Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2018

Floor Speech

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Mr. Chairman, I urge my colleagues strongly to adopt this amendment.

Attorney General Sessions' recent announcement to expand civil action forfeiture really allows local law enforcement to bypass State laws and seize property from people with the lowest possible burden of evidence and without concern whether the person is eventually charged or convicted.

While some will tell you this is necessary to go after big drug cartels, the reality is the median value of the adoptive forfeiture seizures has been around $9,000--not exactly the sign of any major drug trafficking operation.

These adoptive forfeiture efforts tend to target poor neighborhoods.

Between 2012 and 2017, the median value of assets seized by Cook County police was just over $1,000. In Philadelphia, in 2015, the median value was $192.

This policy does not discriminate between the innocent and the guilty.

With the responsibility on private citizens to prove their innocence, rather than law enforcement to prove guilt, innocent people without legal representation often never see their money or property again, and even those who are proven innocent have no promise that their property will be returned.

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Mr. Chairman, the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution exists to protect the citizens of this country from being deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. In practice and principle, adoptive forfeiture is a violation of that Fourth Amendment.

I urge my colleagues to support it.

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