Justice For Victims Of Trafficking Act Of 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, I am just going to say that I know the distinguished Senators from Vermont and Maine have been on the floor talking about an amendment they hope to offer to this anti-trafficking bill. But the sad fact is that no one is going to get to offer any amendments to this bill unless the Democratic leader, Senator Reid, decides that we are going to have an open amendment process because right now there are objections to anyone setting any of the amendments for votes, much less asking to set aside the pending amendment and making your amendment the pending amendment so it could be considered and scheduled for a vote.

I wish to make sure our colleagues understand the rationale because I have had conversations with a number of members of the Judiciary Committee, which voted unanimously to support this bill. That doesn't happen very often, that we have that kind of unanimous support. Ten of our Democratic colleagues are cosponsors on the original bill.

So it might sound strange that after 10 Democrats have cosponsored the bill, after all of the Republicans and all of the Democrats on the Judiciary Committee have voted to support this bill--and the minority leader, Senator Reid, has agreed to dispense with the normal procedural process to get the bill on the floor--that we would now have this unusual situation where this bill is being hijacked and being used to debate something that it really doesn't have very much to do about, and that is the subject of abortion.

Some of our colleagues raised this issue yesterday for the first time, and they said they were surprised to find some language in the bill that limited the use of the funds in this bill consistent with the Hyde amendment. The Hyde amendment is a prohibition against using taxpayer funds for abortion, and it has been the law of the land for 39 years--39 years. All our bill does is preserve the status quo when it comes to the Hyde amendment.

Then, all of a sudden, some of our colleagues woke up I guess yesterday morning and discovered this and said that they were outraged and that it was totally unacceptable. Well, when we offered them an opportunity to offer an amendment to change that, they said: No, we don't want an amendment. We don't want to change it by a vote of the Senate. We just want to block the bill. We want to kill the bill.

Unless something changes between now and the time we vote on cloture on the bill, that is what is going to happen because they don't want to amend the bill; they don't want to allow others the opportunity--such as the Senator from Maine and the Senator from Vermont--to amend the bill; they just want to kill the bill.

It really is baffling to me, on a topic we all ought to agree is an important one, where some of the most vulnerable individuals in our society--children who have been sex-trafficked--would be the beneficiaries of the bill, that we are for some reason debating a provision in the bill that was in the bill when 10 Democrats agreed to cosponsor it, when all members of the Judiciary Committee, including those same Democrats, agreed to vote for the bill, and when the Democratic leader agreed
to bring it to the floor unanimously by a vote of the Senate. All of a sudden we want to try to revisit a provision that has been the law of the land for 39 years.

I hope something happens between now and the end of the week that causes some of our friends to reconsider this idea that they are going to filibuster this bill which many of them cosponsored and for which many of them voted. It would be a real shame and a tragedy if something that was designed to help these vulnerable kids was killed in the Senate because this became a political football. That would be a shame.

I know the distinguished Senator from Utah is on the floor and ready to speak.

I yield the floor.

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Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, I thought I might take just a few minutes during this lull in our schedule. If other Senators come down to talk, I will yield to them, but I would like to talk a little about what is in this piece of legislation--the Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act. While I am on the Judiciary Committee and the Senator from Vermont is on the Judiciary Committee--he has worked together with me and others on this piece of legislation--I am aware of the fact there are many Senators for whom this is a relatively new topic and who have not been as immersed in it.

First, I would just say by way of major support that there are 200 victims' rights groups and law enforcement organizations that have endorsed this legislation--200 of them. I am looking forward to having a conference call with them this afternoon, where I can explain to them how we are currently stuck and to solicit their help in getting us unstuck so we can hopefully move this legislation along, have an open amendment process, and working with our colleagues in the House, send this important piece of legislation to the President.

As I said, more than 200 victims' rights and law enforcement organizations have endorsed this legislation, including Shared Hope International, Rights4Girls, the Fraternal Order of Police, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the National Children's Alliance, the National Criminal Justice Association, the End Child Prostitution and Trafficking organization, PROTECT, Alliance to End Slavery and Trafficking, the National Association of Police Organizations, the National Conference of State Legislatures, and the National District Attorneys Association.

I read that rather long list of supporting organizations to point out there is nothing political about this particular bill. This is neither a Republican bill nor a Democratic bill. This is, I think, in the best traditions of the Senate, the Congress, when Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle work together to come up with a policy solution that makes sense and that will help.

One of the key features of the Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act is the creation of a special Crime Victims Compensation Fund. It is called the Domestic Trafficking Victims Fund.

When I had the honor of serving as attorney general of Texas, we had a Crime Victims Compensation Fund--much like I suspect most States have--where people who commit crimes and who pay fines and penalties pay into that fund, and those moneys are then distributed on a grant basis by the State to help organizations such as the Court Appointed Special Advocates Groups--CASA--which I worked closely with as attorney general, and a number of crime victims' groups and other survivors of crime.

What we do is use that same model here. We take the money that is paid by people convicted of human trafficking, sexual abuse, child pornography, child sexual exploitation, interstate transportation for illegal sexual activity, commercial human smuggling, and we require a special additional assessment of $5,000 upon conviction for any one of this class of crimes.

In other words, one of the things we are trying to do is move from this model of just dealing with the supply side of a problem and deal with the demand side. We are trying to focus on the people who purchase these illicit services from trafficking victims and then use that fund to do some good, to provide grants to various faith-based organizations, nongovernmental organizations, and the like that help treat the victims of child trafficking and hopefully help them begin to heal once they are rescued from their abusers and their assailants.

The other thing we do, sort of from a structural point of view, is we don't treat a young girl who has been trafficked as the criminal. In other words, in the past there has been a tendency to say we are going to arrest the 15-year-old girl and charge her for being a prostitute, when in fact she has no choice in the matter. She is being compelled by either violence or some other coercive means to do what she is doing. So it is not a voluntary act on her part.

So what we do is we don't treat them as a criminal. We treat the purchaser of these services as the criminal. We fine them. We use that money then to supply services to help that victim get rescued and get better, to heal, and to get on with their lives.

That is what is a little different here because we are not actually using tax dollars. We are using the fines and the penalties assessed against these perpetrators to help these victims heal once they are rescued. That is one of the most important parts of this bill.

We expect there would be roughly $30 million a year available for that out of this bill alone. That would be in addition to other things we are doing and other things that are being done at the local and State level.

We also make sure that we clarify the benefits and protections offered to victims of domestic human trafficking. Under current law, U.S. citizens are sometimes placed at a disadvantage when seeking services to restore them to their well-being and to offer them protection. But now we would make sure that those services are available without regard to citizenship and would make sure that people who would otherwise not get benefits will get benefits. This disparity in certification has led to some confusion, as we might imagine.

For example, under current law, a young person who has been trafficked from Central America through Mexico and into the United States would be eligible for a temporary visa while they cooperate with law enforcement because that testimony would be essential to convict the person who trafficked them. This clarifies that U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents should never be denied services due to the fact that they have not received that kind of special certification. It is a little technical, but it is an important area.

We also provide child human trafficking deterrence block grants paid entirely through the Crime Victims Compensation Fund I mentioned a moment ago. These funds would be granted to qualifying organizations based on their focus on victim rescue and restoration.

Collaboration among law enforcement, social services, emergency responders, children's advocacy centers, victims service providers, and nonprofits would be encouraged to help communities and government work together to develop a holistic approach to figure out what works best to protect these victims of trafficking and to serve victims.

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