Human Rights Enforcement Act
Floor Speech
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I rise today to speak in support of the Human Rights Enforcement Act of 2009, which the U.S. Senate approved unanimously on November 21, 2009, and which the House of Representatives will consider today. This narrowly tailored, bipartisan legislation would make it easier for the Justice Department to hold accountable human rights abusers who seek safe haven in our country.
I would like to thank the lead Republican cosponsor of the Human Rights Enforcement Act, Senator TOM COBURN of Oklahoma. This bill is a product of the Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law. I am the Chairman of this Subcommittee and Senator COBURN is its ranking member. I also want to thank Judiciary Committee Chairman PAT LEAHY of Vermont and Senator BEN CARDIN of Maryland for cosponsoring this bill.
For decades, the United States has led the fight for human rights around the world. Over 60 years ago, following the Holocaust, we led the efforts to prosecute Nazi perpetrators at the Nuremberg trials. We have also supported the prosecution of human rights crimes before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, and the Special Court for Sierra Leone.
The world watches our efforts to hold accountable perpetrators of mass atrocities closely. When we bring human rights violators to justice, foreign governments are spurred into action, victims take heart, and future perpetrators think twice. However, when human rights violators are able to live freely in our country, America's credibility as a human rights leader is undermined.
Throughout our history, America has provided sanctuary to victims of persecution. Sadly, some refugees arrive from distant shores to begin a new life, only to encounter those who tortured them or killed their loved ones.
Two years ago, the Human Rights and the Law Subcommittee heard compelling testimony from Dr. Juan Romagoza, who endured a 22-day ordeal of torture at the hands of the National Guard in El Salvador. Dr. Romagoza received asylum in our country but later learned that two generals who were responsible for his torture had also fled to the United States. We also learned that our government was investigating over 1,000 suspected human rights violators from almost 90 countries who were in the United States.
The Human Rights and the Law Subcommittee has worked to ensure our government has the necessary authority and resources to bring perpetrators to justice and to vindicate the rights of people like Dr. Romagoza.
In the last Congress, the Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law held hearings which identified loopholes in the law that hinder effective human rights enforcement. In order to close some of these loopholes and make it easier to prosecute human rights abuses, Senator COBURN and I introduced the Genocide Accountability Act, the Child Soldiers Accountability Act and the Trafficking in Persons Accountability Act, legislation passed unanimously by Congress and signed into law by President George W. Bush that denies safe haven in the United States to perpetrators of genocide, child soldier recruitment and use, and human trafficking.
We also examined the U.S. government agencies which bear responsibility for investigating human rights abusers and how to increase the likelihood that human rights violators will be held accountable.
There are two offices in the Justice Department's Criminal Division with jurisdiction over human rights violations. The first, the Office of Special Investigations, also known as OSI, which was established by Attorney General Richard Civiletti in 1979, has led the way in investigating, denaturalizing and removing World War II-era participants in genocide and other Nazi crimes. I want to commend OSI for its outstanding work tracking down and bringing to justice Nazi war criminals who have found safe haven in our country. Since 1979, OSI has successfully prosecuted 107 Nazis.
Just this year, OSI deported John Demjanjuk to Germany, where he is on trial for his involvement in the murder of more than 29,000 people at the Sobibor extermination camp in Nazi-occupied Poland. Demjanjuk came to the United States in 1952 and lived in Seven Hills, OH. During World War II, Demjanjuk allegedly served as a guard at a number of concentration camps. Lanny Breuer, the Assistant Attorney General of the Criminal Division, said, ``The removal to Germany of John Demjanjuk is an historic moment in the federal government's efforts to bring Nazi war criminals to justice. Mr. Demjanjuk, a confirmed former Nazi death camp guard, denied to thousands the very freedoms he enjoyed for far too long in the United States.''
In 2004, Judiciary Committee Chairman PAT LEAHY's Anti-Atrocity Alien Deportation Act, enacted as part of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act, further strengthened the Office of Special Investigations by statutorily authorizing it and expanding its jurisdiction to include serious human rights crimes committed after World War II.
The Domestic Security Section, which was established more recently, prosecutes major human rights violators and has jurisdiction over the criminal laws relating to torture, genocide, war crimes, and the use or recruitment of child soldiers. In 2008, the Domestic Security Section and the United States Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida obtained the first federal conviction for a human rights offense against Chuckie Taylor, son of former Liberian president Charles Taylor, for committing torture in Liberia when he served as the head of the Anti-Terrorist Unit. Taylor and other Anti-Terrorist Unit members engaged in horrific acts of torture, including shocking victims with an electric device and burning victims with molten plastic, lit cigarettes, scalding water, candle wax and an iron. Then-Attorney General Michael Mukasey said, ``Today's conviction provides a measure of justice to those who were victimized by the reprehensible acts of Charles Taylor Jr. and his associates. It sends a powerful message to human rights violators around the world that, when we can, we will hold them fully accountable for their crimes.''
The Human Rights Enforcement Act would seek to build on the important work carried out by the Office of Special Investigations and the Domestic Security Section by creating a new streamlined human rights section in the Criminal Division. My bill would combine the Office of Special Investigations, which has significant experience in investigating and denaturalizing human rights abusers, with the Domestic Security Section, which has broad jurisdiction over human rights crimes. Consolidating these two sections would allow limited law enforcement resources to be used more effectively and ensure that one section in the Justice Department has the necessary expertise and jurisdiction to prosecute or denaturalize perpetrators of serious human rights crimes.
This consolidation will also enable more effective collaboration between the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement in identifying, prosecuting, and removing human rights violators from the United States. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has been at the forefront of the federal government's efforts to bring war criminals to justice and is currently handling over 1,000 human rights removal cases involving suspects from about 95 countries.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Justice Department have complementary jurisdiction over human rights violations and partner closely in their efforts to hold accountable human rights violators. In some instances, where prosecution for a substantive human rights criminal offense is not possible, Immigration and Customs Enforcement can bring immigration charges. For example, Immigration and Customs Enforcement recently filed administrative charges against the two El Salvadoran generals who are responsible for the torture of Dr. Romagoza, which took place before the enactment of legislation prohibiting torture in the United States.
With the creation of a new streamlined human rights section in the Criminal Division of the Justice Department, Immigration and Customs Enforcement will have a stronger partner in the Justice Department to collaborate with on human rights violator law enforcement issues. This bill would require the Attorney General to consult with the Secretary of Homeland Security as appropriate, which means the Attorney General shall consult with the Secretary of Homeland Security on cases that implicate the Department of Homeland Security's jurisdiction and competencies.
The consolidation of the two sections in the Criminal Division of the Justice Department with jurisdiction over human rights violations would not affect or change Immigration and Customs Enforcement's existing jurisdiction over human rights violators. Immigration and Customs Enforcement will continue to have primary authority for removing human rights violators from the United States through the immigration courts.
At a hearing of the Human Rights and the Law Subcommittee on October 6, 2009, the Justice Department and Immigration and Customs Enforcement expressed strong support for combining the Office of Special Investigations and the Domestic Security Section. However, since the Office of Special Investigations is statutorily authorized, the Justice Department needs Congressional authorization to move forward on merging these two sections.
The Human Rights Enforcement Act also includes a number of technical and conforming amendments, including: 1) technical changes to the criminal law on genocide (18 U.S.C. 1091) that the Justice Department requested in 2007 to make it easier to prosecute perpetrators of genocide; 2) clarifying that the immigration provisions of the Child Soldiers Accountability Act apply to offenses committed before the bill's enactment; 3) a conforming amendment to the Immigration and Nationality Act required by the enactment of the Genocide Accountability Act; and 4) a conforming amendment to the material support statute, made necessary by the enactment of the Genocide Accountability Act and the Child Soldiers Accountability Act, making it illegal to provide material support to genocide and the use or recruitment of child soldiers. These technical changes will facilitate the government's ability to prosecute perpetrators who commit genocide or use child soldiers.
Dr. Juan Romagoza survived horrible human rights abuses, and had the courage to flee his home and find sanctuary in the United States, where he became an American and made great contributions to our country. We owe it to Dr. Romagoza, and countless others like him, to ensure that America does not provide safe haven to those who violate fundamental human rights. From John Demjanjuk, who helped massacre over 29,000 Jews during World War II, to the Salvadoran generals responsible for torturing Dr. Juan Romagoza, we have a responsibility to bring human rights violators to justice.
I thank my colleagues for supporting this legislation and hope it will be enacted into law soon.
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