[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 23]
[Senate]
[Pages 31803-31804]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                      HUMAN RIGHTS ENFORCEMENT ACT

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I rise today to speak in support of the 
Human Rights Enforcement Act of 2009, which the U.S. Senate approved 
unanimously on November 21, 2009, and which the House of 
Representatives will consider today. This narrowly tailored, bipartisan 
legislation would make it easier for the Justice Department to hold 
accountable human rights abusers who seek safe haven in our country.
  I would like to thank the lead Republican cosponsor of the Human 
Rights Enforcement Act, Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma. This bill is a 
product of the Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Human Rights and 
the Law. I am the Chairman of this Subcommittee and Senator Coburn is 
its ranking member. I also want to thank Judiciary Committee Chairman 
Pat Leahy of Vermont and Senator Ben Cardin of Maryland for 
cosponsoring this bill.
  For decades, the United States has led the fight for human rights 
around the world. Over 60 years ago, following the Holocaust, we led 
the efforts to prosecute Nazi perpetrators at the Nuremberg trials. We 
have also supported the prosecution of human rights crimes before the 
International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, the 
International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, and the Special Court for 
Sierra Leone.
  The world watches our efforts to hold accountable perpetrators of 
mass atrocities closely. When we bring human rights violators to 
justice, foreign governments are spurred into action, victims take 
heart, and future perpetrators think twice. However, when human rights 
violators are able to live freely in our country, America's credibility 
as a human rights leader is undermined.
  Throughout our history, America has provided sanctuary to victims of 
persecution. Sadly, some refugees arrive from distant shores to begin a 
new life, only to encounter those who tortured them or killed their 
loved ones.
  Two years ago, the Human Rights and the Law Subcommittee heard 
compelling testimony from Dr. Juan Romagoza, who endured a 22-day 
ordeal of torture at the hands of the National Guard in El Salvador. 
Dr. Romagoza received asylum in our country but later learned that two 
generals who were responsible for his torture had also fled to the 
United States. We also learned that our government was investigating 
over 1,000 suspected human rights violators from almost 90 countries 
who were in the United States.
  The Human Rights and the Law Subcommittee has worked to ensure our 
government has the necessary authority and resources to bring 
perpetrators to justice and to vindicate the rights of people like Dr. 
Romagoza.
  In the last Congress, the Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law 
held hearings which identified loopholes in the law that hinder 
effective human rights enforcement. In order to close some of these 
loopholes and make it easier to prosecute human rights abuses, Senator 
Coburn and I introduced the Genocide Accountability Act, the Child 
Soldiers Accountability Act and the Trafficking in Persons 
Accountability Act, legislation passed unanimously by Congress and 
signed into law by President George W. Bush that denies safe haven in 
the United States to perpetrators of genocide, child soldier 
recruitment and use, and human trafficking.
  We also examined the U.S. government agencies which bear 
responsibility for investigating human rights abusers and how to 
increase the likelihood that human rights violators will be held 
accountable.
  There are two offices in the Justice Department's Criminal Division 
with jurisdiction over human rights violations. The first, the Office 
of Special Investigations, also known as OSI, which was established by 
Attorney General Richard Civiletti in 1979, has led the way in 
investigating, denaturalizing and removing World War II-era 
participants in genocide and other Nazi crimes. I want to commend OSI 
for its outstanding work tracking down and bringing to justice Nazi war 
criminals who have found safe haven in our country. Since 1979, OSI has 
successfully prosecuted 107 Nazis.
  Just this year, OSI deported John Demjanjuk to Germany, where he is 
on trial for his involvement in the murder of more than 29,000 people 
at the Sobibor extermination camp in Nazi- occupied Poland. Demjanjuk 
came to the United States in 1952 and lived in Seven Hills, OH. During 
World War II, Demjanjuk allegedly served as a guard at a number of 
concentration camps. Lanny Breuer, the Assistant Attorney General of 
the Criminal Division, said, ``The removal to Germany of John Demjanjuk 
is an historic moment in the federal government's efforts to bring Nazi 
war criminals to justice. Mr. Demjanjuk, a confirmed former Nazi death 
camp guard, denied to thousands the very freedoms he enjoyed for far 
too long in the United States.''
  In 2004, Judiciary Committee Chairman Pat Leahy's Anti-Atrocity Alien 
Deportation Act, enacted as part of the Intelligence Reform and 
Terrorism Prevention Act, further strengthened the Office of Special 
Investigations by statutorily authorizing it and expanding its 
jurisdiction to include serious

[[Page 31804]]

human rights crimes committed after World War II.
  The Domestic Security Section, which was established more recently, 
prosecutes major human rights violators and has jurisdiction over the 
criminal laws relating to torture, genocide, war crimes, and the use or 
recruitment of child soldiers. In 2008, the Domestic Security Section 
and the United States Attorney's Office for the Southern District of 
Florida obtained the first federal conviction for a human rights 
offense against Chuckie Taylor, son of former Liberian president 
Charles Taylor, for committing torture in Liberia when he served as the 
head of the Anti-Terrorist Unit. Taylor and other Anti-Terrorist Unit 
members engaged in horrific acts of torture, including shocking victims 
with an electric device and burning victims with molten plastic, lit 
cigarettes, scalding water, candle wax and an iron. Then-Attorney 
General Michael Mukasey said, ``Today's conviction provides a measure 
of justice to those who were victimized by the reprehensible acts of 
Charles Taylor Jr. and his associates. It sends a powerful message to 
human rights violators around the world that, when we can, we will hold 
them fully accountable for their crimes.''
  The Human Rights Enforcement Act would seek to build on the important 
work carried out by the Office of Special Investigations and the 
Domestic Security Section by creating a new streamlined human rights 
section in the Criminal Division. My bill would combine the Office of 
Special Investigations, which has significant experience in 
investigating and denaturalizing human rights abusers, with the 
Domestic Security Section, which has broad jurisdiction over human 
rights crimes. Consolidating these two sections would allow limited law 
enforcement resources to be used more effectively and ensure that one 
section in the Justice Department has the necessary expertise and 
jurisdiction to prosecute or denaturalize perpetrators of serious human 
rights crimes.
  This consolidation will also enable more effective collaboration 
between the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland 
Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement in identifying, 
prosecuting, and removing human rights violators from the United 
States. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has been at the forefront 
of the federal government's efforts to bring war criminals to justice 
and is currently handling over 1,000 human rights removal cases 
involving suspects from about 95 countries.
  Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Justice Department have 
complementary jurisdiction over human rights violations and partner 
closely in their efforts to hold accountable human rights violators. In 
some instances, where prosecution for a substantive human rights 
criminal offense is not possible, Immigration and Customs Enforcement 
can bring immigration charges. For example, Immigration and Customs 
Enforcement recently filed administrative charges against the two El 
Salvadoran generals who are responsible for the torture of Dr. 
Romagoza, which took place before the enactment of legislation 
prohibiting torture in the United States.
  With the creation of a new streamlined human rights section in the 
Criminal Division of the Justice Department, Immigration and Customs 
Enforcement will have a stronger partner in the Justice Department to 
collaborate with on human rights violator law enforcement issues. This 
bill would require the Attorney General to consult with the Secretary 
of Homeland Security as appropriate, which means the Attorney General 
shall consult with the Secretary of Homeland Security on cases that 
implicate the Department of Homeland Security's jurisdiction and 
competencies.
  The consolidation of the two sections in the Criminal Division of the 
Justice Department with jurisdiction over human rights violations would 
not affect or change Immigration and Customs Enforcement's existing 
jurisdiction over human rights violators. Immigration and Customs 
Enforcement will continue to have primary authority for removing human 
rights violators from the United States through the immigration courts.
  At a hearing of the Human Rights and the Law Subcommittee on October 
6, 2009, the Justice Department and Immigration and Customs Enforcement 
expressed strong support for combining the Office of Special 
Investigations and the Domestic Security Section. However, since the 
Office of Special Investigations is statutorily authorized, the Justice 
Department needs Congressional authorization to move forward on merging 
these two sections.
  The Human Rights Enforcement Act also includes a number of technical 
and conforming amendments, including: 1) technical changes to the 
criminal law on genocide (18 U.S.C. 1091) that the Justice Department 
requested in 2007 to make it easier to prosecute perpetrators of 
genocide; 2) clarifying that the immigration provisions of the Child 
Soldiers Accountability Act apply to offenses committed before the 
bill's enactment; 3) a conforming amendment to the Immigration and 
Nationality Act required by the enactment of the Genocide 
Accountability Act; and 4) a conforming amendment to the material 
support statute, made necessary by the enactment of the Genocide 
Accountability Act and the Child Soldiers Accountability Act, making it 
illegal to provide material support to genocide and the use or 
recruitment of child soldiers. These technical changes will facilitate 
the government's ability to prosecute perpetrators who commit genocide 
or use child soldiers.
  Dr. Juan Romagoza survived horrible human rights abuses, and had the 
courage to flee his home and find sanctuary in the United States, where 
he became an American and made great contributions to our country. We 
owe it to Dr. Romagoza, and countless others like him, to ensure that 
America does not provide safe haven to those who violate fundamental 
human rights. From John Demjanjuk, who helped massacre over 29,000 Jews 
during World War II, to the Salvadoran generals responsible for 
torturing Dr. Juan Romagoza, we have a responsibility to bring human 
rights violators to justice.
  I thank my colleagues for supporting this legislation and hope it 
will be enacted into law soon.

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