afrikaners, citing The Expropriation Bill of 2024, in particular. The legislation allows the government to seize land without compensation in some circumstances.

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"This act could enable the government to seize ethnic minority Afrikaners’ agricultural property without compensation, following countless government policies designed to dismantle equal opportunity in employment, education, and business, and extreme rhetoric and government actions fueling disproportionate violence against racially disfavored landowners," the report said.

President Donald Trump confronted South African President Cyril Ramaphosa at the White House during a state visit in May.

Trump has claimed that White Afrikaner South African farmers are being slaughtered and forced off their land. The Afrikaners are descendants of mostly Dutch settlers who first arrived in South Africa in 1652.

"Now this is very bad. These are burial sites right here. Burial sites — over a thousand — of White farmers. And those cars are lined up to pay love on a Sunday morning. Each one of those white things you see is a cross. And there is approximately a thousand of them," Trump said at the time. "They're all White farmers. The family of White farmers. And those cars aren't, driving, they are stopped there to pay respects to their family member who was killed. And it's a terrible sight. I've never seen anything like it. On both sides of the road, you have crosses. Those people are all killed."

South Africa denies claims of genocide and harassment, as does its president.

"I'm not going to be repeating what I've been saying," Ramaphosa said at the May visit. "I would say if there was Afrikaner farmer genocide, I can bet you these three gentlemen would not be here, including my Minister of Agriculture. He would not be with me."