Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act of 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, on this bill before the Senate, for a
few days we will continue to debate legislation to fight crime and
restore dignity to its survivors. I thank the majority leader for
scheduling floor action on the Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act.
This important bill is authored by our assistant majority leader,
Senator Cornyn of Texas.

Human trafficking is a serious crime that is too often overlooked in
its various forms, which include both labor trafficking and sexual
servitude. It causes drastic harm to its victims. A form of modern-day
slavery, human trafficking includes both adults and children, as well
as noncitizens and citizens of our country. Experts tell us it is not
limited to big cities or our Nation's coasts but stretches across the
whole Nation, even to the rural parts of our country, including my
Midwest. Indeed, it happens every day, everywhere in this country.

The Judiciary Committee met 2 weeks ago to hear testimony from a
victim advocate, a law enforcement official, and a sex trafficking
survivor about the challenges we face in fighting human trafficking.
One witness, a criminal investigator from my State of Iowa who works
for our Democratic attorney general Tom Miller, told us about a 20-
year-old from my State who in December was abducted and forced into
sexual servitude.

We have made progress in curbing human trafficking since the passage
in 2000 of the Federal Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection
Act--a measure I supported at that time--but there is still much work
that remains to be done on this front. This bill before the Senate
takes a creative and comprehensive approach to what is a pervasive and
very troubling problem. The measure has been endorsed by over 200
groups, and it passed the Senate Judiciary Committee without a
dissenting vote.

The centerpiece of this bill is its creation of a new fund called the
Domestic Trafficking Victims' Fund, which will be used to support a
host of programs and services for human trafficking and child
pornography survivors. The fund will be financed not by taxpayers'
dollars but by fines collected from individuals convicted of human
trafficking and human smuggling crimes, making it deficit neutral.

If enacted, this bill will also equip law enforcement with new tools
to fight trafficking. For example, it would make it easier for State
law enforcement officials to wiretap human trafficking suspects without
Federal approval. It also would expand the categories of persons who
can be prosecuted for human trafficking. In addition, it clarifies that
child pornography is a form of human trafficking.

This bill takes an extremely thoughtful and comprehensive approach,
tackling not only the supply of human trafficking victims but also the
demand for these victims. Tackling the problem on both fronts is
something the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service tells us is
absolutely necessary if we are to successfully curb human trafficking.
If enacted, this bill will ensure that both the trafficker and the
buyer will be prosecuted for their crimes

We had an open and productive markup of this bill. I offered an
amendment, which was accepted by voice vote, clarifying that Federal
grant resources can be used to meet the housing needs of trafficking
victims and offer training on the effects of sex trafficking to those
who serve runaway, homeless, and at-risk youth.

This amendment also updates the reauthorization language for the
CyberTipline of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children
to ensure that child trafficking is specifically mentioned as a form of
Internet-related child exploitation.

Finally, this amendment would require the Interagency Task Force to
monitor and combat trafficking to identify best practices to prevent
human trafficking.

Senator Blumenthal from the State of Connecticut also offered an
amendment based on a bill he and Senator Kirk filed earlier this year,
which was accepted in committee by a voice vote. Their bill, S. 575,
known as the HERO Act, provides authorization for a program at the
Department of Homeland Security that trains wounded warriors to assist
in the effort to locate missing children.

I am proud to be a cosponsor of the bill now before if Senate. I
commend Senator Cornyn, the lead sponsor of this measure, for his
efforts to refine the bill and build such a substantial, very
bipartisan coalition supporting it. I hope we will show the same
bipartisan cooperation and support on the floor as we consider
amendments. I look forward to a vote on this bill as soon as possible.

I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record letters in
support of S. 178 from various organizations.

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Mr. GRASSLEY. I also take this opportunity to thank the organizations
Rights4Girls, Shared Hope International, the Polaris Project, and the
National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, among many other
supporters of the bill, for their effort in assisting in our refinement
of this legislation so it could move forward in this manner.

I yield the floor.

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Mr. GRASSLEY. I guess, based upon the experience of the supporters of
the legislation and the expert advice they got in coming to the
conclusion of how to fund this fund, they feel the money is going to be
available to do that.

You ask a legitimate question. I suppose I ought to have an answer
for it, and I don't have from this standpoint. I think that I have
great faith in the figures they have presented us and that we will have
to deal with the issue you bring up at some future time because I think
we will want everybody to be made whole if what you say happens.

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Mr. GRASSLEY. I can say to the Senator that he raises a legitimate
point because I know in other areas we have set up such funds and
sometimes they come up short. But we have to remember that sometimes
something is not paid out because a lot of times excess money is used
for something else in the Federal budget and not paid out entirely the
way it was intended originally.

But I would urge my colleague to take the word of the people who have
done the research on this legislation to bring it together and the
consensus it has from 200 or more organizations and feel that it will
be successful. If it isn't, then I pledge to help you deal with that at
that particular time.

I yield the floor.

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