Justice For Victims Of Trafficking Act Of 2015
Floor Speech
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Mr. THUNE. I say to my colleague from Texas, again, who has been so instrumental in getting this to the floor, that a 68-page bill is certainly readable. They have had several months to look at and read it. When a bill is reported out of a committee, it means it has been analyzed, looked at, and open to debate and amendments, and it came out unanimously. Every Democrat voted for it. They voted for a provision that literally has been a matter of policy and law in this country dating back to 1976 and was voted on as recently as December of last year.
We had 55 Democrats in this Chamber who voted for this language--very similar language--in December of last year and now they are objecting to a piece of legislation they reported out unanimously in the Judiciary Committee which does something to stop the brutal violation of the innocent in this country, and they are objecting to it over this language.
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Mr. THUNE. If they survive, imagine how messed up some of these young victims are going to be for the rest of their lives.
We have an opportunity to do something about it.
The Democratic leader has described this as a sleight of hand. That is not what this is. This is a clear choice. This is a clear choice by Democrats to choose partisan politics over the victims of human trafficking. It is as simple as that.
I urge my Democratic colleagues to stop--stop the partisan politics, stop derailing this important opportunity to come together in a spirit of bipartisanship to end human trafficking. Putting partisan politics over the lives of 100,000 American children who fall victim to the brutal reality of human trafficking every year is absolutely wrong.
To quote our distinguished colleague from the State of Maryland, Senator Mikulski: ``Let's get it done and let's get it done now.''
I would say to my colleague from Texas, life is too precious. These crimes are too serious for this issue to be caught up in the crosshairs of Washington politics. This has to stop. This has to end.
This is a piece of bipartisan legislation that will help literally hundreds of thousands--millions, I would say--of Americans across this country. It is time we begin to right the wrongs of injustice by turning the tide in law enforcement's favor to help those who are trying to combat these terrible, heinous crimes to succeed and to help the victims of these crimes restore their lives.
I appreciate the good work of the Senator from Texas and others who have been involved with this.
I urge my colleagues to end this shenanigan, this charade that is going on before the Senate. Let's get this bill passed and on the President's desk.
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