Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act of 2017
Floor Speech
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, I wish to join my bipartisan group of colleagues who have been coming to the floor to talk about the very important bill that we are debating and are going to be voting on here in about an hour; that is, to help protect our children all across this country from the horrible scourge of human trafficking and sex trafficking. The Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act that we are debating right now is important for the whole country, and it is certainly important for my State of Alaska.
We have a big problem in Alaska with the challenges of domestic violence and sexual assault at some of the highest rates in the country. We also have a big problem with the challenges of human trafficking and sex trafficking. A lot of people think that doesn't happen in America. It happens in America. It is a horrible issue to talk about, but it happens in our country.
There was a study done last year on young men and women in Alaska receiving services from a homeless shelter for teenagers. My wife Julie actually works at this homeless shelter, and one in four girls and one in five boys who used the services of this teen homeless shelter reported being victims of sex trafficking. This is a horrible number for a very vulnerable society. We need to do more to address this issue.
In this legislation, we are taking the fight to one of the places in this country where human trafficking and sex trafficking are really exploding, and that is the internet. The bipartisan legislation we are debating right now will ensure that websites and other institutions on the internet and the companies related that knowingly--and that is an important word, ``knowingly''--facilitate sex trafficking can be held accountable for their actions. It will also create new Federal crimes related to promoting or facilitating human trafficking over the internet and give more resources to State prosecutors to go after these heinous crimes.
In the remarks from a whole host of Senators this morning, I think we are seeing that we are going to make real progress in the fight against online sex trafficking without threatening the years of progress we have made in creating a free and open internet. Senator Portman, one of the leaders of this effort, along with many others--Senator McCain and his wife Cindy have been real champions and advocates for human trafficking issues throughout America; Senator Blumenthal and so many other Senators have been saying that this is a commonsense, targeted approach to addressing this very big and growing problem.
We are going to vote in about an hour, and I hope all of my colleagues will do the right thing and vote on these amendments that are put out there as helpful amendments, but, to be honest, they are meant to bring down the bill.
We cannot allow our children, whether in Alaska or across the country, to be lured into this kind of Hell--and the more we hear in terms of testimony, the more we recognize that what is going on over the internet in this area is Hell mostly for the youth of America.
Our children should not be sold online or anywhere else. Unfortunately, it is happening, and it is happening a lot, largely because of the internet. The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children reported, from 2010 to 2015, an 846-percent increase in the number of children being trafficked--an over 800-percent increase in America.
A lot of Americans think: Wait, really? That is a problem in Asia, Southeast Asia, or other countries. But it is a growing problem in the United States of America, and we need to address it.
As others have said on this floor, sex trafficking has moved from the street corner to the smartphone, where it is much more difficult to detect and much more difficult to stop, and it is one of the reasons we see this dramatic increase in rates of human trafficking in our country.
In the Commerce Committee, we had a hearing that covered this bill. Some members of the tech industry were opposed, but I think the overwhelming support that came out of that hearing was driven by the real-world tragedies we started to hear from hundreds--thousands-- across the country that have occurred because of really lax laws and immunity on the internet that was not intended for companies or individuals who deal in sex trafficking and human trafficking. What we saw from the report and the investigations that Senator Portman and others did was that actually was what was happening.
For example, Senator Blumenthal earlier today talked about the very tragic, sad, and moving testimony we heard last September in the Commerce Committee from Yvonne Ambrose, whose 16-year-old daughter Desiree Robinson was trafficked online by a pimp on the website, Backpage. She was later raped and murdered by a 32-year-old man who found her on that website. She was an American citizen, a 16-year-old girl. If you had watched her mom's testimony of in front of the Commerce Committee, you would be voting for this bill today.
Her mom ended her riveting and very sad testimony by saying: If there were stricter rules in place for posting on these websites, then my child would still be here with us today. It was a wrenching story and, unfortunately, one that too many American mothers and fathers are telling us.
We are going to vote on this today, and I hope all my colleagues vote for more progress. As the Presiding Officer knows, on this issue, there is actually positive progress that has been going on in the Congress. A lot of times, when they read the news--my constituents back home in Alaska and Americans throughout the country--they are always hearing about conflict and how there is no progress in the Senate. We have some difficult issues; there is no doubt about it. But on a lot of issues there has been bipartisan progress, and in this area of human trafficking, there has been significant bipartisan progress to finally start addressing this growing problem in America--which, again, is remarkable when you think about it--of young men and women trafficked for sex in this country.
In 2017, we passed on a bipartisan basis the Abolish Human Trafficking Act; in 2015, we passed the Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act. Both were introduced by my friend and colleague, Senator Cornyn of Texas. Senator Thune has been a leader on these issues in the last couple of years in passing the No Human Trafficking on Our Roads Act and Combating Human Trafficking in Commercial Vehicles Act, which focused on the big problem we have seen in terms of the transportation system in America being used for human trafficking. In the Judiciary Committee, we passed Chairman Grassley's bill, the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act, which brought more services to victims of these heinous crimes.
We are making progress, no doubt about it. But--and this is a very important point--despite this strong record of addressing human trafficking, when it comes to these crimes, some of the biggest things we need more of in America to address them, because they are growing, are resources--resources. To put it bluntly, there are too many cases, there is too much of this happening, and there are not enough resources, money, or prosecutors to put the bad individuals who are doing this behind bars.
Many of these cases involving human trafficking are Federal crimes that usually require Federal prosecutors to go after these Federal offenses. As we all know, there are limited numbers of assistant U.S. attorneys and Federal investigators to do this. So what have we done? What have we done in the past few years? What are we doing today in this vote to help address this? We have begun to change this issue of resources to go after the perpetrators of these heinous crimes in a much better way by allowing State attorneys general and State district attorneys to actually prosecute these crimes, even though they are Federal crimes. We are doing something in the law that says: We need more prosecutors, we need more investigators, and we need more resources. Let's unleash those in the States to help us address this growing problem throughout our country.
So we are doing that, and we did it for the first time in the Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act in 2015. This bill, for which Senator Cornyn was the lead, actually incorporated a bill that I had authored and had a lot of cosponsors on called the Mann Act Cooperation amendment. We put that in as part of the broader bill in 2015.
The Mann Act is the Federal law that makes it a criminal offense to transport someone across State lines for the purposes of prostitution and human trafficking. In my experience back home in Alaska, as attorney general, we had challenges in this regard. As a matter of fact, there was a very notorious case of a bad man--a very corrupt man--who a lot of people knew in Alaska, and he was engaged in this kind of activity with young girls from the Native villages in my State. We investigated it and realized that he violated not a State law but a Federal law. It was very clear that it was a human trafficking violation of the Mann Act.
When I was attorney general, my office went to the Feds, and we said: Here you go. Here is the evidence. This guy violated the Mann Act. He is a bad man. He should go to jail. We need to send a signal.
It is a rather long story. It is a sad story. But for whatever reason--I have wondered for years, and I have looked into this for years--the Federal Government wouldn't take the case.
I said to the Feds: Then, let my prosecutors take the case. We will take the case. You just need to cross-designate us. Let the State attorney general's office take these Federal laws and prosecute them against this guy. We will do it.
They still didn't allow us to do it. There were rumors in Alaska: Hey, what was going on here? Was there some kind of deal cut between the Feds and this guy who was a really bad guy and who was in jail for something else?
When I got to the Senate, I said: We are not going to let that kind of injustice happen again.
That was an injustice. A man who violated the Mann Act and clearly committed the crime of human trafficking is a free man right now. That shouldn't be the case.
As part of the Justice for Victims of Human Trafficking Act in 2015, we had a provision. My bill essentially said this: If a State attorney general brings a Mann Act case--a human trafficking violation case, Federal case--to the Attorney General of the United States, saying that we need to be cross-designated to prosecute--maybe the Feds don't have the resources; maybe they don't have the time--then, the Attorney General of the United States shall allow the cross-designation for more State attorneys general to prosecute these cases, unless it would undermine the administration of justice. That is in the law. State attorneys generals right now can go prosecute Mann Act cases. That is more resources, more investigators, and more prosecutors.
That is going to be in the law that we are voting on today. One of the elements--an important element--of the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act, which we are voting on and debating now, is to allow State attorneys general the power and the authority to bring actions against those who violate Federal law for internet-based sex trafficking.
We are bringing the resources in these kind of cases. That is an important innovation in the development of the bill that we are voting on today. Just like in the previous legislation, State attorneys general can now bring these cases. If we pass this law today, that will mean more resources, more investigators, and more prosecutors for the perpetrators of these heinous crimes. To all the bad guys out there who are undertaking these crimes, when we vote to pass this legislation today, that is going to be a bad day for you because we are going to have more resources and the ability to put you in jail with this vote today.
As I mentioned, we have a big problem in this country. We have a long way to go in terms of human trafficking, sex trafficking, which is hitting all parts of America. Congress is focused on it, and I am hopeful that we will pass this legislation this afternoon for one more step in the right direction on addressing this issue.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Source