[House Hearing, 117 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


                       OVERSIGHT OF FEDERAL EFFORTS
                        TO COMBAT HUMAN TRAFFICKING

=======================================================================

                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

                   SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIME, TERRORISM,
                         AND HOMELAND SECURITY

                                 OF THE

                       COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY

                     U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                    ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEETH CONGRESS

                             SECOND SESSION

                               ----------                              

                       WEDNESDAY, APRIL 27, 2022

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                           Serial No. 117-63

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         Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary
               Available via: http://judiciary.house.gov
         
         
         
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT] 

                              __________

                    U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE                    
48-399                    WASHINGTON : 2022                     
          
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                       COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY

                    JERROLD NADLER, New York, Chair
                MADELEINE DEAN, Pennsylvania, Vice-Chair

ZOE LOFGREN, California              JIM JORDAN, Ohio, Ranking Member
SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas            STEVE CHABOT, Ohio
STEVE COHEN, Tennessee               LOUIE GOHMERT, Texas
HENRY C. ``HANK'' JOHNSON, Jr.,      DARRELL ISSA, California
    Georgia                          KEN BUCK, Colorado
THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida          MATT GAETZ, Florida
KAREN BASS, California               MIKE JOHNSON, Louisiana
HAKEEM S. JEFFRIES, New York         ANDY BIGGS, Arizona
DAVID N. CICILLINE, Rhode Island     TOM McCLINTOCK, California
ERIC SWALWELL, California            W. GREGORY STEUBE, Florida
TED LIEU, California                 TOM TIFFANY, Wisconsin
JAMIE RASKIN, Maryland               THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky
PRAMILA JAYAPAL, Washington          CHIP ROY, Texas
VAL BUTLER DEMINGS, Florida          DAN BISHOP, North Carolina
J. LUIS CORREA, California           MICHELLE FISCHBACH, Minnesota
MARY GAY SCANLON, Pennsylvania       VICTORIA SPARTZ, Indiana
SYLVIA R. GARCIA, Texas              SCOTT FITZGERALD, Wisconsin
JOE NEGUSE, Colorado                 CLIFF BENTZ, Oregon
LUCY McBATH, Georgia                 BURGESS OWENS, Utah
GREG STANTON, Arizona
VERONICA ESCOBAR, Texas
MONDAIRE JONES, New York
DEBORAH ROSS, North Carolina
CORI BUSH, Missouri

         AMY RUTKIN, Majority Staff Director and Chief of Staff
              CHRISTOPHER HIXON, Minority Staff Director 
                                 ------                                

        SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIME, TERRORISM, AND HOMELAND SECURITY

                    SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas, Chair
                    CORI BUSH, Missouri, Vice-Chair

KAREN BASS, California               ANDY BIGGS, Arizona, Ranking 
VAL DEMINGS, Florida                     Member
LUCY McBATH, Georgia                 STEVE CHABOT, Ohio
MADELEINE DEAN, Pennsylvania         LOUIE GOHMERT, Texas
MARY GAY SCANLON, Pennsylvania       W. GREGORY STEUBE, Florida
DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island        TOM TIFFANY, Wisconsin
TED LIEU, California                 THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky
J. LUIS CORREA, California           VICTORIA SPARTZ, Indiana
VERONICA ESCOBAR, Texas              SCOTT FITZGERALD, Wisconsin
STEVE COHEN, Tennessee               BURGESS OWENS, Utah

                      KEENAN KELLER, Chief Counsel
                    JASON CERVENAK, Minority Counsel
                            
                            
                            C O N T E N T S

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                       Wednesday, April 27, 2022

                                                                   Page

                           OPENING STATEMENTS

The Honorable Sheila Jackson Lee, Chair of the Subcommittee on 
  Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security from the State of Texas     2
The Honorable Andy Biggs, Ranking Member of the Subcommittee 
  Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security from the State of 
  Arizona........................................................    30
The Honorable Jerrold Nadler, Chair of the Committee on the 
  Judiciary from the State of New York...........................    39

                               WITNESSES

Evelyn Chumbow, Greater Washington, DC Area
  Oral Testimony.................................................    46
  Prepared Statement.............................................    48
Jessica M. Vaughan, Director of Policy Studies, Center for 
  Immigration Studies
  Oral Testimony.................................................    54
  Prepared Statement.............................................    56
Shamere McKenzie, Greater Washington, DC Area
  Oral Testimony.................................................    66
  Prepared Statement.............................................    68
Cristian Eduardo, Greater New York City Area
  Oral Testimony.................................................    71
  Prepared Statement.............................................    73
Sherriff Mark J. Dannels, Cochise County, AZ
  Oral Testimony.................................................    77
  Prepared Statement.............................................    79
Terry FitzPatrick, Director, Alliance to End Slavery and 
  Trafficking (ATEST)
  Oral Testimony.................................................   128
  Prepared Statement.............................................   130
Jacquelyn Aluotto, Co-Founder, No Trafficking Zone
  Oral Testimony.................................................   136
  Prepared Statement.............................................   138
Martina E. Vandenberg, Founder and President, The Human 
  Trafficking Legal Center
  Oral Testimony.................................................   149
  Prepared Statement.............................................   151

          LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING

Materials submitted by the Honorable Sheila Jackson Lee, Chair of 
  the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security 
  from the State of Texas, for the record
  Statement from James L. Dold, CEO & Founder, Human Rights for 
    Kids.........................................................     6
  Statement from Michelle Guymon, Probation Director, Los Angeles 
    County Probation Department and Kate Walker Brown, Senior 
    Director, Collaborative Responses to Commercial Sexual 
    Exploitation Initiative, National Center for Youth Law.......    18
  Statement from Courtney Litvak, a Member of the United States 
    Advisory Council on Human Trafficking........................    29
Materials submitted by the Honorable Andy Biggs, Ranking Member 
  of the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security 
  from the State of Arizona, for the record
  A letter from the Republican Members of the Subcommittee on 
    Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security to the Honorable 
    Sheila Jackson Lee, Chair of the Subcommittee on Crime, 
    Terrorism, and Homeland Security, dated March 18, 2021.......    32
  A letter from the Republican Members of the Subcommittee on 
    Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security to the Honorable 
    Sheila Jackson Lee, Chair of the Subcommittee on Crime, 
    Terrorism, and Homeland Security, dated February 16, 2022....    35
  A sign entitled, ``Visitor Information Update: Smuggling and 
    illegal immigration may be encountered in this area''........    42
Materials submitted by the Honorable Sheila Jackson Lee, Chair of 
  the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security 
  from the State of Texas, for the record
  An article entitled, ``Father of woman who vanished after 
    leaving Houston strip club says she's a victim of human 
    trafficking'' FOX 26, Houston................................   184
  An article entitled, ``Kidnapped California baby found, 3 
    suspects detained'' AP News..................................   187
  An article entitled, ``DPS Arrests 35 in Joint Human 
    Trafficking Operations,'' DPS News...........................   189
  A press release entitled, ``Nine Members and Associates of 
    Nationwide Sex Trafficking and Prostitution Enterprise 
    Indicted on Racketeering and Related Charges,'' U.S. 
    Attorney's Office, Eastern District of New York, Department 
    of Justice...................................................   191
  A press release entitled, ``Sex Trafficking Conspiracy Member 
    Sentenced to Nine Years in Federal Prison,'' U.S. Attorney's 
    Office, District of Maryland, Department of Justice..........   195
  A document entitled, ``Man Sentenced to 10 Years for Offering 
    to `Break' Sex Trafficking Victim,'' U.S. Attorney's Office, 
    Northern District of Texas, Department of Justice............   197
  An article entitled, ``6 Truths About Human Trafficking in 
    Texas,'' Upbring.............................................   199

                                APPENDIX

Materials submitted by the Honorable Sheila Jackson Lee, Chair of 
  the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security 
  from the State of Texas, for the record
  The National Human Trafficking Hotline--Texas..................   206
  A report entitled, ``2020 Federal Human Trafficking Report: 
    Texas State Summary,'' Human Trafficking Institute...........   211
  Document from Linda Smith, Shared Hope International...........   213
  Statement from Shared Hope International, Institute for Justice 
    & Advocacy...................................................   213
  A report entitled, ``Responding to Sex Trafficking: Victim-
    Offender Intersectionality,'' Shared Hope International and 
    Villanova Law Institute to Address Commercial Sexual 
    Exploitation.................................................   216
  A report entitled, ``Report Cards on Child & Youth Sex 
    Trafficking, State Action. National Change, 2021 Toolkit,'' 
    Shared Hope International....................................   280
  Statement from Landon Starbuck, Founder, Freedom Forever and 
    Jennisue Jessen, Survivor Leader, Subject Matter Expert, 
    Freedom Forever..............................................   325
  Statement from Kristi Wells, Chief Executive Officer, Safe 
    House Project................................................   328
  Statement from Deborah S. Sigmund, Founder and Executive 
    Director, Innocents at Risk..................................   332
  Document from Tammy Toney-Butler...............................   336

            QUESTIONS AND RESPONSES FOR THE OFFICIAL RECORD

Questions to witnesses from the Honorable Madeleine Dean, a 
  Member of the Subcommittee Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland 
  Security from the State of Pennsylvania, for the record........   338
Response from Evelyn Chumbow, Greater Washington, DC Area........   340
Response from Terry FitzPatrick, Director, Alliance to End 
  Slavery and Trafficking (ATEST)................................   342
Response from Martina E. Vandenberg, Founder and President, The 
  Human Trafficking Legal Center.................................   348

 
                      OVERSIGHT OF FEDERAL EFFORTS
                      TO COMBAT HUMAN TRAFFICKING

                              ----------                              


                       Wednesday, April 27, 2022

                        House of Representatives

        Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security

                       Committee on the Judiciary

                             Washington, DC

    The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:08 a.m., in 
Room 2141, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Sheila Jackson 
Lee [Chair of the Subcommittee] presiding.
    Members present: Representatives Nadler, Jackson Lee, Bass, 
McBath, Scanlon, Lieu, Correa, Escobar, Jordan, Biggs, Chabot, 
Gohmert, Steube, Tiffany, Massie, Fitzgerald, and Owens.
    Staff present: Aaron Hiller, Chief Counsel and Deputy Staff 
Director; John Doty, Senior Advisor and Deputy Staff Director; 
Moh Sharma, Director of Member Services and Outreach & Policy 
Advisor; Brady Young, Parliamentarian; Cierra Fontenot, Chief 
Clerk; Merrick Nelson, Digital Director; Keenan Keller, Chief 
Counsel for Crime; Mauri Gray, Deputy Chief Counsel for Crime; 
Natalie Knight, Counsel for Crime; Veronica Eligan, 
Professional Staff Member/Legislative Aide for Crime; Jason 
Cervenak, Minority Chief Counsel for Crime; Ken David, Minority 
Counsel; Michael Koren, Minority Professional Staff Member; 
Andrea Woodard, Minority Professional Staff Member; and Kiley 
Bidelman, Minority Clerk.
    Ms. Jackson Lee. The Subcommittee will come order. Without 
objection, the Chair is authorized to declare a recess of the 
Committee at any time.
    Good morning and welcome to today's hearing on the 
Oversight Hearing on Federal Efforts to Combat Human 
Trafficking. I would like to remind Members that we have 
established an email address and distribution list to circulate 
exhibits, motions, or other written materials that Members 
might want to offer as part of our hearing today. If you would 
like to submit materials, please send them to the email address 
that has been previously distributed to your offices and we 
will circulate the materials to Members and staff as quickly as 
we can.
    I would also ask all Members, both those in person and 
those attending remotely, to please mute your microphone when 
you are not speaking. This will help prevent feedback and other 
technical issues. You may unmute yourself any time you seek 
recognition.
    We look forward to moving quickly and let me, as I 
recognize myself, acknowledge today of the funeral services for 
our late former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright with whom 
we have the great respect and honor for her service to this 
nation. She was a great American and a great patriot.
    I now recognize myself for an opening statement.
    Today's hearing will focus on Federal efforts to combat 
human trafficking. At the onset, I must stress that human 
trafficking and human smuggling are two different crimes. Human 
trafficking involves the victimization of adults, youth, and 
children for the purposes of performing labor, commercial sex 
acts, and other services. It can happen anywhere in America, in 
rural communities, in the form of agricultural labor; in urban 
communities, in the form of massage parlors; and suburban 
communities, in the form of domestic labor or in any 
combination.
    The public perception of human trafficking is dangerously 
flawed. While we may be tempted to believe human trafficking 
happens only in foreign countries where people are grabbed off 
the street and thrown into a car, or victims are moved from one 
place to another under the cover of night, the reality is that 
human trafficking can occur anywhere in the United States, 
including in a victim's own home.
    Human smuggling is a business of transporting people 
illegally across an international border. Human smuggling, 
unlike human trafficking, does not involve coercion. The people 
smugglers bring from one place to another, illegally, generally 
have chosen to make the trip sometimes under false pretenses, 
but they made that decision themselves for any number of 
reasons. Some are fleeing violence or poverty. Human 
trafficking, by contrast, is involuntary.
    Smuggling people across international borders is an equally 
troubling crime, but distinct from human trafficking. With 
human smuggling, the victim is of the United States and with 
human trafficking, the victims are the women, men, youth, and 
children who are treated like modern-day slaves. Human 
trafficking and the scourge of human trafficking and the 
eliminating of human trafficking is close to my heart.
    This is a very important hearing for me, very important for 
the Witnesses that are here. I know the sacrifice that 
survivors are making to even testify. My commitment to you that 
we are working to ensure that we are seen as a country that is 
fighting to eliminate the scourge of human trafficking.
    As I said, human smugglers are people who come for justice, 
business, economic opportunity. We understand that. Human 
smugglers ignore and evade our immigration laws. They must be 
prosecuted, and the exploitation of their victims must not go 
unpunished.
    I am sure we will hear from our Witnesses today, human 
traffickers are typically subtle and charismatic. They may 
sometimes be our family Members or acquaintances. They befriend 
their targets and coax and coerce them into signing up for work 
or selling their bodies. Although some populations are at 
greater risk than others, human trafficking spans all races, 
ages, genders, and every socioeconomic status.
    Take for instance, the honorable Courtney Litvak, a 
courageous young woman from my State of Texas who is here with 
us today. Courtney, this is her story. She has the 
understanding of a very deep and important message. Courtney 
has made it her mission to tell her story and speak out, spread 
awareness about human trafficking, help shape policy to protect 
other young people from falling victim to the schemes of human 
traffickers, and to hold traffickers accountable.
    Courtney first became entangled in sex trafficking when she 
was still in high school. Despite what some believe about 
victims of human trafficking, she grew up in a loving church-
going family, in a safe neighborhood, and attended an upscale 
suburban high school in Texas. By the age of 18, she was being 
sold for sex on websites like backpage.com. Courtney was a 
junior in high school when a series of traumatic experiences 
occurred, leaving her emotionally susceptible and in a downward 
spiral. Like so many victims of human trafficking, she began 
participating in high-risk behaviors driven by the traffickers 
including using drugs and alcohol.
    A trafficker with ties to her high school used fellow 
students to prey upon her and use her vulnerability to their 
advantage, offering her friendship and support when they felt 
she had none, meanwhile, drawing her gradually into the life. 
How tragic for so many of our young people.
    A groomer chatted with her through social media and other 
apps for almost a year. She grew to trust this person who was a 
friend of a friend. He picked her up from school one day and 
Courtney soon realized that this person she thought she loved 
meant to pass her on to a trafficker for a finder's fee. It is 
tragic that this goes on every single day around schools.
    Because of stories like Courtney's, last week I introduced 
a Stop Human Trafficking in School Zones Act, a bipartisan 
bill, which will create a sentencing enhancement of up to five 
additional years imprisonment for commission of the offense of 
child sex trafficking on or within a thousand feet of a school 
or premises in which a school-sponsored activity is taking 
place to ensure that schools are a safe haven for students. 
That trafficking bill is H.R. 7566.
    Eventually, Courtney would be transported from Texas to 
California, then Las Vegas, passing from the clutches of one 
trafficker to another. Coercive tactics of her captors varied 
from subtle to overt, physical to psychological, from violence 
to caring. On occasion, when she attempted to reach out, 
officials treated her like a criminal, convincing her that the 
safest place for her might be with the trafficker. Traffickers 
can make themselves like their family or friends and deceive 
people.
    States made great strides in curtailing the criminalization 
of human trafficking victims in various measures. The State of 
Texas has been one of them, even though Houston has been the 
epicenter of trafficking, such as ending the practice of 
arresting children for prostitution and enacting safe harbor 
laws, vacating adjudications and convictions, offering 
expungement, or sealing of arrest records and codifying 
affirmative defenses for certain offenses. This goes across 
many States in the United States.
    It is time for the Federal government to catch up and do 
the same. We must correct past wrongs that have left victims 
bound to criminal records they never deserved. I am glad my 
Ranking Member has even indicated that we should do this in a 
bipartisan manner.
    People who have been trafficked, whether for labor or sex 
are not criminals. They are victims who deserve victim-focused, 
culturally-informed responses that direct them towards services 
critical to sustaining them as they heal and are able to get 
away from the criminal justice system.
    Fortunately, Courtney escaped her final trafficker in 2018, 
a cause of celebration, but the pain almost never leaves. She 
sought counseling, started a nonprofit with her mother, and in 
2020 she was appointed to the U.S. Advisory Council on Human 
Trafficking.
    I would like Courtney Litvak to please stand up.
    Thank you. In that same year, Texas had the second highest 
reported cases of human trafficking. An estimated 25 percent of 
human trafficking victims in the United States are in Texas. 
While we tend to focus on sex trafficking, we must do more to 
shine a light on the incidents of labor trafficking and victims 
of forced labor. This begins with gathering better data.
    There are a reported 234,000 victims of labor trafficking 
in Texas at any given time. We need to know who these victims 
are, where they are, and what they need, not only in Texas, but 
across the country. We must continue to shape legislation to 
help answer these questions to better understand the problems 
we are trying to solve which leads me to the central purpose of 
today's hearing.
    I am confident that our Witnesses today will provide 
insightful recommendations for how we can improve upon the 
Trafficking Victims Protection Act, or the TVPA, the 
cornerstone of the U.S. anti-trafficking response, as well as 
other legislation and programming aimed at preventing human 
trafficking, protecting victims and survivors, including the 
Anti-Trafficking in School Zones Act, just indicated earlier.
    I am sure we can agree that we must better support victims 
of labor and sex trafficking. I want to continue having 
legislation that enhances treating those victims and continuing 
with them for a period of time, ensure that they are not 
revictimized or stigmatized, and provide them with services 
that help them successfully reintegrate into society.
    I look forward to hearing from each of our Witnesses and 
thank our survivor experts for their bravery and your 
willingness to share your story. I cannot thank you enough. I 
am certain that our discussion today will lead us to solutions 
that will help more survivors reach a place of healing that we 
find these courageous people before us today.
    Without objection, I will submit into the record the 
following documents: The written testimony of James L. Dold, 
CEO and founder of Human Rights for Kids; joint written 
testimony of Michelle Guymon, Probation Director for Los 
Angeles County Probation Department, and Kate Walker Brown, 
Senior Director of the National Center for Youth Law; and a 
statement from Courtney Litvak to be subsequently, 
respectfully, submitted without objection.
    [The information follows:]
    

                     MS. JACKSON LEE FOR THE RECORD

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    Ms. Jackson Lee. I now recognize the gentleman from 
Arizona, Mr. Biggs, for his opening statement.
    Mr. Biggs. Madam Chair, thank you. Thank you for holding 
this very important hearing on this critical topic and I 
appreciate all the Witnesses being here, particularly those who 
have been victimized by human or sex trafficking.
    This hearing is titled ``Oversight of Federal Efforts to 
Combat Human Trafficking,'' but I feel we are missing one 
element and I hope that we recover that maybe in a subsequent 
hearing because we don't have a government Witness today and I 
think we should have someone from the Federal government today 
to testify because we need them to participate. We need to hold 
their feet to the fire in overseeing this important topic.
    I believe every other Republican on the Subcommittee would 
welcome an opportunity to interact with a Biden Administration 
official so we can do that proper oversight. In fact, I have 
sent several letters to the Chair, and I would ask that they be 
included into the record without objection, if that is okay, 
Madam Chair.
    Ms. Jackson Lee. Without objection, so ordered.
    [The information follows:]     

                        MR. BIGGS FOR THE RECORD

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    Mr. Biggs. Thank you. Human trafficking is a terrible crime 
and should be taken very seriously. The estimated annual global 
profits from human trafficking are approximately $150 billion a 
year. In one of the areas where human trafficking and human 
smuggling is the most prevalent is on our southern, 
southwestern border. The failed policies of this administration 
encourage and facilitate Mexican drug cartels, transnational 
criminal organizations, and other malevolent actors to engage 
in human trafficking and smuggling across our southwestern 
border.
    Every single day, traffickers from cartels and criminal 
organizations exploit our southwestern border. According to 
CBP, a report they made February of last year, traffickers made 
a total of $411 million in the month of February alone. Cartels 
and other criminal organizations charge up to $5,000 to smuggle 
children across the border and more than $10,000 to smuggle 
adults. The traffickers will often promise migrants a better 
future and a better-paying job, but in reality they are 
deceiving them into a life of indentured servitude, sex 
trafficking, or forced work to pay off their debts.
    Last year, the Department of Justice's Human Trafficking 
Prosecution Unit opened investigations to locations in Alabama 
and Oregon due to concerns of labor trafficking. The DOJ's 
Human Trafficking Prosecution Unit Director stated, ``some of 
these situations appear to involve dozens of unaccompanied 
minors, all being released to the same sponsor, and then 
exploited for labor and poultry processing or similar 
industries.''
    One couple in Alabama has already been convicted of money 
laundering and conspiracy to transport illegal aliens. At the 
border, our Federal law enforcement is simply out numbered. 
They don't have the resources necessary to address the problem 
that has been created in this administration.
    After HHS placed the UAC with a sponsor, case managers are 
supposed to call with a--it is called a well-being, follow-up 
call to determine if an unaccompanied child who has been placed 
by Health and Human Services is safe and if the sponsors are 
complying with their responsibilities. This February, HHS 
informed me that ``there are 19,726 sponsors who could not be 
reached.'' Think about that. That means that HHS cannot verify 
the safety or well-being of nearly 20,000 children who have 
been placed in the charge of this government. We don't know 
where their sponsors are. That means we don't know where those 
children are.
    Because of a loophole created by the TVPA, DHS is required 
to turn over unaccompanied from noncontiguous countries to HHS 
so they can place these unaccompanied children with sponsors, 
and yet we can't keep track of 20,000 of them. We have lost 
track of 20,000. This particular policy is a magnet that leads 
to parents sending their children to the U.S. alone knowing 
that they will be released.
    In a recent trip to the border, and I am giving you numbers 
and I am giving you dollar amounts, but everything that I am 
talking about includes a face of some innocent victim. So, on 
one recent trip to the southern border, I met with an agent, 
and we talked about this particular issue of children being 
trafficked. The agent took from his pocket, and he said,

        Andy, here is a four-year-old who came across yesterday. Here 
        is a three-year-old. Here is a seven-year-old with a three-
        year-old.

    The seven-year-old was responsible for the three-year-old. 
This happens every day on this border, every day. It is 
inhumane and it is a failure, a failure of this government.
    So, I have introduced legislation that will close the 
loophole and I hope all my colleagues on this Subcommittee will 
join me in closing that loophole.
    In March of this year, there were 221,303 illegal alien 
encounters at the southwestern border, the highest monthly 
total in 22 years and that number is expected to get worse. If 
title 42 is rescinded, even DHS has said that is 18,000 
encounters daily. That will a floor, not even a ceiling.
    In February of this year, 8,565 individuals were paroled, 
and an additional 55,000 individuals were released into the 
United States. When I was in Yuma, on one of my border trips, 
they related to me an incident that took place. They had 
discovered looking into their database and tracking that at one 
particular address in Charlotte, excuse me, Charleston, South 
Carolina, was the sponsor for just a numerous amounts of 
individuals coming to that address. So, they would apprehend 
these folks and then they would release them, but a lot of them 
were going to the same address in South Carolina which seems 
suspicious because that is not usual. Usually, you have 
different sponsors. They conducted an investigation and what 
they found was using cross State, multiple State and Federal 
agencies, they found in a mobile home in Charleston, South 
Carolina a young girl of approximately age 11 or 12 caring for 
two younger boys in a mobile home. Those children, her job--
they made her stay in there and care for those two children. 
Those children were then returned to Yuma repeatedly to create 
a false family unit for quicker release from the border. They 
were being trafficked and used as chattels instead of human 
beings and not being properly cared for. This is an ongoing 
problem.
    Detroit, FBI office in Detroit just last week released an 
important report warning us about increased threat of 
sexploitation, an online exploitation. This is in Detroit just 
last week. This is an ongoing crisis. It is a criminal crisis, 
criminal justice crisis. It is a humanitarian crisis as well. 
Today, our Witnesses that I have invited are Sheriff Mark 
Dannels from Cochise County, Arizona. Sheriff Dannels is on the 
border. It is a huge county about the same size as the State of 
Rhode Island. He and his deputies are dealing with the impacts 
of this border crisis on a daily basis. They are overwhelmed by 
the cartels that transport drugs and traffic human beings 
across that border. Sheriff Dannels is operating and taking it 
upon himself to act when the Federal government has failed to 
act, and he will share with us what they have done to interdict 
human trafficking, drug trafficking, and sex trafficking in 
place of the Federal government and how Cochise County is 
making a difference.
    Jessica Vaughan is the Director of Policy Studies at Center 
for Immigration Studies. She is an expert in immigration 
enforcement policy and public safety and will help explain how 
the current policies implemented by Secretary Mayorkas have 
created the worst border crisis in our history, which includes 
the exploitation and trafficking of hundreds of thousands of 
individuals in the last 15 months.
    I also want to introduce for the record and coming from 
Arizona, I have multiple pictures of signs like this. It 
indicates again a failure of the Federal government and I don't 
point to any administration in this case because it is a huge 
problem in Arizona.
    This particular sign says, ``Smuggling and Illegal 
Immigration May Be Encountered in this Area.'' An additional 
sign, which I won't submit for the record, but I would submit 
that for the record, Madam Chair.
    Ms. Jackson Lee. Without objection, so ordered.
    [The information follows:]    

                        MR. BIGGS FOR THE RECORD

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[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

    Mr. Biggs. Thank you. An additional sign which is placed 
there in a different area in Arizona's desert is this, active 
drug and human smuggling area. Visitors may encounter armed 
criminals and smuggling vehicles traveling at high rates of 
speed. Stay away. If that is the best we can do, we are an 
abject failure.
    Madam Chair, I look forward to working with you and 
continue our efforts to eradicate human smuggling and human 
trafficking and sex trafficking and I yield back.
    Ms. Jackson Lee. I thank the gentleman. I think it is 
important to just make note of the fact that relatively few 
trafficking victims are taken across an international border 
into the United States. Most of them are U.S. citizens and San 
Diego, for example, found that 80 percent of those that were in 
the area, 450 of them were in the United States. We know that 
we will be addressing this question. We are not ignoring it. We 
will be addressing this question with the pending hearings that 
will be coming going forward. I want to make sure as well as I 
described human trafficking that the United States is front and 
center when ending that scourge here in the United States and 
the many victims all over the nation.
    Thank you. I look forward to you looking at H.R. 7566.
    The Chair now recognizes the Chair of the Full Committee, 
the gentleman from New York, Mr. Nadler, for his opening 
statement.
    Chair Nadler. Thank you, Madam Chair, for holding this 
important hearing on human trafficking. Too often, we think of 
human trafficking as something that happens somewhere else, in 
other cities and in other countries, and not in our own 
communities. An unfortunate reality, however, is that human 
trafficking touches many more of our communities than we might 
suspect from major cities to quiet suburbs. Our inability to 
see the harms of human trafficking allows it to persist and 
leaves victims vulnerable, sometimes even as they think that 
they have found those who have helped them escape.
    It is important for us to be clear at the outset about the 
scope of this hearing. We are here today to discuss human 
trafficking, recruitment, harboring, transportation, 
provisioning, obtaining, patronizing, or soliciting of a person 
for the purpose of forced labor or forced commercial sex. This 
is a distinct crime from the no less serious crime of human 
smuggling in which people are brought across international 
borders through the deliberate evasion of immigration laws. 
Human trafficking can and frequently does occur without 
crossing any borders. When human trafficking does involve 
border crossings, we must take care not to punish victims for 
their trafficker's disregard for both criminal and immigration 
law.
    When we discuss human trafficking, the headlines often 
focus on sex trafficking and ignore the significant harms 
caused by labor trafficking. Labor trafficking occurs in the 
United States across many different industries including 
domestic work, traveling sales crews, food services, 
agriculture, health and beauty services, construction, 
hospitality, landscaping, and many others. Further, the 
distinction between sex trafficking and labor trafficking is 
not always clear.
    As you will hear from the survivors and experts here today, 
those who are forced into sex trafficking may also find 
themselves forced to do labor in furtherance of their 
trafficker's criminal activities. Meanwhile, those who are 
trafficked for labor are often in vulnerable situations that 
leave them at risk of sexual abuse.
    Finally, we must develop a better understanding of who is 
being trafficked. As you will hear from our Witnesses, 
trafficking can victimize the young and old alike. It is not 
confined to one gender, race, sexual orientation, or 
immigration status.
    I hope we will hear today about how our laws can better 
serve the needs of all people who experience trafficking so 
that we can be sure all victims and survivors get the 
assistance that fits their individual needs. This hearing is 
especially important as we examine proposals to reauthorize the 
Trafficking Victims Protection Act. I hope our Witnesses can 
help us understand how the TVPA is helping to support the needs 
of victims and survivors, as well as how it can be improved.
    We must take appropriate steps to improve how our criminal 
justice system treats trafficking survivors including ensuring 
that they are treated as victims of crime, rather than as 
perpetrators. For example, we must consider whether there are 
sufficient avenues to correct past injustices such as 
mechanisms to clear the records of those who are charged as 
criminals when they were, in fact, victims of trafficking. Such 
measures are essential to the restoration and healing process 
for victims who should not be saddled with a criminal record as 
they seek to build a new life.
    I thank our Witnesses for being here, especially the 
survivors who are here to share their personal harrowing 
stories of survival, escape, and hopefully healing. I hope that 
we can learn from their experiences so that fewer people face 
what they have endured and so that we can assist the many 
victims and survivors not before us today.
    I look forward to their testimony and I yield back the 
balance of my time.
    Ms. Jackson Lee. The gentleman yields back the balance of 
his time. The gentleman's time has expired.
    It is now my pleasure to introduce the Witnesses in today's 
hearing.
    Ms. Evelyn Chumbow is a survivor of child labor turned 
anti-trafficking activist and public speaker. She was brought 
to the United States from Cameroon at the age of nine and 
forced to cook, clean, and care for her trafficker's children. 
She escaped after years of captivity. Welcome. She earned a 
bachelor of science from the University of Maryland University 
College, was appointed by President Obama to serve on the U.S. 
Advisory Council on Human Trafficking, and is now the 
Operations Manager and Survivor Advocate for The Human 
Trafficking Legal Center and a member of the Board of Directors 
for Free the Slaves.
    Ms. Jessica Vaughan is the Director of Policy Studies for 
the Center for Immigration. She is also an instructor for 
senior law enforcement training seminars at Northwestern 
University Center for Public Safety. She was formerly a Foreign 
Service Officer with the State Department. Ms. Vaughan earned a 
bachelor of arts in international studies from Washington 
College and a master of arts from Georgetown University. 
Welcome.
    Ms. Shamere McKenzie is a consultant, activist, subject 
matter expert on human trafficking and public speaker. She is 
the Chief Executive Officer for Sun Gate Foundation. She also 
serves as a training manager for the National Human Trafficking 
Hotline, Co-Chair of the Victim Services Committee of the 
Maryland State Human Trafficking Task Force. Welcome. She 
received a bachelor of science in criminology and criminal 
justice from Loyola University.
    Mr. Cristian Eduardo is a survivor leader at Sanctuary for 
Families and a member of ECPAT-USA Survivors' Council. He is an 
advocate, speaker, and educator for immigrant and LGBTQ+ rights 
and anti-trafficking initiatives, including the Equality Model. 
Welcome.
    Sheriff Mark Dannels has been elected sheriff of the 
Cochise County, Arizona since 2012. Sheriff Dannels is a 38-
year veteran of law enforcement. He holds a master's degree in 
criminal justice from Aspen University and is a certified 
public manager from Arizona State University. He began his law 
enforcement career in 1984 after serving in the United States 
Army. Welcome, Sheriff.
    Mr. Terry FitzPatrick is the Director of the Alliance to 
End Slavery and Trafficking, often referred to as ATEST. He has 
been involved with ATEST in various capacities for more than a 
decade, including service as a co-chair prior to becoming 
director. He previously served as the Communications and 
Advocacy Director at Free the Slaves. Welcome.
    Ms. Jacquelyn Aluotto is a human rights activist, anti-
trafficking specialist, victims' advocate, and producer, and I 
might add my constituent in Houston, Texas, working very hard 
on these terrible issues in the State and around the nation. 
She is the co-founder of the No Trafficking Zone and founder of 
Real Beauty Real Women. In 2020, she received the United 
Nations Ambassador's Pin in recognition of her service and 
dedication to the tenets and values upheld by the National 
Council of Women of the United States founded by Susan B. 
Anthony. Welcome again.
    Ms. Martina Vandenberg is Founder and President of The 
Human Trafficking Legal Center, which she established in 2012. 
She has represented victims of human trafficking pro bono in 
various legal arenas, testified before several congressional 
committees, and trained more than 5,000 pro bono attorneys 
nationwide to handle human trafficking matters. Ms. Vandenberg 
previously served as a partner at Jenner & Block, a Rhodes 
Scholar, and a Truman Scholar, and graduate of Columbia Law 
School. She has toured as an adjunct faculty member at the 
American University Washington College of Law. Welcome.
    We welcome our distinguished Witnesses. We thank you for 
their participation.
    I will begin by swearing in our Witnesses. I ask our 
Witnesses in person to rise and our Witnesses testifying 
remotely to turn on your audio and make sure that I can see 
your face and your raised hand while I administer the oath.
    Raise your right hand. Do you swear or affirm under penalty 
of perjury that the testimony you are about to give is true and 
correct to the best of your knowledge, information, and belief 
so help you God?
    Sheriff, I can't hear you. I can't hear you, Sheriff. All 
right. There is something wrong with your system. You will get 
it right. You may be seated. We will hear from you, and I am 
sure you will adhere to that.
    Let the record show the Witnesses answered in the 
affirmative. Thank you and please, as you have already done, be 
seated.
    Please note that your written statement will be entered 
into the record in its entirety. Accordingly, I ask that you 
summarize your testimony in five minutes. To help you stay 
within that same timeframe, there is a timing light on your 
table and on your screen. When the light switches from green to 
yellow, you have one minute to conclude your testimony. When 
the light turns red, it signals that your five minutes have 
expired.
    I now recognize Ms. Chumbow for five minutes. You are 
recognized.

                  STATEMENT OF EVELYN CHUMBOW

    Ms. Chumbow. TThe Members of the Subcommittee, I am honored 
to be here today to testify about the oversight of Federal 
efforts to combat human trafficking. In communities across the 
United States of America and throughout the world, tens of 
millions of people are exploited in forced labor. Labor 
trafficking is a heinous crime that inflicts lasting physical, 
psychological, emotional, and financial harm on its victims. I 
am a survivor of labor trafficking. I will share with you today 
how the U.S. government can be part of the solution.
    My journey as a survivor of child labor trafficking started 
with a dream about coming to America. I was 10 years old. The 
image I had of the U.S. was from the television shows I saw, 
The Cosby Show, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, and 90210. When I 
was told that I was coming to the United States to be adopted 
and get a better education, I was excited. I thought I could 
marry Will Smith. No kidding.
    What I did not know was that my uncle in Cameroon had 
actually sold me to a woman in Maryland. I became a modern-day 
slave just miles from the U.S. Capitol. I cooked and cleaned 
and cared for her children. I would go days without eating. My 
trafficker beat me. She said I was so dirty that I was not 
allowed to sleep on a bed. I slept on the floor. I was never 
paid.
    I begged to be able to go to school. My trafficker refused. 
Years later, I found out that it was my legal right to go to 
school. I went into foster care and finally got to attend 
school. In fact, I got my degree in homeland security from the 
University of Maryland University College.
    I now work at The Human Trafficking Legal Center. I had to 
fight to get to where I am today. I am an exception. Many human 
trafficking victims cannot rebuild their life. I am here to 
share ideas on how the U.S. government can help. There are nine 
recommendations in the document I have shared with you. I will 
briefly mention four.
    Recommendation 1. Improve the U.S. immigration process. I 
entered the country on the same passport and a visa as four 
other children. My trafficker used the same passport to bring 
five children over a period of one year.
    Recommendation 2. Provide trauma-informed, victim-centered 
investigations. After I escaped my trafficker, I met with 
Federal investigators. One of them accused me of fabricating a 
story to get a green card and remain in the country. When 
investigators wanted to document the abuse I had endured, they 
forced me to take my clothes off in a room full of people to 
take pictures. This was the opposite of victim-centered, 
trauma-informed practice.
    Recommendation 3. Provide trafficking survivors with legal 
representation. Trafficking survivors need pro bono attorneys 
to work them through the entire process of their case. Too 
often victims do not have their own lawyers during the criminal 
case.
    Recommendation 4. Understanding the role of racism in human 
trafficking. Yes, trafficking can happen to anyone. When people 
are vulnerable, they are more at risk. Marginalized 
communities, communities of color are more likely to have this 
vulnerability because of systematic racism. Racism is present 
at all stages for survivors of color. Even after they escape 
their trafficking situation they continue to face racism.
    Please find details of the final five recommendations in 
the document provided.
    In conclusion, I would like to ask everyone here today 
working to end human trafficking to keep these recommendations 
in mind. Prevention, protection, proper investigation are 
important when addressing all forms of trafficking. Forced 
labor must be on the agenda alongside sex trafficking. 
Survivors' voices like mine here today are essential in this 
policy discussion. Thank you.
    There are nine recommendations.
    [The statement of Ms. Chumbow follows:]
    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you. The Witness has yielded back. I 
now recognize Ms. Jessica Vaughan for five minutes.

                STATEMENT OF JESSICA M. VAUGHAN

    Ms. Vaughan. Thank you for inviting me to testify today. 
Since April is National Child Abuse Prevention Month, this is 
an appropriate time to draw attention to the horrific crime of 
human trafficking as a particularly insidious form of child 
abuse. My heart goes out to those survivors who are here today. 
I salute them and admire the courage of their advocacy and 
thank them for being here.
    While obviously not all human trafficking is connected to 
illegal immigration, there can be no doubt that the current 
chaos at our border is actually facilitating human trafficking 
both for commercial sex trafficking and also forced labor 
trafficking. The chaos is caused in part by the TVPRA, which 
the Chair mentioned, but also from the Biden Administration's 
ill-advised dismantling of border and immigration enforcement, 
catch and release policies, the dysfunctional system for 
handling families and unaccompanied minors, and lax oversight 
of temporary visa programs.
    Just yesterday, Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas 
released the new plan to deal with the escalation of the crisis 
that is forecast to occur in the next month due in part to 
ceasing use of title 42 expulsion authority. Anyone concerned 
about human trafficking should be further alarmed because this 
plan makes it clear that the Biden Administration intends to 
remain a full-fledged partner in migration-related human 
trafficking schemes.
    The overarching goal of the Mayorkas plan is to more 
efficiently manage, really accommodate, the enormous and 
growing flow of illegal border crossers into the United States 
and its communities. Mayorkas has set up tent cities with the 
capacity to process 18,000 illegal border crossers a day. He 
has hired more staff, secured more buses, and readied $150 
million in new funding to pay NGO contractors to support and 
transport the migrants.
    The emphasis is on swifter processing to the point where 
they'll actually be doing it on CBP buses as the migrants are 
transported. This is not a recipe for effective screening, 
vetting, or detecting human trafficking. Apparently, all 
migrants will have the opportunity to either make a quick 
asylum claim or enter the country with a Notice to Appear in 
immigration at some point far in the future. Either way most 
will get to enter.
    Unaccompanied minors will be fed into the same 
dysfunctional system we have now, in which the trafficking of 
children for labor and commercial sex occurs right under the 
noses of the government agencies and contractors who process 
these kids.
    The Mayorkas plan barely even acknowledges that trafficking 
is a problem. The phrase human trafficking is only mentioned on 
page 17 of a 20-page document along with other crimes. The plan 
maintains the exact same policies that the traffickers are able 
to exploit, that enable them to tempt and coerce migrants into 
their clutches, that enable them to rely on the U.S. government 
to assist in taking advantage of and abusing vulnerable 
migrants.
    The traffickers know that Border Patrol will be waving in 
illegal border crossers by the tens of thousands a day and that 
they can move their bodies as part of the rest of that flow 
without attracting attention. They know that the shelters and 
service providers will be overwhelmed and overflowing with 
other vulnerable people who will be easy marks for the 
traffickers to help. They know, though many Americans may not, 
that minors will be released to sponsors with few questions 
asked, no background checks, no post-release monitoring. They 
know that there will be no work site enforcement to bust 
illegal or exploitative employment or detect identify theft. 
They know that they can make a lot of money at the expense of 
the victims and that the Biden Administration is in denial 
about the scale of the problem or that their policies are 
aiding the traffickers.
    What the Mayorkas plan lacks, but which Congress must do, 
is stop incentivizing illegal immigration. It's wrong to have 
policies that entice migrants to turn over thousands of dollars 
and themselves and their families to criminal organizations to 
bring them to cross the border illegally.
    The government must end its partnership with the 
traffickers, fix the loopholes in the law that the traffickers 
exploit, especially focus on the rules on unaccompanied minors, 
on the parole of asylum seekers, address the problem of labor 
traffickers masquerading as labor contractors who bring in 
temporary visa workers.
    Services for survivors are needed. It's much better to 
prevent the trafficking from happening than to try to 
ameliorate the problems that results from it. Thank you very 
much.
    [The statement of Ms. Vaughan follows:]
    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Ms. Jackson Lee. The gentlelady's time has expired. I now 
recognize Ms. McKenzie for five minutes.

                 STATEMENT OF SHAMERE McKENZIE

    Ms. McKenzie. Can you hear me now?
    Ms. Jackson Lee. Yes.
    Ms. McKenzie. Chair Jackson Lee, Ranking Member Biggs, and 
Members of the Committee, good morning. My name is Shamere 
McKenzie, and I'm here to talk to you about our shared 
connections as human beings and the horrific crime of human 
trafficking.
    I want to start off by asking you to think about what you 
imagined your life would be like when you were a child. As a 
child, I never imagined being forced into commercial sexual 
exploitation by a man who used physical and psychological 
violence to maintain control over me for his own profit. I 
never imagined being robbed of my freedom, first by my 
trafficker and then by the U.S. criminal justice system.
    For victims of human trafficking, there are severe 
consequences for not carrying out your trafficker's demands, 
consequences I know all too well. When I refused my 
trafficker's orders to drive the other victims he controlled 
over State lines, he asked me to choose between death and his 
demands. When I refused him, my trafficker responded by placing 
a gun in my mouth and pulling the trigger.
    Shortly after escaping his brutality, I found myself 
victimized again, this time by the legal system that treated me 
not as a victim, but as a criminal. Knowing little about the 
epidemic of criminalization facing trafficking victims or even 
my own rights as a victim of crime, I accepted a plea to 
conspiracy to commit violations of the Mann Act as a result of 
having driven my trafficker's other victims across State lines. 
In addition to leaving me with a criminal record for acts I was 
forced to commit, I had to register as a sex offender.
    I wish I had more time to tell you about the details of my 
story. I want to tell you that my story is not unique. For the 
last 11 years, I have dedicated my life to this anti-
trafficking movement. You heard in my introduction about the 
things that I do here in the United States. I'm also appointed 
the first anti-trafficking ambassador to Jamaica and work on 
this issue there. I am also a member of the Just Exits Advisory 
Council, along with seven other amazing survivor leaders who 
have lived experiences just like mine.
    I appear before you today to make clear that the 
criminalization of victims is the most pressing issue in our 
country's fight against human trafficking. A 2016 study 
conducted by the National Survivor Network offers us a glimpse 
of the depth and breadth in this injustice with 91 percent of 
our survivor members reported having a criminal record. This 
study makes explicit the reality that human trafficking 
survivors are regularly criminalized. They are also, as I was, 
forced to be complicit in their trafficker's operations.
    While we have over 43 States that have implemented some 
form of criminal relief, there is currently no relief on a 
Federal level. As a result, victims of trafficking continue to 
be charged as perpetrators alongside their traffickers. Once 
they are, they remain burdened with an unjust criminal record 
for the rest of their lives.
    I have six concrete suggestions of how Congress should 
respond to the criminalization of victims. One, support and 
pass a comprehensive Federal criminal relief record that will 
allow survivors to vacate or set aside their trafficking-
related criminal convictions.
    Pass Sara's Law, named in honor of child trafficking 
survivor Sara Kruzan, who killed her trafficker and was 
sentenced to life without parole at the age of 16. Sara's Law 
would allow courts to have greater flexibility in creating a 
trauma-informed, age-appropriate response, including 
transferring a child victim from an adult criminal system to a 
juvenile system for treatment and services.
    Of course, we need to reauthorize the Trafficking Victims 
Protection Act, which include provisions that allow judges to 
deviate from mandatory minimums and suspend sentencing for 
child sex trafficking victims who commit crimes. We need to 
increase funding for development and delivery of trainings 
aimed at advanced human trafficking topics, especially topics 
as forced criminality beyond prostitution, trainings on forced 
complicity, both on labor and sex trafficking.
    The time to act is now. Criminalizing trafficking victims 
does not help victims. In fact, it does the exact opposite. My 
fellow Just Exits consultant, Joy Friedman, posed the question 
when do victims of trafficking stop paying the price. The 
answer must be now. We need Congress to lead the way. Thank you 
for this opportunity to share my perspective before this 
Committee.
    [The statement of Ms. McKenzie follows:]
    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank the Witness for their testimony. Mr. 
Cristian Eduardo, for five minutes, you are now recognized.

                 STATEMENT OF CRISTIAN EDUARDO

    Mr. Eduardo. Good morning, Chair Lee and Members of the 
Subcommittee. My name is Cristian Eduardo, and I am a survivor 
of international domestic sex and labor trafficking. I am a 
Latino immigrant originally from Mexico, a member of the LGBTQ+ 
community, and a person living with HIV, and a human dealing 
with the consequences, lifelong consequences of human 
trafficking.
    Due to the barriers caused by the intersectionality of my 
identity, I was sexually and physically exploited when I was 
the most vulnerable. I am here today representing not only 
myself but the thousands of voices that are often silenced, and 
this includes survivors, people of color, immigrants, people 
living with HIV, people from the LGBTQ+ community, the voices 
of our communities, people exploited by pimps, brothel owners, 
and sex buyers that are roaming free without any 
accountability.
    To be very honest, I sit here doubting whether I should 
share my story or not because the consequences of trafficking 
do not end when you are free of exploitation. Telling my story 
can negatively impact my personal, academic, and professional 
path. There is no legal protection from discrimination based on 
what I experienced and what I survived. What if a future 
employer discovered the meaning behind the blank space on my 
resume? What is going to happen if my family and friends learn 
today that I was constantly raped? What if my exploiters find 
out that I dare to tell the truth about my exploitation? What 
if the buyers, the sex buyers who were raping me every day and 
all the others who accessed my body want to retaliate against 
me? Who is going to protect me? Who is protecting all the 
survivors who raise their voices against the system of 
exploitation? Human trafficking is real, and I am here to 
remind you I survived it and I experienced it on my own skin.
    Despite the Trafficking Victims Protection Act being 
reauthorized several times, human trafficking is still 
classified as a nonviolent crime in many States. Survivors 
continue to suffer from the trauma of exploitation until our 
last breath on this earth. Meanwhile, pimps, brothel owners, 
and especially sex buyers walk free as if the harm they caused 
can be erased. Survivors and victims around the country are 
constantly criminalized and incarcerated. This is happening due 
to the lack of understanding about trafficking and the lack of 
empathy toward those engaged in the sex trade, including 
prostitution.
    We are the ones oftentimes blamed for our own exploitation. 
We are the ones being sentenced to jail. We are the ones with 
criminal records for our actions committed under conditions of 
coercion, fraud, debt bondage, or force from our traffickers, 
the brothel owners and sex buyers raping us day after day. If 
this is the best that we can do, we are failing.
    I was trafficked as an adult. Trafficking is not only 
happening to minors. This criminalization of survivors and 
people impacted by trafficking also is impacting kids. Under 
Federal law, child trafficking victims do not need to prove 
force, fraud, or coercion, yet in several States they are the 
ones being targeted by police as criminals.
    I was trafficked in the United States, the country where 
dreams come true. I was trafficked in this country regardless 
of the TVPA. Some of the barriers that prevented me from 
escaping my situation was a fear of the criminalization of 
those engaged in the sex trade. All this is that blame 
immigrants for their own exploitation. All these are a form of 
victim-blaming that allow exploiters to keep victims and 
survivors under control. I was so afraid to ask for help, to 
call the police because of the potential consequences. My 
choices were being deported as an immigrant, spending my life 
in jail, or ongoing emotional, physical, and sexual abuse.
    The expansion of required training to better identify 
victims of human trafficking is necessary for every single 
provider who interacts with marginalized communities and people 
in vulnerable situations. When I first approached a shelter 
after escaping my trafficking situation, I was asked if I have 
ever engaged in sex for food, shelter, drugs, or money. My 
answer was yes, which was a strong indicator of trafficking, 
yet I was totally ignored. The service providers did not probe 
whether I was being criminally exploited. This doesn't happen 
one time. This happened when I was looking for resources, legal 
immigration, or even a place, a safe place to stay.
    This is the reality. We are failing. We are not training 
enough. We are not recognizing victims.
    The system is particularly weak in the identification of 
male victims. I wasn't able to find services for males. I was 
denied services just because I am a male. I didn't qualify for 
a lot of services because I don't identify as a female.
    Ms. Jackson Lee. Mr. Eduardo, can you--we want to hear you. 
Can you wrap up and summarize for us?
    Mr. Eduardo. Yes.
    Ms. Jackson Lee. We want to hear your voice. Thank you very 
much.
    Mr. Eduardo. If we really want to stop trafficking, we must 
stop the demand for the bodies, the normalization of rape, and 
acknowledge that sex buyers are violent and harmful. While I 
was being exploited in one occasion I was waiting for my 
analyst (phonetic), and I didn't know what to do because I was 
afraid that service providers, law enforcement were sex buyers. 
There is no deterrent. There is no Federal protections to stop 
people in position with power, even our politicians, judges, or 
law enforcement from being sex buyers. This is stopping us from 
looking for help.
    To summarize my call of action, I recommend expanding 
training around identifying victims and survivors from 
marginalized communities, expanding services for adult and male 
survivors, ending the criminalization of victims and survivors, 
including those engaged in prostitution, and holding sex buyers 
accountable. This approach is known also as the Equality Model.
    So, please listen to survivors. You have the power to 
change. You have the power to save lives. Thank you.
    [The statement of Mr. Eduardo follows:]
    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you very much for your testimony. I 
now recognize Sheriff Mark Dannels for five minutes.

              STATEMENT OF SHERIFF MARK J. DANNELS

    Mr. Dannels. Good morning, Madam Chair. Thank you, Member 
Biggs.
    Ms. Jackson Lee. I assume, Sheriff, that you adhere to the 
oath that was taken.
    Mr. Dannels. Yes, ma'am.
    Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you so very much.
    You are recognized for five minutes.
    Mr. Dannels. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    Again, good morning, Madam Chair, Ranking Member Biggs, and 
distinguished Members of this Subcommittee.
    I appreciate the opportunity to address this Committee 
regarding the status of our southern border from the aspect of 
a community law enforcement perspective for the good of all our 
victims that have been trafficked and smuggled.
    I have served our southern border community for 38 years, 
and prior to that, a member of the military serving in the U.S. 
Army, stationed here at Fort Huachuca, Arizona, located in 
Cochise
County.
    I've always been a general believer in my oath of office to 
protect our country, and now my county, as a duly-elected 
sheriff for the past nine years. I'm the current President of 
the Arizona Sheriffs' Association, Chair of the National 
Sheriffs' Association Border Security, and on the Executive 
Board for Western Sheriffs, and Southwest Border Sheriffs.
    We share four objectives: Public safety, national security, 
humanitarian, and health, due to the current pandemic.
    American sheriffs stand united in working with you. I am 
proud of our relationships with all our law enforcement 
partners that serve our communities.
    To begin, I want to thank the Customs and Border Patrol 
Officers and agents that work tirelessly to protect this great 
nation. I want to thank our governor, Doug Ducey, and our State 
Congressional Members for all their support; the men and women 
of my office for their dedication and commitment to keeping our 
community safe, and to all my fellow sheriffs who stand united 
for the rule of law and the good of our American people.
    The direct impact to my office, secondary checkpoints have 
been shut down over the last year, the last 15 months, due to 
staffing issues. The Border Patrol working with my county are 
working on a skeleton crew due to agents being deployed out of 
my county and out of my State.
    My citizens and law enforcement address multiple got-aways 
in my county versus those giving up. Between 900-1,000 
smugglers and traffickers enter my county to pick up the 
migrants and the victims. These smugglers include juvenile 
drivers being recruited via social media by the cartels.
    My border-related detention costs for State violations was 
$1.5 million absorbed by my taxpayers. That equals 777 arrests 
just in my county in the last nine months.
    Border-related crimes are at an all-time high from death, 
murder, aggravated assaults against my citizens, failure to 
yield, search and rescue, and recovery for the migrants that 
die in our desert, and, yes, assault against law enforcement.
    A personal story. A citizen of my county driving towards a 
65th birthday party was struck by a 16-year-old driver/smuggler 
who ran a red light at 100 miles an hour and killed her.
    My fellow sheriffs have tried to partner with this 
administration, to include the President of the United States--
with high hopes to share a collective message, a collective 
action plan for all our citizens and those being victimized; to 
support the rule of law; prioritize our southern border, and 
provide updates to reference community impacts and concerns--
with little or no success with these plans.
    By allowing our border security mission and immigration 
laws to be discretionary, these criminal cartels and 
transnational organizations continue to be the true winners. 
Their exportation of mankind is simply modern-day slavery, 
allowing thousands of pounds of illicit drugs into our country 
that continue to erode the core value of families, schools, and 
subsequently, killing Americans on an average of 270 every day. 
It's completely unacceptable at any level.
    Experiencing migrant deaths without a reasonable process 
while the U.S. Congress and the administration intentionally 
avoids reality is gross negligence. Our voice of reason has 
been buried during what I call ``intellectual avoidance'' here 
on the southern border by this administration and, yes, certain 
Members of the U.S. Congress.
    Communities have neglected and abandoned--have been 
neglected and abandoned, relying on our own local and State 
resources to address border crimes and trafficking. Our 
southern border--against all public comfort statements out of 
Washington, DC--is in the worse shape I've ever seen it. When 
one looks at public safety, national security, humanitarian, 
our southern border is the largest crime scene in this country.
    The morale of agents is extremely low, and the collective 
frustration is very high among law enforcement at all levels, 
to include our citizens that live in the border communities.
    With the recent news to cancel title 42, this only serves 
to complex a border that needs immediate immigration reform by 
the U.S. Congress, but, most important, needs to be secured.
    I'm a true believer that Customs and Border Patrol are the 
experts on border security, while sheriffs and police chiefs 
are experts of the community. Together, this is a recipe of 
success for all communities.
    I will leave with a final statement. We all serve 
priorities of Americans based on our shared oath of office to 
keep them safe, enhance their quality of life, and support the 
rule of law--absent political affiliation or the concern of 
reelection.
    Once again, I thank this Committee for the invite and the 
opportunity, and now, I stand ready to answer questions by 
Members.
    Thank you, Madam Chair.
    [The statement of Sheriff Dannels follows:]
    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you, Sheriff.
    Now, Mr. Terry FitzPatrick is recognized for five minutes.
    You are recognized.

                 STATEMENT OF TERRY FITZPATRICK

    Mr. FitzPatrick. Thank you, Members of the Committee, for 
your leadership in combating one of the greatest human rights 
challenges of our time, and for this opportunity to recommend 
ways the U.S. can fill gaps in that effort.
    The Alliance to End Slavery and Trafficking, ATEST, is a 
U.S.-based coalition that advocates for solutions to prevent 
forced labor and sex trafficking; to hold perpetrators 
accountable; to ensure justice for victims, and to empower 
survivors with tools for recovery. Our alliance includes 
shelter and service providers in more than 30 U.S. cities and 
organizations that work in over 100 countries. We advocate for 
a whole-of-government approach and bipartisan solutions.
    Human trafficking and forced labor are not only crimes, 
they are violations of human rights, civil rights, child 
rights, women's rights, worker rights, and migrant rights. 
Trafficking is an unfair trade practice, a tool of repression. 
It is often a result of racial, ethnic, class, and religious 
discrimination, and it undermines economic development. 
Addressing these root causes helps reduce the vulnerabilities 
that makes people easy targets for traffickers.
    Now, as some have mentioned earlier, there are two major 
things to address in the 117th Congress. One is the 
reauthorization of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act. You 
may know that three bills have been introduced so far, covering 
different aspects of reauthorization, and a fourth is coming 
soon, possibly this week. The TVPA is one of the world's most 
ambitious and comprehensive pieces of anti-trafficking 
legislation. ATEST supports the reauthorization bills, and we 
urge you to enact them. In my written testimony, you'll find a 
bullet list of many of the new provisions that add new policy 
provisions and authorizations for Federal programs within the 
TVPA.
    The second major issue this Congress is appropriations. 
Fighting a problem as large as human trafficking requires 
significant investment. Our FY23 appropriations recommendations 
total $1.3 billion, and we urge you to support robust funding. 
This is throughout the Federal government.
    The U.S. has built one of the strongest inter-trafficking 
responses in the world, but we don't always live up to our 
ideals or our own standards. I have six specific 
recommendations today for you to address, to think about 
shortcomings in America's response.
    Recommendation 1. A prevalence study. You can't cure it, if 
you can't count it. Congress needs to know the scale and 
dynamics of the problem to prioritize resources. The Justice 
Department has been mandated with developing prevalence 
methodologies, but it has not yet been done.
    Recommendation 2. Victim protocol is: This is working 
upstream of Federal vacatur laws. Law enforcement agents often 
arrest trafficking victims, in part, because they don't 
recognize them as victims. As well, agencies don't often have 
referral systems in place for shelters or trauma counseling, or 
experts on survivor rights. The Departments of Justice and 
Homeland Security have been mandated with developing a victim 
protocol, but it has not been done.
    Recommendation 3. The criminal records, as many have stated 
before me, I think the count might be 46 States now have the 
ability for trafficking victims to help clear their records. 
It's time for Congress to catch up and pass a Federal vacatur 
law.
    Recommendation 4. Transparency in the prohibition of forced 
labor in government contracts. You may know that U.S. 
procurement rules prohibit tax dollars from being used for 
products made by forced labor. However, oversight should be 
strengthened, to include trafficking compliance officers at all 
Federal agencies; publication of reports on the number of 
investigations, the number of contracts terminated, and other 
steps to ensure compliance. Congress must ensure that 
violations are referred to the Justice Department for action.
    Recommendation 5. Foreign labor recruiters. International 
labor recruitment is a loosely-regulated field which allows 
traffickers to trick migrants by posing as legitimate labor 
recruiters. Even legitimate recruiters charge exorbitant fees 
and usurious interests, trapping migrants in debt bondage. We 
urge Congress to strengthen these regulations.
    Recommendation 6. Equity gaps. Federal funding increases 
over the past decade have been directed largely towards sex 
trafficking, leaving labor trafficking, and those programs are 
now under-
resourced. As well, there's an emphasis on prosecutions, which 
has left gaps in prevention and protection programs. There is a 
need to increase attention on labor trafficking and to 
rebalance the three Ps of prevention, prosecution, and 
protection.
    Again, my thanks for your time, and the ATEST coalition 
stands ready to answer any questions at any time, now or in the 
future, from any of your offices. Thanks.
    [The statement of Mr. FitzPatrick follows:]
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    Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you so very much for your testimony.
    I'm now pleased to recognize for five minutes Ms. Jacquelyn 
Aluotto.
    You are recognized.

                 STATEMENT OF JACQUELYN ALUOTTO

    Ms. Aluotto. Thank you to the Members of the Subcommittee, 
Chair, and the Honorable Sheila Jackson Lee.
    I'm honored to be here to testify about the oversight of 
Federal efforts to combat human trafficking.
    My name is Jacquelyn Aluotto. I serve as a community 
awareness coordinator for the Human Trafficking Rescue Alliance 
of the Southern District. It is the fourth largest task force 
in the nation, created by the Justice Department. I'm also here 
representing No Trafficking Zone. I'm the President of this 
organization.
    In our organization, we study trafficking trends. Among 
those trafficking trends, we study life patterns and predatory 
behaviors, which helps us to provide information to dismantle 
and disrupt this intricate crime.
    Among the other things that we do, we advocate for victims. 
I wanted to walk you through what victims are going through in 
high schools across America. Recently, SB 1831, no trafficking 
school laws, passed to protect children in schools, making it a 
first degree felony for recruiting and trafficking of a child 
while at school or during a school-related event. Over 55 
percent of victims were contacted when they were in school in 
the State of Texas, which is an alarming number. That is more 
than half.
    I now want to walk you through what these victims are going 
through and what it is really like to be a child victim in the 
United States of America. It is not just the atrocities that 
predators and organized crime are committing against them. It 
is also that our justice system refuses to recognize exactly 
what this crime is. We're not educated enough to identify this 
crime, nor do we understand the trauma that these victims will 
face.
    I met Courtney Litvak two years ago. When I first met her, 
she was crying on a floor very upset and didn't think that her 
life was worth anything. If you know Courtney Litvak, you know 
that she serves on the White House panel. She does so many 
things for her community, and she's probably the most beautiful 
person I have ever met in my life. She will help anyone.
    During Courtney's story, when she was trafficked, not only 
did her school label her as a bad girl, derogatory behaviors, 
they also bullied her parents and her to stop fighting for 
their children's rights. I want to explain this to you. This is 
a normal occurrence every day across America. If you are a 
victim in school and you talk about trafficking, it becomes 
very uncomfortable for the schools because we've become more 
worried about the liability of the school versus the 
accountability.
    The reason why is because, when traffickers send in the 
recruiters, the recruiters are children themselves who are 
grooming the kids. When they introduce the children to drugs, 
they, then take them to strip clubs. After they learn to dance, 
they are forced to have sex.
    Among those, the girls will let you know and tell you that 
they were beaten in. So, what does breaking in mean? Breaking 
in means, if I do not conform to what you're telling me to do, 
I will beat you; I will rape you; and I will have you gang 
raped and beat you again, and then, videotape it. After I 
videotape it, I'm going to distribute it across all social 
media platforms. After I distribute it across all social media 
platforms, those victims and their parents have to watch their 
children be raped over and over and over again, as our nation 
and our government says that it is okay.
    CSAM, also known as child sexual abuse material, it is 
illegal. We do have to fight for that. Imagine your child being 
raped and having to watch that over and over and over again, as 
social media platforms are making billions of dollars. Child 
pornography in America makes over $20 billion a year. A 
majority of those IP addresses comes from this nation. We have 
a serious crime. Our nation is really failing our children.
    I come here to ask you to please listen to me. I do this 
every single day. I've done this for two decades. I'm tired of 
seeing victims and their parents suffer. I'm tired of seeing 
our system not understand it. We do need training, but we need 
specific training. We need scenario-based training. We do need 
funding, but we need reallocating of funding because the foster 
care system, the more money it gets, the more we are still 
hurting children.
    So, I ask you to look at--please pass the EARN IT Act. 
Please pass No Trafficking Zones. Because the most thing that 
we have to do is we have to come together as a nation and 
understand the difference between good and evil, so that we can 
fight for our children.
    Thank you so much for allowing me to talk. I'm very 
honored.
    [The statement of Ms. Aluotto follows:]
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    Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you for your powerful testimony.
    I'm now delighted to yield five minutes to Ms. Martina 
Vandenberg.
    Ms. Vandenberg, you are recognized for five minutes.

               STATEMENT OF MARTINA E. VANDENBERG

    Ms. Vandenberg. Thank you so much, Chair Jackson Lee, Chair 
Nadler, Ranking Member Biggs, and Members of the Subcommittee.
    It's an honor, it's an honor to appear before you today.
    The Human Trafficking Legal Center provides pro bono legal 
representation to survivors of human trafficking. Over the 
years we have done this work, we have recognized that survivors 
need legal counsel to navigate and fight for justice.
    As we survey Federal human trafficking efforts, I'm 
reminded of the motto, ``Deeds, not words.'' So, let's start 
with criminal prosecution. At the Human Trafficking Legal 
Center, the vast majority of cases that we see are cases of 
forced labors. Victims of forced labor almost never see their 
day in court. In 2020, the last year for which we have official 
data, the Department of Justice brought just 15 forced labor 
cases in the entire country. In 2019, that number was 12. 
Prosecutions of forced labor are barely in the double digits. 
The Department of Justice has never prosecuted a perpetrator 
for forced labor under the extraterritorial jurisdiction 
provisions of the law, 18 U.S.C. 1596.
    In cases that are prosecuted, restitution, a form of 
compensation to victims, is mandatory. Our own research has 
recognized and revealed that just 27 percent of cases that end 
in a conviction actually result in mandatory restitution 
orders. Even more troubling than the failure to obtain 
restitution orders for victims in these cases is the U.S. 
Government's failure to collect the money that is ordered. Let 
me give you an example.
    Jose Alfaro, a survivor of child sex trafficking and a 
member of our board of directors, also received a restitution 
order in a criminal case against his trafficker. The other 
three victims in that case did not receive orders. Federal 
prosecutors in the case, U.S. v. Gandy, forfeited more than 
$200,000 from the defendant, but that money went to the Federal 
Treasury and not to the victims. Only years later, when Jose 
had obtained pro bono counsel, did the Federal Treasury, 
finally, disgorge the funds to cover restitution and 
remission--years later.
    For survivors, the failure to receive restitution can be 
devastating, but even more devastating than that is when 
victims themselves are prosecuted and convicted for crimes 
related to trafficking. We are working on a Federal criminal 
case in which a victim of forced labor has been charged with 
Federal crimes, including fraud, and the prosecutors simply 
refuse to acknowledge her status as a victim in the case.
    Why does this matter? I think you have heard powerfully 
from the survivors on this panel why this matters. Trafficking 
victims prosecuted by Federal authorities face lifelong 
consequences of conviction. They are barred from employment, 
ineligible for professional licenses, unable to rent 
apartments, and even unable to chaperone their own children's 
field trips at school. The list goes on and on. This is why a 
Federal vacatur statute is needed. Survivors must have the 
ability to vacate these convictions, and they must have access 
to an affirmative defense to avoid these convictions and 
prosecutions in the first place.
    I'd like to turn for a moment to what I call the 
``forgotten P,'' which is prevention. For the last two decades, 
the U.S. anti-trafficking policy has prioritized prosecution 
and this must now change, and the focus must switch to 
preventing these abuses.
    So, what would prevent human trafficking? It's not what you 
think. One item is housing. It is one of the biggest gaps in 
human trafficking policy in the United States.
    What else would protect and prevent human trafficking? 
Protections for immigrant workers in the United States. 
Advocates have long called for greater protections for workers 
on A-3, G-5, and H-2A visas. Traffickers abuse these programs 
to make enormous profits at the expense of migrant workers.
    What else would prevent human trafficking? Enforcement of 
U.S. labor laws, including prohibitions on wage theft and child 
labor; in other words, fund the Department of Labor.
    You've heard today about survivor leadership. I want to 
quote Bukola Oriola, a survivor of forced labor from Nigeria, 
who said to me recently,

        For me, survivor empowerment is key to stopping trafficking. We 
        can only successfully stop it when we involve those who are 
        directly affected.

I agree completely and hope that you will continue to listen to 
survivors.
    I want to add one last point about forced labor, not just 
in the United States, but around the globe. We applaud U.S. and 
Customs Border Protection's ramped-up enforcement of the import 
ban on goods made through forced labor under section 307 of the 
Tariff Act. CBP is enforcing the law, and Congress should fund 
CBP adequately to carry out its forced labor mandate. With 
implementation of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Labor Act 
set to commence in June 2022, we want to make sure that there 
are sufficient resources.
    I've included multiple, multiple recommendations in my 
written testimony, but I'll just close with this: We need deeds 
and not words. With deeds, we can eradicate human trafficking 
and forced labor.
    Thank you for this opportunity to testify at the hearing.
    [The statement of Ms. Vandenberg follows:]
    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you for your testimony, and thank 
all the Witnesses for their testimony. It has been instructive, 
provocative, and insightful, and it is going to insight in the 
right direction. Because it is 2022; as we sit here today, 
people are being violated and trafficked.
    So, it is now time for questioning, and I would like to 
begin, recognizing myself for five minutes.
    Our time is very short. So, I will ask our Witnesses to 
bear with me for short, pointed answers. I am going to start 
with Ms. Vandenberg.
    Thank you for highlighting the forced labor, as Ms. Chumbow 
has done as well.
    Let me quickly go to my opening statement.
    Human smuggling is horrible. The victim is the United 
States. The victim is certainly people who come for many 
different reasons. It is important to emphasize what human 
trafficking is and the depth of devastation and lack of 
protection for the victims of human trafficking.
    Can you give us that, so that we are not confused between 
human smuggling and human trafficking?
    Ms. Vandenberg. Chair Jackson Lee, I'm so glad that you 
raised that issue in your opening statement, and I'm so glad 
that you've returned to it. Because smuggling and trafficking 
are completely different phenomena.
    You don't even have to cross an international border to be 
trafficked. The distinguishing feature for adults is that 
traffickers use force, fraud, or coercion to force someone to 
commit an act of labor or a commercial sex act. It is very, 
very important to distinguish between these two phenomena.
    Thank you.
    Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you so very much.
    Now, Ms. Chumbow--and I am going to ask Mr. Eduardo as 
well--what are the barriers? We thank you for this pouring out 
your heart and your very personal story, which must be very 
painful. So, what are the barriers that you found particularly 
challenging as a survivor, particularly, Ms. Chumbow, of labor 
trafficking?
    Ms. Chumbow. Thank you for that question.
    One of the barriers, again, is cultural understanding. It 
was, like I mentioned in my testimony, I was age 9, and for me 
coming to the United States was because of the television show 
that I saw on TV. So, I thought America was just like that. I 
never knew that I was a victim of modern-day slavery.
    When I did get out to get help, and the investigators on my 
case are accusing me for wanting a green card. Really, it was 
very hard for me to understand what a green card is. Because 
coming from another country, we don't know that we need 
documents to work in this country. We don't know that you need 
green cards. So, I was 9 years old. I just thought I was coming 
to go to school.
    A lot of the barriers is just having an understanding of 
where we come from and not being able to understand the laws 
and the rules of this country and what we need.
    Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you. Thank you so very much.
    Mr. Eduardo, barriers, concisely, of what you face or what 
you think have been overlooked?
    Mr. Eduardo. First, it was that I am a male. There are no--
really services for male survivors. There is this idea that 
only children of woman are in traffic. Most of the services 
receive funding for woman. I understand that the majority of 
people identified are women, but we are missing other survivors 
because they are male.
    The other important piece is that, because I am an 
immigrant, we hear a lot of times this idea that immigrants, we 
are here to steal loaves, that we are all rapists, that we all 
belong to gangs. That was one of the main barriers that stopped 
me--like to even contact law enforcement or reach out for help, 
because I knew that it was one of the tools that my traffickers 
used. They say that outside no one is going to support you; no 
one is going to believe you. It was because I was a Latino from 
Mexico.
    Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you.
    As my time is moving, Mr. FitzPatrick, we found out that, 
in 2017, evidence of 53 percent of arrests for child 
prostitution were of Black children. The trauma and the 
stigmatizing occurs particularly in diverse groups. Mr. Eduardo 
mentioned immigrants. Help us understand what should be done as 
it relates to trauma and sentencing of child survivors of 
trafficking.
    Mr. FitzPatrick. Thank you for that question.
    I think there's a phrase that trafficking can happen to 
anyone, but I think it's important to note that it doesn't 
always, or most always, happen to people who are not people of 
color. So, some of the vulnerabilities that come with being a 
person of color lead to vulnerabilities for traffickers. These 
can be problems in the foster care system. These can be things 
that happen to all youths, unhoused youths and runaway and 
homeless youths. So, you find them are particularly vulnerable 
to having to commit crimes of survival--
    Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you.
    Mr. FitzPatrick. --including those that are forced to 
commit by traffickers. These--
    Ms. Jackson Lee. I just have a few more seconds.
    Mr. FitzPatrick. The trauma--
    Ms. Jackson Lee. I need to move to another person.
    Mr. FitzPatrick. The trauma that this leaves behind on 
someone ``needs'' to be addressed at the point of intervention 
at the point of arrest or rescue.
    Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you.
    Ms. Aluotto, very quickly, how devastating it is to go to 
school and your parents think you're safe, and yet, you're 
being trafficked at a school, maybe as young as elementary 
school?
    Ms. Aluotto. It is extremely terrifying. It is terrifying 
to send your child to school where you think your child is 
safe, and then, to understand that, at an alarming rate across 
this nation, your child is at school being exploited. Many 
times, the school is not marking the absences when they're 
aware of certain situations, but they are so afraid of how to 
handle it. They are really more afraid of the liability versus 
accountability. I think it's terrifying for parents, but I also 
think it's terrifying for the children, that they're not 
getting the help that they really need.
    Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you so very much.
    My time has expired. I recognize now Mr. Chabot for five 
minutes.
    Mr. Chabot. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    Thank you to all the Witnesses who have testified here this 
morning.
    Human trafficking, there is no question, is a serious 
challenge facing us both here at home and abroad. In addition 
to being on this Committee, the Judiciary Committee, I am also 
the Ranking Member of the Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Asian 
and the Pacific. In that role, I have spent many years working 
on solutions to human trafficking all across the globe.
    Over the years, we have had some success in protecting 
young girls abroad by helping to improve their circumstances, 
so that they become less vulnerable to human trafficking 
networks. I sponsored, for example, along with Senator Rubio, 
some time back, bipartisan legislation, which was signed into 
law by President Obama, to make certain that every child, 
especially girls, around the globe are issued birth 
certificates. So, many young girls in specific countries, their 
birth was never really marked by anything, and they sort of 
were lost and particularly subject to human trafficking. So, 
that has helped, but it is only one piece of the solution.
    Proper documentation for these children would not only 
improve their lives by making it easier to access schools and 
health services, and other economic, legal, and political 
benefits in their home country, but also help combat the human 
trafficking child marriage and slave labor practices that 
flourish all across the globe.
    Here at home, there are additional steps that we can take 
to disrupt human trafficking networks. That starts with making 
sure that our southern border cannot be used by criminal 
trafficking networks to smuggle vulnerable children and women 
into the country.
    Unfortunately, in that effort, we have got a long way to 
go. Because since he took office, President Biden has been busy 
reversing just about every one of the Trump Administration's 
successful immigration policies. The Biden Administration has 
stopped construction on the border wall, for example; ended 
catch and release, and has practically abandoned enforcement by 
ICE altogether, just to name a few of its misguided policies.
    Now, the Biden Administration wants to stop enforcement of 
title 42, which currently allows ICE to quickly expel people 
trying to enter the United States illegally during a health 
emergency. The Biden White House has admitted that it has, 
quote, ``every expectation that there will be an influx of 
people to the border,'' unquote, when title 42 is eliminated. 
That is going to make the problem even worse.
    Fortunately, a Federal judge in Louisiana blocked the Biden 
Administration from going forward with its plans to stop 
enforcement of title 42, although I fear that this could be a 
temporary roadblock to the administration's plan.
    Simply put, the situation at the border is an unmitigated 
disaster, and it is about to get a whole lot worse potentially. 
Unfortunately, the massive influx of illegal border crossings 
that we are experiencing now will only make it easier for human 
trafficking networks to flourish by exploiting our lax border 
security.
    Ms. Vaughan and Sheriff Dannels, let me just ask you both a 
question. Do you agree that the chaos at our southern border, 
created by the failed policies of the current administration, 
have made it easier for human trafficking networks to smuggle 
vulnerable women and children into our country?
    Ms. Vaughan first, and then we will go to the sheriff, if 
that is okay.
    Ms. Vaughan. Absolutely, yes, I agree, because you can 
track this in the numbers, but it has overwhelmed of the Border 
Patrol and other agencies trying to grapple with this problem 
to the point where they are not able to easily detect 
trafficking that occurs right under their noses because they 
are dealing with huge numbers of families and kids who are 
coming unaccompanied, and it is just making it impossible for 
them.
    Mr. Chabot. Thank you. Sheriff Dannels?
    Mr. Dannels. Sure. I echo what Ms. Vaughan has stated, also 
the fact that is with the surge coming across our border, the 
disarray, the lack of rule of law, and the messaging from the 
administration, this administration, it creates a horrible 
situation for trafficking in the fact that--I'm talking about 
the victims that are being smuggled and trafficked to our 
country, that--yeah, you're diluting our resources for 
enforcement and that rule of law.
    So, yeah, it's a sad situation going on down here. It's an 
opportunity for those transnational organizations to exploit it 
and that's happening every day.
    Mr. Chabot. Then, finally, Sheriff--I don't have a whole 
lot of time left--I know that you communicate with a lot of 
your colleagues, other sheriffs and people in law enforcement. 
Do your views here--are they reflected by those others, and if 
so, if you wanted to comment on that?
    Mr. Dannels. I will say this. They do, when it comes to 
what's going on. We stand for people. We stand for those who've 
been victims of crimes as sheriffs. I will say this. One thing 
that is upsetting to me as a sheriff--I speak on behalf of my 
3,000 sheriffs--is we need to--
    Ms. Jackson Lee. If you can answer quickly, Sheriff. Your 
time has expired.
    Mr. Dannels. Okay. Thank you, Madam Chair. We need the 
collective efforts of local, State, and Federal working 
together. That's how we're going to solve this problem.
    Mr. Chabot. Thank you. Yield back.
    Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you. The gentleman's time--the 
Member's time has expired.
    I now recognize Chair of the Full Committee, Mr. Nadler, 
for five minutes.
    Chair Nadler. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    Ms. Chumbow, would it have helped you to have an attorney 
assigned to you while the criminal case against your trafficker 
went on?
    Ms. Chumbow. Sorry. Can you repeat the question again?
    Chair Nadler. Would it have helped you to have an attorney 
assigned to you while the criminal case against your trafficker 
was going on?
    Ms. Chumbow. Yeah, it would have helped. It did help. So, 
there was one attorney that was very helpful, especially she 
was helping me to teach me about my rights.
    It definitely did help to have an attorney while my case 
was being investigated. and also teaching me what I need to 
know and what the process was.
    So, having an attorney assigned to my case definitely did 
help and it definitely can help in other cases.
    Chair Nadler. Thank you.
    Ms. McKenzie, you pled guilty to trafficking crimes based 
on actions your trafficker forced you to take. How often are 
victims of human trafficking forced to commit crimes by their 
traffickers?
    Ms. McKenzie. Traffickers create their criminal enterprise 
to evade criminal charges. So, this is a common practice about 
among traffickers. They know the laws better than the victims 
know the laws. They know the laws better than some of us in 
this room. So, they create their enterprise to ensure--there's 
even a book that this trafficker wrote that says keep your 
hands clean. You have to be seen--you have to use others as cat 
paws. So, they're teaching even other traffickers.
    Chair Nadler. A trafficker wrote a book on how to be a 
trafficker?
    Ms. McKenzie. Yes. There are tons of books out by 
traffickers teaching others how to be a trafficker.
    Chair Nadler. Wow.
    Mr. Eduardo, can you expand on the obstacles you faced as 
an LGBTQ+ survivor and how can we better support the needs of 
LGBTQ+ trafficking survivors?
    Mr. Eduardo. Yes. Actually, I think that we have great 
examples in the South about bills that are still being 
education around LGBTQ+ individuals, and these just fuels 
homophobia and transphobia even in--I'm living in New York City 
and I have faced homophobia, not only here, also in Mexico, and 
that was one of the main barriers for me because I knew that I 
wasn't going to be accepted and that there is still homophobia 
in this country. That's a big, big barrier because of the fear 
of just being denied services for who you are, or not being 
seen as a full human being because I identify as a gay male.
    So, that needs to change, and if we want to fight against 
trafficking we cannot support bills that are stopping rights 
for LGBTQ+ community.
    I know that we need to stop silencing and we need to 
educate ourselves more. It's not about making more gay people 
or transgender individuals, but it's recognizing the barriers 
that we face, that there are no services for us and we are 
denied based on our sexuality or even sometimes our appearance.
    Chair Nadler. How can the government better support the 
needs of LGBTQ trafficking survivors?
    Mr. Eduardo. Recognizing our rights. Recognizing and 
creating Federal force to address discrimination or any other 
form of stigma, and I think that a lot of times even 
politicians they need to be aware of the language that is used.
    We are human beings. We are not rapists. We are not--as I 
experienced it, like, being part of the LGBTQ+ community has 
put me in high risk because of this discrimination and 
homophobia and transphobia, that it's a lot of times power of 
the narrative that drives a lot of legislation.
    Chair Nadler. Thank you.
    Mr. FitzPatrick, why is a whole of government approach 
necessary to address human trafficking?
    Mr. FitzPatrick. Well, in part because you need to work on 
prevention strategies and some of those things are best done by 
Health and Human Services or you need to integrate anti-
trafficking strategies into international development programs 
and that needs to be done through State and USAID.
    The U.S. has global leadership in this area through the 
JTIP Office in the State Department. So, there's an avenue for 
the State Department. We need to prosecute, of course.
    I'm not against prosecuting. I just wish we'd see more 
prosecutions of labor trafficking and that means we need to 
involve the Labor Department and not just the Justice 
Department.
    So, that's why I think of this as a whole of government--
education programs as well. Inside the TVPRA there's a new 
trafficking provision for the Transportation Department. So, I 
think it's great that we have this diverse set of actions 
happening throughout the Federal infrastructure to work on 
different parts of the problem.
    Chair Nadler. Thank you. My time has expired. I yield back.
    Ms. Jackson Lee. The gentleman's time has expired.
    I now recognize Judge Gohmert for five years--not years 
but--
    [Laughter.]
    Ms. Jackson Lee. I don't know if that meant incarceration 
or time. In any event, five minutes, Judge. You are now 
recognized.
    Mr. Gohmert. I appreciate the Chair. Thank you. I 
appreciate you all being here, and my heart goes out to those 
who have been victimized by human trafficking.
    It's just horrendous, and I know my friends across the 
aisle are not big supporters of mandatory minimums, but for 
children's sake, it seems like that ought to be a place.
    Human trafficking, what's been done to children, ought to 
bring about some commonality between people on both sides of 
the aisle that 6\1/2\ years, as has already been pointed out by 
some, that is not enough for someone who is engaging in 
trafficking--sex trafficking, human trafficking--for minor 
children.
    For heaven's sake, they need to be doing some long, hard 
time. That is one thing that I appreciate that being brought up 
by some of the testimony.
    Mr. Eduardo, what you've been through is just 
unconscionable. Anybody who would do the things that have been 
done to you there ought to be a mandatory minimum where they're 
locked up for many years as a general deterrence and specific 
deterrence.
    You indicate that you feel like your biggest problem is 
discrimination and homophobia. It sounds like the hell you've 
been through has a lot more to do with the trafficking being 
done than any type of homophobia.
    I know your testimony--you're a Latino immigrant. Did 
someone sell you to somebody in this country from another 
country? How did it come about that you were trafficked?
    Mr. Eduardo. No. Actually, I experienced twice trafficking 
from Mexico to Canada, that's the international trafficking.
    Mr. Gohmert. Does that mean somebody, you know--
    Mr. Eduardo. Sold me to another person.
    Mr. Gohmert. Yeah. So, where was the person that sold you 
to Canada?
    Mr. Eduardo. The person who first started trafficking--my 
first trafficker it was in Mexico. He had connections with 
someone in Canada and everything that started as--
    Mr. Gohmert. Was this somebody in your family, like Ms. 
Chumbow? Didn't you say it was your uncle?
    Ms. Chumbow. Yes.
    Mr. Gohmert. Yeah. Was it a relative? Who sold you?
    Mr. Eduardo. No. Actually, he was part of the--he was 
another gay male. That's why I think that a lot of times we 
don't understand the--
    Mr. Gohmert. So, he was gay, but he had homophobia and 
that's how your problem started?
    Mr. Eduardo. Yes. No, the problem is that society isolates 
us because we are gay. We are denied jobs. We are denied from 
opportunities.
    Mr. Gohmert. So, somebody in Canada actually paid for you 
when you came to Canada. Did the person in Canada sell you to 
the United States?
    Mr. Eduardo. No. Actually, I escaped because, as I say, 
it's when I had the situation when I was bleeding and I just 
escaped. The thing was that I didn't want to go back to Mexico, 
so I traveled here to the United States.
    Mr. Gohmert. Yeah. Because it seems like we do need to 
focus on exactly how this gets started and it sounds like--I 
know you said that racism was at the base of it. Was your uncle 
White?
    Ms. Chumbow. No.
    Mr. Gohmert. Because it sounds like greed is a bigger 
problem, that we're allowing people who are greedy to just 
totally disregard the rights of someone like you and send you 
into a life of--a childhood of hell, what you've been through. 
So, I really want to bear down on exactly how that came about, 
like Mr. Eduardo was telling us. How did that actually come 
about that your uncle--yeah, go ahead.
    Ms. Chumbow. Yeah. So, for my case, again, my trafficker 
was also a Cameroonian, but a U.S. citizen that is based in the 
U.S. My trafficker has a--their family owns like big businesses 
in Cameroon and my uncle worked for a lot of wealthy people in 
Cameroon as a driver.
    So, I guess this woman just came and stated that she was 
looking for someone and my uncle thought I would be the right 
person to come to America.
    When it comes to race, the reason why I mentioned racism 
being part of the problem, again, because a lot of the time, 
us, as people of color are trafficked a lot and we don't get to 
see ourself in the media talking about this issue of 
trafficking.
    So, the reason why I say race, because if you Google human 
trafficking and you click on images, you get to see that they 
don't really show people of color. So, that's why I talk about 
race, and it's really hard for us, people of color, to get 
services.
    Mr. Gohmert. Well, thank you. I appreciate it, Madam Chair. 
We really do need to work together to make it as difficult as 
possible for people to be sold into this country. It's just 
terrible what's going on. Thank you for being here. I yield 
back.
    Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you. The gentleman's time has 
expired.
    I now recognize gentlelady from Atlanta, Georgia, Ms. 
McBath, for five minutes.
    Ms. McBath. Thank you, Madam Chair, and good afternoon to 
our Witnesses, and specifically to our Witnesses before us 
today who are survivors of trafficking. I've read your 
testimonies, and from the bottom of my heart I really, really 
want to thank you for being with us today.
    I know that it's not easy to be here sharing your stories, 
but I do really admire your strength and your determination and 
thank you, once again, for being here today.
    The horror of human trafficking, whether that be sexual 
trafficking or labor trafficking, is a national plight and it's 
affecting each of our districts, all of us, Members of Congress 
and, sadly, human trafficking can happen to anyone no matter 
their background. Victims of human trafficking 
disproportionately tend to be Black, Latino, and indigenous 
women and girls.
    However, we know that there's also a significant problem of 
human trafficking victims who are male, as has been expressed 
this morning, and, sadly, are often overlooked and under 
counted in these kinds of tragedies.
    It's imperative that we do everything in our power to 
combat human trafficking, and in addition to increasing 
prosecution of human traffickers we must prevent it before it 
happens.
    We have got to be better at being proactive. That means 
protecting vulnerable communities, such as children in the 
welfare system, youth who have encountered the juvenile justice 
system, runaway and homeless youth, and intervening before 
they're faced with exploitative recruitment practices and we 
must--it's just essential that we make sure that we're doing 
everything that we can through a holistic approach to solving 
human trafficking.
    My first question is for Ms. Chumbow. When we think about 
identifying victims of human trafficking we often do not think 
of our healthcare providers and, however, studies have found 
that between 68-88 percent of human trafficking survivors in 
the United States alone encounter a healthcare provider during 
their trafficking but are not recognized as trafficking 
victims.
    Did you ever encounter a healthcare provider while you were 
a victim of forced labor and did that person recognize that you 
were a trafficking victim? In what ways can we ensure that 
healthcare providers are properly trained to be able to screen 
for victims that have been trafficked?
    Ms. Chumbow. Thank you for your question, and yes to your 
answer. I did encounter a healthcare person when I was in my 
trafficking situation.
    I'll give an example. My trafficker--again, I had mentioned 
my trafficker was very abusive towards me and one time I didn't 
do something right in the kitchen. I wasn't able to cook the 
food properly for the kids and so my trafficker used a metal 
broom to beat me, and my knee broke and it cracked open and I 
have the scar here to show that.
    So, she took me to the emergency room and she was there 
with me, and I remember the nurses and the doctor came in and 
asking what happened, and I couldn't really say much because my 
trafficker was there and it was really hard for me to tell this 
doctor and nurses what happened.
    So, I just said, hey, I fell down. It would have been nice 
if the nurses or doctor at that time would have asked my 
trafficker to go out. Maybe I would have said exactly what 
happened or maybe if they just noticed the way I didn't look so 
happy.
    I looked unnourished, because I really didn't eat a lot 
during my trafficking situation, and they didn't ask the right 
question and they didn't do the right proper way to say, hey, 
get out there. Let me talk to this young lady, and my 
trafficker being there really made it hard for me to be able to 
communicate of what happened.
    So, nurses and doctors, they're doing really well now to 
try to get training about this issue, and I will say that it's 
been a pleasure to be able to talk to nurses and doctors of how 
they can able to identify a trafficking victim when they come 
to the emergency room or go to the doctor.
    That was my first time ever going to the emergency room 
after being with my trafficker for such a long time.
    Ms. McBath. Thank you so much for that. I really am grieved 
by the things that you've been through.
    Mr. FitzPatrick, we know that many trafficked youth 
experience a significant amount of trauma prior to their 
exploitation, making them more vulnerable to trafficking and 
exploitation.
    What can we do better to support victims and intervene in 
the cycle of abuse, abuse of vulnerable children, that are 
often victim to this kind of trafficking?
    Mr. FitzPatrick. Well, I think the McKinney-Vento Runaway 
and Homeless Youth Act has programs that help with children's 
vulnerabilities and funding those programs, I think, is really 
important.
    Our alliance supports that and the National Network for 
Youth is in our coalition as well educating doctors to 
intervene. One of our organizations in our coalition is Heal 
Trafficking, doctors that train other doctors on what to look 
for.
    So, just like doctors are trained to look for child abuse 
or neglect or domestic violence if someone shows up in their 
ER. One recent example is they handed out 20,000 brochures on 
human trafficking in India in a trafficking hotspot when people 
were getting their COVID vaccinations.
    Integrating anti-trafficking interventions into medical 
settings is another way. The same thing--we have called for a 
comprehensive study on the connection between gender-based 
violence and human trafficking and we hope that might get 
introduced as part of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act.
    So, there are several things we can do on several fronts to 
help cope with trauma and root causes that may leave people 
vulnerable.
    Ms. Jackson Lee. The gentlelady's time has expired.
    Ms. McBath. Thank you. My time is expired.
    Ms. Jackson Lee. I now recognize Mr. Tiffany for five 
minutes.
    Mr. Tiffany. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    Ms. Chumbow, did I hear correctly traffickers were using 
the same passport as much as five times?
    Ms. Chumbow. Yes. My trafficker used one passport to bring 
five of us into the United States. Again, I didn't know that I 
came into the country illegally. So, I didn't know that. I 
didn't know any of that. So, but, yes.
    Mr. Tiffany. Thank you.
    Ms. Aluotto, did I hear you say that grooming is happening 
in schools?
    Ms. Aluotto. Yes, sir.
    Mr. Tiffany. Frequently?
    Ms. Aluotto. Yes. Grooming is happening. It's systematic 
grooming. It's happening in schools. It's happening on social 
media, and if you want me to walk through how simple and easy 
it is to groom someone, you study their vulnerabilities. You 
understand that a lot of youth do not understand the boundaries 
and you start testing them and pushing them. Once you start 
testing them and pushing them, the job is to strip them of 
their identity, so much that they become what you want them to 
become.
    Mr. Tiffany. Should we regulate social media in regards to 
this?
    Ms. Aluotto. I think absolutely, if you're going to allow 
CSM, child sex abuse material, on because it is against the law 
to create it and distribute it, yes, I do.
    Mr. Tiffany. Is it on social media currently?
    Ms. Aluotto. Yes.
    Mr. Tiffany. You could find it for me readily?
    Ms. Aluotto. I probably could. Yeah.
    Mr. Tiffany. Thank you.
    Ms. Aluotto. Thank you.
    Mr. Tiffany. Ms. Vandenberg, you talked about prevention 
and I think you mentioned the Uighurs of Western China. Should 
we deny products that are made with slave labor for entry into 
our country?
    Ms. Vandenberg. Absolutely, and we are delighted to see the 
passage almost unanimously in the House and the Senate of the 
Uighur Forced Labor Prevention Act. It goes into effect June 
21st of this year. The details are to be worked out.
    Absolutely, those products made with Uighur forced labor, 
whether it's in Xinjiang or whether it's Uighur labor from the 
labor transfer program it should be barred from entering the 
U.S., yes.
    Mr. Tiffany. Have you had any American companies that have 
fought on that to not allow it to happen?
    Ms. Vandenberg. So, Congressman Tiffany, we just had public 
hearings on this on April the 8th and a number of companies 
testified at that open hearing that was held by the Forced 
Labor Enforcement Task Force, which is tasked with enforcing 
the Uighur Forced Labor Prevention Act, and many of those 
companies asked for delay.
    They have been on notice for two years that Uighur forced 
labor is not permissible. For two years they have had time to 
plan and, yet, they are asking for a phased implementation of 
the law that you passed. We think that's extremely troubling.
    Mr. Tiffany. Yeah, I agree with you, and I think 
companies--I'll name them--like Nike and Apple and some of 
them, need to shape up their practices in regard to this. I'd 
also point out that many of the solar and wind panels--solar 
panels and wind turbines--that have come into this country are 
coming in via forced labor being produced by forced labor in 
China.
    Sheriff Dannels--and by the way, just a gentle correction 
for the Committee. It's not Daniels. It is Dannels.
    Sheriff Dannels, I visited you two years ago. 
Representative Biggs led a tour down there. It was eye 
opening--first time for me going down to the Arizona border, 
and you said things were getting better, that progress was 
being made at that time. It was early June 2020. Is that still 
the case nearly two years later?
    Mr. Dannels. Good seeing you again, Congressman, and the 
answer that is no. In fact, just the opposite. To give you an 
example, when you were here two years ago, on our own virtual 
camera system we saw illegal entries at a rate of about 400 a 
month.
    Now, we're up to 8,000 a month and that's just off my 
Cochise County Sheriff's Office camera virtual system. Eight 
thousand a month compared to 400, and then you multiply that 
throughout when it comes to the crime and all the different 
aspects of trafficking and smuggling. So, we're in pretty bad 
shape here.
    Mr. Tiffany. Did you say 400 versus 8,000?
    Mr. Dannels. Yeah. Two years ago when you were here, sir, 
we at 400 a month. Now, we're approaching--
    Mr. Tiffany. So, 20 times as many?
    Mr. Dannels. Yes.
    Mr. Tiffany. Twenty times as many?
    Mr. Dannels. Yes.
    Mr. Tiffany. How serious is it that we keep--we're 
beginning to hear this story about how American kids are now 
complicit in making this happen and that they're being paid to 
bring in--especially young American kids that are bringing in 
drugs and humans across the border? Have you seen that?
    Mr. Dannels. We're seeing a lot of that. Sadly, to say, 
we're seeing kids being recruited through social media by the 
cartels. We're seeing it every day.
    I got a handful kids in my jail right now all the way from 
14-17 years of age, and we're trying to get an injunction right 
now against social media to stop that recruitment against our 
social media sites. So, the question you had earlier, I 100 
percent echo. We need to have restrictions on our social media 
sites.
    Mr. Tiffany. Ms. Vaughan, I'm sorry I can't ask any 
questions of you. I wish I could. My time is up. I yield back.
    Ms. Jackson Lee. The time has expired.
    I now recognize the gentlelady from Pennsylvania, Ms. 
Scanlon, for five minutes.
    Ms. Scanlon. Thank you, Chair Jackson Lee, for holding this 
important hearing, and thank you to our Witnesses for taking 
the time to join us as we talk about the complexities of 
tackling the impact of human trafficking.
    I'd like to get back to the purpose of the hearing, 
exploring the ways in which our Federal government can improve 
our response to trafficking and, in particular, how we can 
better protect survivors of trafficking.
    Before coming to Congress, I worked with agencies like the 
Human Trafficking Legal Center, Polaris, KIND, and supervised 
pro bono attorneys representing survivors of human trafficking 
on the range of issues they face.
    My team represented survivors lured by the promise of jobs 
and trafficked into forced labor and survivors left vulnerable 
to trafficking after being let down by our child welfare 
system.
    Last Congress, Congresswoman Wagner and I led a bipartisan 
bill, the Protecting Access to Justice for Survivors Act on 
this very topic. The legislation would improve access to legal 
representation for trafficking survivors through Department of 
Justice grants and allow recipients to use funds for post-
conviction relief proceedings, including vacatur, expungement, 
record sealing or other post-conviction relief measures, and of 
course, an ongoing issue is to the extent that survivors of 
human trafficking are from other countries their lack of status 
in our system and the inability of our legal aid system to 
provide representation creates more hurdles.
    Ms. Vandenberg, in your testimony you talked about the 
importance of legal representation for survivors of 
trafficking. Can you speak more to the realities that survivors 
face in the legal system, whether that cases that don't get 
prosecuted, unsatisfactory prosecutions, continued 
vulnerability to abuse due to immigration status, prosecution 
of survivors themselves and the barriers that having a criminal 
record through no fault of their own can pose?
    Ms. Vandenberg. I would agree with absolutely everything 
that you just said, and thank you for your leadership in this 
area.
    When trafficking survivors do not have lawyers, they have 
tremendous difficulty asserting their rights. They have 
tremendous difficulty obtaining restitution. It is impossible 
to bring a civil case under 18 U.S.C. 1595 without legal 
counsel.
    We have enormous problems with trafficking survivors now 
getting immigration relief through the T-visa program because 
this Vermont service center is moving so slowly that you can 
wait as long as almost three years to get a visa. It is almost 
impossible to navigate these complex systems without pro bono 
legal representation by your side.
    Ms. Scanlon. Thank you. Any suggestions on how Congress can 
help ensure that representation is available? I mean, pro bono 
representation means that we have volunteer lawyers doing it, 
but perhaps there should be more and that's what our bill was 
hoping to provide.
    Ms. Vandenberg. I completely agree. We are now able to find 
pro bono lawyers, largely, on the coasts. It's very difficult 
to find pro bono lawyers in States that are not California and 
New York and, perhaps, Florida.
    So, it's very important that legal services receive funding 
and that organizations receive funding to provide those legal 
services through the nonprofit sector because we cannot depend 
entirely on pro bono attorneys, particularly, in places that 
are not sort of legal markets that are large.
    Ms. Scanlon. Certainly, and many of the cases that the 
attorneys I worked with were representing folks, it was nurses 
or folks who were working at senior living centers in Arizona, 
for example, or someone who had been lured to hotel service in 
Colorado. It is, certainly, not a problem simply at the border 
or on the coast.
    Often, we see that we get justice through lawsuits 
involving people's pocketbooks rather than necessarily the 
criminal justice system. If restitution is mandatory, it seems 
like that could put a dent in some of these practices. How are 
traffickers avoiding paying restitution and what could we do 
there?
    Ms. Vandenberg. One problem that I see is that there is 
infrequent forfeiture of defendants' assets and even when those 
assets are forfeited, unfortunately, they are absorbed by the 
Federal Treasury rather than rerouted to trafficking survivors 
through restoration and payment of restitution.
    There has to be much, much more attention in the U.S. 
Attorneys' offices and in the Financial Litigation Units in 
those offices to actually collecting the restitution that is 
owed.
    At this point, we are at a place where, really, victims 
with lawyers are almost always the only ones who actually see 
payment of restitution, and even then it's a fraction of the 
amount that's owed.
    Ms. Scanlon. Well, it sounds like providing more counsel to 
folks who are in this situation would be helpful.
    I see my time has expired so I yield back. Thank you.
    Ms. Jackson Lee. The gentlelady's time has expired, and the 
Chair now recognizes Mr. Fitzgerald for five minutes.
    Mr. Fitzgerald. Thank you, Madam Chair. I think we should 
retitle this hearing ``Close the Border and Close it Now'' 
because it seems the one thing that's in common with everything 
that's been discussed today is there is a steady stream of 
victims that have been created as a result of the border being 
wide open between Mexico and the U.S.
    Ms. Vaughan, I just wanted to ask the other thing that 
seems common is there's this area of influence that one 
individual has over other individuals. It can be coercion. It 
can be addiction. It it can take a lot of different forms.
    Can you talk about that, and what's the dynamic that 
creates that or how is that viewed, I guess, when you're 
talking about whether it's just trafficking somebody across the 
border and then them being sold to another trafficker or we see 
prostitution rings around the U.S. that also are created under 
this idea that someone has control over another human being.
    I think that's something that's really hard for many 
Americans to kind of relate to. They don't get it. They hear 
human trafficking. They don't know what it really means or what 
it entails.
    So, it's kind of brushed off as a topic that people are 
familiar with, but aren't necessarily in tune to what the 
dynamic is. Can you talk a little bit about that?
    Ms. Vaughan. Sure. Thank you. That is a common thread that 
I have seen in a number of the cases that I've tracked over the 
years, and it starts with the ability of the traffickers to 
tempt people into this arrangement to have themselves brought 
to the United States illegal with a realistic expectation that 
they're going to be released into the country. At that point, 
often the traffickers are able to keep them in their clutches 
by threatening them or sometimes at first seeming to be benign, 
like telling them that they're going to find them a job. This 
can be something that leads into the commercial sex trade or in 
other cases, many, many cases it turns out to be labor 
trafficking or in a peonage or indentured servitude, like a 
case in Illinois where a woman--they paid one of the victims, a 
father and his daughter paid $14,000 to be brought to the 
border knowing that they were going to be released, as 
happened. They gave the name of this woman, Concepcion Malinek, 
in Illinois near Chicago, or in Chicago, who then charged them 
another $18,000 to be able for, supposedly, the transportation 
to her house.
    She got them jobs with fake IDs working at a sandwich 
factory. She basically stole half of their earnings telling 
them it was for bills that they owed her to repay their debts, 
threatened to turn them over to Immigration. This happened sort 
of with the blessing of our broken immigration system and catch 
and release policies that this was able to happen. There were 
dozens of others living in this horribly unsanitary house.
    In other cases it's kids who come unaccompanied end up in 
government-run shelters or foster care placement situations. 
They're vulnerable. Sometimes they run away from those. We have 
seen--and those are the most vulnerable and those are the ones, 
for example, that some of the gangs like MS-13 will draw into 
their clutches using the techniques that we've heard described 
here.
    So, again, the system that we have, that is being allowed 
to be perpetuated, is set up to have swift release of kids from 
government custody, no follow-up, no home studies, no 
mechanisms. These would be--this is a disgrace. They would not 
pass muster in any State's foster care placement system.
    Yet, the priority, certainly for the current 
administration, is to allow people to get through the system as 
quickly as possible, with as few questions asked as possible. 
This is completely playing into the hands of the traffickers. 
This is what enables them to carry on this horrible 
brutalization of people and make money off of it. The more 
money they make the more they're going to keep doing it, the 
better able they are to control a situation in some of these 
other countries, bribe the officials that they need to bribe. 
It just perpetuates the whole thing. We are complicit in it as 
a government by having polices that allow people to be tempted 
in this way and allow the perpetrators to escape our attention 
just pretending that this is some benign thing that's 
happening.
    Ms. Jackson Lee. The gentleman's time has expired.
    Mr. Fitzgerald. Thank you.
    Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you.
    Mr. Fitzgerald. Excellent answer.
    I yield back, Madam Chair.
    Ms. Jackson Lee. The gentleman's time has expired.
    I now recognize Mr. Lieu for five minutes.
    Mr. Correa, are you present?
    Ms. Escobar?
    Mr. Cohen?
    Ms. Escobar?
    Ms. Escobar. Thank you. Oh, Madam Chair?
    Ms. Jackson Lee. Yes, you are recognized, Ms. Escobar, for 
five minutes. Thank you very much.
    Ms. Escobar. Madam Chair, thank you so much for this 
hearing and for this opportunity. I would like to thank all our 
Witnesses for being here today.
    I think it is really important given the comments by some 
of our Republican colleagues that I make something very clear 
from the onset. I am the only Member of Congress on this 
Committee who actually represents a border community. I am so 
proud to represent El Paso, Texas, and to give voice to the 
reality that we see on the ground on the border.
    The focus of this hearing should be what Congress can and 
should do as well as what Congress has failed to do when it 
comes to human trafficking. It is clear that the policies 
championed by my Republican colleagues, policies like Remain in 
Mexico, policies like title 42, policies created by Stephen 
Miller of the Trump Administration--they have actually fueled 
human trafficking.
    It is also clear that by standing in the way of immigration 
reform Republicans have done their best to close off legal 
pathways. In fact, we haven't reformed our outdated immigration 
laws in nearly 30 years. The last best chance we had at 
reforming outdated immigration laws was in 2013, and 
Republicans were the ones who obstructed.
    Congress had a bipartisan bill that was passed in the 
Senate, but House Tea Party Members ensured that this bill 
never saw the light of day in the House of Representatives. 
Nevertheless, House Democrats have repeatedly worked to pass 
immigration reform despite our Republican colleagues' best 
efforts to obstruct.
    Obviously when you cut off legal pathways, when you create 
a system where there is no line to get into, there is no way to 
do it the right way because there is no way at all, obviously 
immigrants and refugees will seek irregular pathways making 
them vulnerable to human traffickers.
    The best thing Congress can do today right now to help 
alleviate some of the horrors of human trafficking is pass 
immigration reform. I invite my Republican colleagues to join 
us, finally once and for all.
    I do have a couple of questions for our panelists.
    Ms. Vandenberg, in your testimony you identified the work 
visa system and H-2A visas, in particular, as a major 
contributor to forced labor in the United States. Could you 
elaborate on the barriers that such visas present to visa 
holders who may need to leave an abusive employer?
    Ms. Vandenberg. Absolutely. I'm so glad you asked that 
question, and I just want to mention an important indictment 
that just came down: U.S. v. Atrusio (phonetic). It is an 
indictment involving more than 20 defendants who are alleged to 
have brought and illegally petitioned, falsely petitioned for 
as many as 71,000 H-2A workers to come into the United States.
    The problem is that what we have in the United States is a 
system where your visa is tied to your employer. So, if you're 
employer, the person who brought you into the United States is 
an abusive, or harmful, or trafficking you, or holding you in 
forced labor, it is enormously difficult to leave. I agree with 
you completely that we need to have immigration reform. I 
agree, also, though that we need to have greater protections in 
the H-2A system so that people can actually leave abusive 
employers, and fight for their rights, and work legally in the 
United States, as they have petitioned to do. These are workers 
who are here legally in the United States, and they are facing 
forced labor.
    Ms. Escobar. Thank you, Ms. Vandenberg.
    I have one more question for you with my remaining time. 
Victims of trafficking who have arrest records may find 
themselves excluded from safe affordable housing options, from 
educational opportunities and legitimate employment, which can 
leave them vulnerable to being re-trafficked. How do we 
effectively address the needs of trafficking survivors with 
arrest records to ensure they have access to housing?
    Ms. Vandenberg. I would just echo what Ms. McKenzie said, 
which is get rid of the convictions. At this point we have 
vacatur and expungement statutes across the United States, and 
States have done a great deal--largely credit to the work of 
Kate Mogulescu and others--have done a great deal to end 
convictions of trafficking victims. There's no Federal 
equivalent. So, we very strongly feel that there should be a 
Federal vacatur statute so that people do not face this kind of 
discrimination in housing and in other sectors.
    Ms. Escobar. Thank you so much. Really appreciate everyone 
on here.
    I just would once again reiterate to my Republican 
colleagues, if you want to help stop human trafficking, work 
with Democrats to pass immigration reform.
    Madam Chair, I yield back.
    Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you. The gentlelady's time has 
expired.
    I now recognize Mr. Owens for five minutes.
    Mr. Owens. Thank you so much, Chair Jackson Lee, Ranking 
Member Biggs, and Witnesses for this opportunity to address 
this big issue.
    I guess I will start off with our Democratic friends would 
love to have you not believe your lying eyes. It was the last 
year under Democratic control cartels are now making half a 
million dollars per month trafficking. Last year under 
Democratic control the cost of a child now to be trafficked is 
$5,000. It is under the Democratic control over the last year 
that we now have 40,000 unaccompanied kids who have come past 
this border.
    Human trafficking is pure evil, period. Sadly, 200 years 
after my great-grandfather was trafficked here to this country 
we still see it going on today. I have always been told you can 
also judge someone's real intentions and priorities by how they 
use their time and their money.
    We have an administration who has failed to go to the 
border, like every one of my Republican friends have, to see 
this evil happening every single day. We now have NGOs that are 
completing--there is a cycle of trafficking by taking these 
kids and women into the country, just dropping them off 
anywhere.
    We need to prioritize not only detecting, preventing human 
trafficking and prosecuting these perpetrators, these predators 
and giving survivors the resources and support they need to 
start anew. We also need to use some common sense. What I see 
of my common sense of last year is this administrative is 
complicit with this process, that has partnered with cartel 
because they want profit and power, and this is being done on 
purpose. You do not have this kind of misery by accident over 
this last 12-18 months.
    In Utah we are working on to lead our nation in these 
efforts with collaborations with our attorney general, State, 
and local enforcement agencies. Utah's transportation authority 
announced last year they will begin to train staff to recognize 
human trafficking.
    Last year, I introduced a No Traffic of Traffickers--a No 
Travel for Traffickers Act with my Democratic colleague 
Republican Cohen, preventing trafficking kingpins from moving 
freely from country to country ending the corrupt Golden 
Passport Program. I have sponsored an EARN IT Act and END Child 
Exploitation Act, a Child RESCUE Act, and other measures to 
strengthen Federal efforts to prevent child exploitation.
    This issue has been a priority of our mind from day one. If 
we are going to ever get country to where we want to truly live 
the American dream, this shows the stain on our heart by--just 
like in 1800s the government not being aware or closing our 
eyes to this evil going on because people making profits and 
profitability because of political profitability.
    So, we need to make sure our children aren't being used and 
abused and make sure we identify these government officials who 
simply do not care.
    Sheriff Dannels, shortly after--well, let me just say, do 
you have knowledge--what are the specific policies and programs 
at the border that could prevent child trafficking? Sheriff?
    Mr. Dannels. Thank you, sir. I appreciate the question.
    The first thing, and this is what our national sheriffs 
have proposed is a collective message starting with President 
of the United States, supported by Congress, our governors, 
sheriffs, and mayors that we can all come together with a 
shared message, that we have a secure border, and we agree on 
immigration reform. Second, is a collective action plan. Last, 
but not least, is the enforcement of the rule of law. If we can 
work together, it's amazing what we can get done.
    Right now our border being in chaos the way it is a 
concealment for these transnational organizations to traffic 
children, adults, you name it. We have to work together. That's 
my biggest message to you today. Thank you.
    Mr. Owens. Jessica Vaughan, Ms. Vaughan, in your opinion if 
the Biden Administration does not address the issues at the 
Southwest border, how will this impact our nation's security 
over the next year?
    Ms. Vaughan. Well, the Department of Homeland Security is 
now predicting that the level of illegal border crossing 
probably is going to triple from several thousand a day, maybe 
5,000-6,000 a day to 18,000 a day, which means--and also we've 
now learned that the administration is planning on implementing 
changes to how migrants are processed to emphasize even faster 
processing and access to the United States rather than trying 
to put a stop to this flow by emphasizing sending people home.
    So, there are a number of things that can be done. It's 
only going to get worse and the systems are only going to be 
weakened.
    We know, for example, today I read about an ICE Case where 
a man connected to a terrorist organization who had crossed 
illegally near El Paso on September was just removed from the 
country. So, clearly bad actors, in addition to the traffickers 
and the gang members, and so on, are trying to take advantage 
of our unsecure border.
    Mr. Owens. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much.
    I yield back.
    Ms. Jackson Lee. The gentleman time has expired.
    The gentleman, Mr. Steube, is represented not for five 
years, but five months--five--
    Mr. Steube. Okay. I don't think I would want to take five 
years, but I will take five minutes.
    Ms. Jackson Lee. All right. Five minutes. The gentleman is 
recognized. Not even for five months. Thank you.
    Mr. Steube. All right. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    First, I just feel like I need to address the comments that 
were made by one of our Democratic colleagues about Republicans 
getting in the way of immigration reform. I think she fails to 
recognize the fact that the House is controlled by the 
Democrats, the Senate is controlled by the Democrats, and the 
White House is controlled by the Democrats. So, if they wanted 
to pass immigration reform, they could have done it in the last 
year-and-a-half, and that hasn't been able to be completed.
    So, I would like to let somebody who knows what is going on 
the border--because Sheriff Mark Dannels is representative of a 
county that is as large as the State of Rhode Island and 
Connecticut combined. So, regardless of whether the Members of 
this Committee sit on a border district, the good sheriff there 
knows exactly what is going on, and has been there for over 30 
years and has seen day to day what is happening with Biden's 
border crisis.
    Just recently, sheriff, the DHS Secretary Mayorkas recently 
stated that the border crisis was a problem that he inherited 
from the previous administration. You have been sheriff there 
under both the Trump Administration and the current 
administration. Could you highlight for the American people the 
vast differences and the effects of the policies that have been 
put in place between the two administrations?
    Mr. Dannels. Thank you, sir. It's a vast difference between 
President Trump and President Biden. This started--under 
President Trump we had manageable control on the border. Like I 
say, we had 400 a month; now we're at 8,000 a month. Our got-
aways are--in my county, my section of the State are 16,000 
got-aways. We lead the nation right now.
    We were the safest county on the Southwest border out of 31 
border counties. We had the greatest programs, the best 
collective efforts. It was working. Now, we're one of the 
worst. I hate to say it like that, based on the fact that the 
numbers, the non-political numbers show that, and because the 
message, the rule of law, the consequences, this administration 
is not working with communities on the Southwest border. That 
is the problem and we're not addressing border security. It's a 
big difference.
    Mr. Steube. Well, and talk about the got-aways for a 
second. I mean we all see--here in Washington we see the 
numbers of the apprehensions, which we are now over two million 
apprehensions just since Biden has taken office, but what they 
are not talking about is if we have apprehended over two 
million--I am sure there is numbers, hundreds of thousands of 
more of people that--as you term them got-aways, and the effect 
that this is having on the safety and security of the American 
people.
    Mr. Dannels. Well, since July--excuse me, since October 1 
of 2021 we've had over 300,000 got-aways. These are people--
can't give up. They're aggravated. They're serious criminals. 
They're your traffickers in so many ways that have come through 
into our country. That's a nominal minimal number on that. It 
should scare every American out there. Nobody's addressing 
border security. We got to address that. We need to address 
immigration reform, like was spoke by many of the people 
speaking today.
    Our border is in really bad shape right now, and that's 
saying it lightly. We have to actively engage in securing our 
border, address the immigration reform, and start addressing 
collectively these issues down here. It's only going to get 
worse.
    Mr. Steube. These got-aways are typically your more 
hardened criminals that know how to get across the border to 
avoid Border Patrol because they either have a record or they 
have been previously deported. So, these are truly your high-
end criminals that are intending on coming into our country to 
create harm and get experience in criminal activity. I mean 
would you agree with that statement?
    Mr. Dannels. I would agree with that, sir. That's why you 
don't see them in Del Rio and Yuma giving up because they can't 
give up. These are very aggravated individuals to include 
people from countries of interest. These are serious criminals. 
They have no respect for America, no respect for Americans. We 
have to address that. Two thousand a day are coming into our 
country--a day are coming into our country right now on got-
away status alone. So, again, we got to do a better job.
    When the criminal cartels, the transnational organizations 
behind much of this trafficking and smuggling and drugs have 
more will than we do, they have come together united to do 
their illicit trade, we got to do better.
    Mr. Steube. We know of 43 terrorists, recognized terrorists 
that have gotten in, and that is not including the people we 
don't know and these got-aways.
    Real quickly, Ms. Vaughan, in the time I have left that 
leads into this, in terms of allowing criminal elements into 
our country what has been the worst or most harmful policies of 
the Biden Administration?
    Ms. Vaughan. Most definitely the catch and release that is 
happening at the border. Just the fact that they are really not 
attempting to turn back so many of the people who are making it 
here illegally and releasing them--
    Ms. Jackson Lee. The gentleman's time has expired.
    Ms. Vaughan. --into the country without coordination with 
State and local officials.
    Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you. The gentleman's time is 
expired.
    I am now pleased to recognize the gentlelady from 
California for five minutes.
    Ms. Bass, you are recognized for five minutes. Thank you.
    Ms. Bass. Thank you so much. Thank you so much, Madam 
Chair, and thank you for holding this hearing and your 
leadership on this issue.
    I wanted to direct my questions looking at trafficking, but 
looking at young people who are from the U.S. who are in the 
foster care system, the juvenile justice system, are from our 
inner cities that wind up being trafficked, especially sexual 
trafficking.
    I have a couple of pieces of legislation, one that calls on 
the Attorney General to provide training and technical 
assistance for government agencies; another to establish a 
working group to look at barriers that hamper data collection. 
I wanted to know the Witnesses' reaction to that.
    A bill I am doing with Representative Smith is the 
Reauthorization of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, and 
we are talking about grants to assist people in recognizing 
trafficking. I am just wondering for those of you that have 
been involved--I would direct this to Ms. McKenzie, Ms. 
Vandenberg, or Mr. FitzPatrick. If you could talk about what we 
have been accomplishing in terms of trafficking, but of U.S. 
girls. My understanding is that the average age for a girl that 
is sex trafficked is 12 years old and they tend to be girls 
from the foster care system, or the juvenile justice system.
    So, can Ms. McKenzie, Vandenberg, or FitzPatrick comment on 
that?
    Ms. Vandenberg. Thank you, Representative Bass, for that 
question. I've been nominated to go first.
    Ms. Bass. Good.
    Ms. Vandenberg. Sadly, in our own research, looking for 
example at criminal restitution, what we found is that the 
least likely people to get criminal restitution in the United 
States are child victims of sex trafficking. As you know, most 
of those children are U.S. citizens.
    The problem I see is that they don't have lawyers. So, if 
we were to improve one aspect of U.S. systems it would be to 
provide attorneys for trafficking survivors, including U.S. 
citizen children.
    Ms. Bass. Thank you very much.
    Ms. McKenzie, or FitzPatrick, would you like to comment on 
that?
    Ms. McKenzie. I thank you for your question and I 
definitely believe the legislation that you have introduced 
will continue to help address this issue of trafficking.
    This issue of trafficking, it's not a Republican or a 
Democratic issue. We are talking about people's lives here, 
right? We're talking about human beings who are being bought 
and sold here on our own U.S. soil. We need to come together 
and--and put this politics aside. We need to come together and 
really address it. What you're doing to implement training on a 
Federal level so that we can get these traffickers and hold the 
true perpetrator, who is a trafficker, and not the victim 
accountable. So, I thank you for introducing that legislation 
and I personally support it.
    Ms. Bass. Well, thank you. I appreciate and understand your 
frustration and intolerance when politics is injected into 
this. What did you think in terms of when--because I heard your 
opening testimony. What did you need?
    Ms. McKenzie. There are several things that I need, and I 
explain the six of them in my written testimony. Number one, we 
truly need to stop criminalizing victims. We need to hold 
traffickers and buyers accountable. We need to stop 
criminalizing our victims. We see over 46 States we said on a 
State level have implementing this, but we still need to rise 
the bar in a State level, and nothing exists on the Federal 
level. We need to implement training for judges who have the 
power--they have that gateway to get the victims access to the 
services that they need. Criminalization is not the answer.
    Victims need access to services to rebuilding their lives. 
True freedom. We need true freedom. I hear people say all the 
time we never want to see you go back to the life, we never 
want to see you go back to trafficking. Then give us the things 
that we need to pick up our broken pieces and go confidently 
after our dreams.
    Ms. Bass. Well, thank you very much. I am proud to say in 
my county girls; and that is who we are talking about, are not 
prosecuted. Because if you are under the age of consent, how 
could you possibly be a prostitute?
    I have found politically that there is a reluctance to hold 
the men accountable, a reluctance to hold the johns 
accountable. We will hold the traffickers, but the johns we 
tend to shy away from.
    Let me thank you so much for your willingness to testify, 
to come before our Committee.
    Again, let me thank, Madam Chair.
    Ms. Jackson Lee. The gentlelady's time has expired. Thank 
you very much for your questioning.
    Now, I am pleased to yield five minutes to the Ranking 
Member, Mr. Biggs. Five minutes. You are recognized.
    Mr. Biggs. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    Sheriff Dannels, I want to know how are human traffickers--
not necessarily drug traffickers or anything else--human 
traffickers taking advantage of this border crisis in your 
county?
    Mr. Dannels. Well it's, Ranking Member Biggs, mainly 
because they're allowed to do it. Let me just say that. It's 
been talked about by Ms. Vaughan, too, the catch and release. 
The consequences are not in place.
    Give you an example: In my section of the State of Arizona, 
southeast corner, in the month of February of 2022 we had over 
22,000 encounters by Border Patrol and migrant smugglers. Nine 
hundred and ninety-five were released back to Mexico. There 
were 21,000 who were released in the country, just catch and 
release. Then another 16,000 got-aways just in my section of 
the State, which is a small sample of the 31 border counties.
    We're allowing this. The Federal government is allowing 
this. I call it intellectual avoidance. It's willful neglect. 
We--and I've said this several times, we got to come together 
and do a better job because citizens and those being 
trafficking are all victims that we took an oath--the sheriff, 
both the local, State, and Federal, and right now we're not 
collectively doing that.
    I agree with Ms. McKenzie; thank you for saying that, this 
is not about politics. This is about people. So, it's being 
allowed, Mr. Biggs.
    Mr. Biggs. Thanks, Sheriff. I think one of the panelists 
mentioned deterrence. I think you talked about deterrence. We 
don't have any deterrence when we are releasing people who are 
actually trafficking in human beings. So, there is a bit of a 
problem.
    Ms. Vaughan, in your written testimony you mention that the 
Biden Administration has implemented policies concerning 
unaccompanied children that actually encourages human 
traffickers to exploit them. Would you elaborate on that for 
us?
    Ms. Vaughan. Sure. Thank you. This is one of the most 
serious problems within the dysfunctional system, and through 
information that you obtained from the Department of Homeland 
Security just in the last year or so 146,000 unaccompanied 
minors have been released into the country.
    The current administration, particularly HHS, gives a big 
illusion of monitoring the well-being of these kids, that they 
have applications for the sponsors to fill out, that there's 
legal orientation, post-release phone calls, and so on. That is 
an illusion on monitoring. There are no home studies. There are 
no financial assessments of the ability of the people who come 
forward to sponsor these kids that they can actually do it. 
There are no fingerprints taken. There is no requirement that 
anyone comply with the requirements of the release of the child 
to that person.
    Even the phone calls that they've completed, they tout 
these post-release phone calls that they make. Even those are 
worthless for detecting whether someone has been taken into 
commercialized sex trafficking or even labor trafficking. You 
can't tell from a phone call what is going on in some of these 
households.
    In a lot of these cases there are no red flags for the 
government agencies to pick up on. It's the local law 
enforcement agencies that detect this or the service providing 
agencies that detect it. Sometimes there are sanctuary policies 
in place, also that prevent them from getting in touch with 
immigration authorities to do something about it.
    So, this is a disgrace, the system that we have that would 
not pass muster in any foster care placement or child welfare 
agency in any State in this country. That's why some of the 
States are declining to participate because of the risk to the 
kids.
    Mr. Biggs. So, this gets to this cycle that we see. You 
have got a decrepit foster system at the Federal level. That 
leads to what Ms. Aluotto has described as this grooming that 
takes place, particularly for foster children who are 
vulnerable. That leads to the trafficking that occurs and makes 
it very difficult to find and prosecute the actual trafficker 
or rescue the victim.
    So, I am glad we are having this hearing and there has 
actually been some great concrete--and I have read the 
documents. I think there are some great concrete proposals here 
that we want to look at. In reality I really like the 
expungement. In my home State, Arizona, we have an expungement 
that goes back for quite a long ways. So, we tried to make 
retroactive. That needs to happen as well.
    I appreciate all your testimony and this is an important 
issue and I am hoping that we can cross our boundaries that we 
have here politically and find solutions.
    So, with that I will yield back to you, Madam Chair.
    Ms. Jackson Lee. I thank the Ranking Member very much and I 
especially thank each and every one of the Witnesses. To the 
survivors, your words, your passion, compassion, your anger and 
anguish, which is in no way a criticism, but it is welcomed 
because it is not falling on deaf ears.
    I will take the challenge of the Ranking Member. We can 
work together bipartisan. There is no reason whatsoever. We do 
it in Texas. Ms. Aluotto knows that we do that day after day 
after day.
    To Sheriff Dannels, I accept your challenge for 
comprehensive immigration reform. I hope the record will 
reflect I said Sheriff Dannels.
    [Laughter.]
    Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you so very much.
    Mr. Dannels. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    Ms. Jackson Lee. We accept your challenge. I want to make 
sure that we heard you.
    I want to introduce some items into the record.
    I will not ask any questions, but I will just very quickly 
reiterate that human smuggling is terrible. There are victims. 
They come--individuals who are brought over for many reasons. 
This hearing was about human trafficking. That should not be in 
a 21st Century nation. It was tragic under the Trump 
Administration that almost 4,000 children were separated from 
their parents. To date we are still trying to reunite some of 
those children with their parents. Some fell into trafficking 
once separated from parents or guardians.
    So, we know that there is much work to do. What I heard is 
the issue of criminalizing the victim. We just stop that. The 
record that a victim has. Better work on forced later. A big 
word, the R word, restitution for victims that don't get 
anything and can't start their life anew. Then very eloquent 
story of Ms. Litvak, the honorable Courtney Litvak, of how she 
was trafficked at school and how heads were turned and no one 
wanted to listen. Let us pass H.R. 7566 to heighten the fact 
that there should be no trafficking in a school zone.
    So, you all have brought different perspectives. Just 
wanted to emphasize that this hearing touched on what we wanted 
to focus on. TVPA, thank you. As well as Anti-Trafficking at 
School Zones Act to stop and begin.
    Now, we must move to the larger comprehensive package that 
you have challenged us to do. We must pierce into the depth of 
what human trafficking is and get away from victimizing, 
criminalizing, get away from people benefitting from writing 
books how to do human trafficking.
    I guess the point that should be made is that trafficking 
of human beings--we know what slavery did. Thank you. We must 
rid ourselves of slavery. What slavery did is move the traders 
from spices and oils to people. It was much more profitable. 
Trafficking, you can traffic the victim over and over and over 
again.
    So, our charge, we accept. The Federal government must take 
a large stand on behalf of all you. All you. We must take a big 
stand on that.
    All of these will be submitted as unanimous consent without 
objection.
    I want to introduce into the record right in our own town 
of Houston, ``Father of woman who vanished after leaving 
Houston strip club says she's a victim of human trafficking,'' 
Fox 26, Houston. ``Kidnapped California Baby is Found,'' AP 
News. Can you imagine the horrors and what was to happen if 
this little baby had not been found? ``DPS Arrests 35 in Joint 
Human Trafficking.'' AP News. That is Department of Public 
Safety in Texas, article dated February 4, 2022. ``Eastern 
District of New York: Nine Members and Associates of Nationwide 
Sex Trafficking and Prostitution Enterprise Indicted on 
Racketeering and Related Charges.'' That's the Eastern 
District. Now, we are down in Maryland, an article indicating 
that ``Sex Trafficking Conspiracy Members Sentenced to Nine 
Years in Federal Prison.'' District of Maryland; ``A Man 
Sentenced to 10 Years for Offering to Break Sex Trafficking 
Victim.'' That is the Northern District of Texas. As I 
indicated there are others dealing with the State of Texas, but 
we will add ``Six Truths About Human Trafficking in Texas,'' 
January 11, 2022.
    [The information follows:]     

                     MS. JACKSON LEE FOR THE RECORD

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    Ms. Jackson Lee. In my concluding remarks again is a thank 
you and then to mention the additional work that Ms. Aluotto 
has done with Bishop James Dixon in creating human trafficking-
free zones around sport
    We can do much of our work together and I look forward to 
working with the Ranking Member on that.
    With that, this concludes today's hearing. Thank you to our 
distinguished Witnesses as I said for attending, but more 
importantly for sharing their pain with us, but also sharing 
your challenge to us. We accept that.
    Without objection, all Members will have five legislative 
days to submit additional written questions for the Witnesses 
or additional materials for the record.
    I thank all the Members who participated. We always 
appreciate your participation in this very important work of 
this Committee. Now, the hearing is now adjourned.
    [Whereupon, at 12:45 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]    

                                APPENDIX

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            QUESTIONS AND RESPONSES FOR THE OFFICIAL RECORD

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