Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2024

Floor Speech

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Mrs. WAGNER. Mr. Chair, I thank the chairman for yielding, and I thank the ranking member for his support of this amendment also.

Mr. Chair, I rise today in support of my amendment, which has been included in the bipartisan en bloc for the Department of Homeland Security appropriations bill.

Last year, there were over 32 million reports of online child sexual abuse material previously referred to as ``child pornography.''

That is an 89 percent increase since 2019 and equals over 87,000 reports per day of images and videos of children being raped and sexually exploited spreading across the internet.

Homeland Security Investigations, or HSI, is on the front lines fighting to locate and rescue these vulnerable children and apprehend their abusers.

My amendment would ensure that HSI receives the fully offset $24 million that they requested to investigate these unconscionable crimes.

Mr. Chair, Congress must do more to reverse this horrific trend, and I urge my colleagues to support this amendment.

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Mrs. WAGNER. Mr. Chair, I rise in support of my amendment to direct Customs and Border Protection to eliminate the serious delay in the Trusted Traveler Program application processing time, known as Global Entry.

I have heard from so many frustrated constituents who have paid for Global Entry, a $100 up front processing fee that is not cheap only to wait months in some cases for CBP to approve them for an interview. Those who succeed in getting to that point are finding that there simply are no interview slots available.

Today, Global Entry processing time averages 11 months. This is utterly unacceptable.

My amendment will direct CBP to do its job and get the situation and backlog under control.

I urge my colleagues to support this amendment.

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