Justice For Victims Of Trafficking Act Of 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. BLUNT. Madam President, I wish to speak about the bill that I would have thought a few days ago would have passed by now--the bill before the Senate and the bill that addresses this topic of modern-day slavery. This bill came out of the Judiciary Committee in a unanimous fashion before it came to the Senate floor. Then, there was no dissent; we agreed we should get right to the bill and pass it.

I am pleased to cosponsor the Victims for Justice of Trafficking Act, which includes sexual trafficking and labor trafficking. This bill would help innocent victims of trafficking by creating grants for State and local governments to develop comprehensive systems to address these problems in every State, we are told, and certainly in almost every city--if not every city--where this is a problem.

This bill allows law enforcement to deal with the problem by giving them the tools they need to hold the people accountable who are forcing these violent crimes and violent living conditions and the abuse of people's dignity in so many ways on others. Apparently, approximately 100,000 American children each year are victims of commercial sex and child prostitution and child trafficking, according to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

It is like so many numbers that we think of. I would encourage everybody to think of any city they can think of that has 100,000 people. Most of us would see that as a big community and a lot of people--100,000 children every year--100,000 children every year, not every decade or every century--every year, in the United States of America, not all over the world.

I would guess most Americans would assume if this is a problem, it has to be a bigger problem in any other country, but 100,000 children here among us are victims of this tragedy.

The Justice Department says there are more human trafficking cases prosecuted by Federal attorneys in Missouri's Western District, the district where the U.S. Attorney's office is in Kansas City, MO, than anywhere else in the country. I hope that means the people in the Western District of Missouri who run that office are doing an extraordinary job, but I think it would be foolish for me to think that this isn't also an extraordinary problem. My house in Springfield, MO, is in that district, as are Springfield, Joplin, and Kansas City. These are places one wouldn't think, what is the No. 1 prostitution area for victims of human trafficking in the country? The Western District of Missouri.

St. Louis, MO, is also one of the top 20 cities, we are told, for human trafficking, according to the Department of Justice. These are bad statistics, as every single statistic any of us could look at in our State could be. Of course, one case of human trafficking is one case too many, but we are not, unfortunately, just talking about one case; we are talking about lots of cases.

Earlier this month the FBI arrested a person in my State who was charged with transporting a minor across State lines with the intent to engage in prostitution. The FBI reported the man involved was physically abusive, verbally abusive, emotionally abusive, and sexually abusive to this young person he was using for himself and offering to others. This modern-day slavery should not be allowed to continue.

The bill that is before the Senate right now, the Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act, has been endorsed by 200 different advocacy groups, including the NAACP, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, Exodus Cry, a Grandview, MO, group, Rights4Girls, the National Association to Protect Children, the Fraternal Order of Police, and the National Conference of State Legislatures. We can't vote on it here on the Senate floor? We can't get this bill on the President's desk? Why is that?

Why again today did the minority refuse to provide the votes we needed to get from where we are to 60? We did have a few Members from that side join us this week, but we are still short.

Let's deal with this problem. They say it is because there is a section of the bill that deals with the Hyde amendment. OK, the Hyde amendment has been around now for part of four decades. What does the Hyde amendment do? It bans taxpayer-provided abortions.

One of the things we have done in this country is to say because there is vast disagreement on this--we understand there is vast disagreement. Surely we are not going to take money from some taxpayers who are totally opposed to this and use it to pay for something they are totally opposed to. There is a provision in this bill. It was there when the bill was voted out of committee. It was there when everybody voted to move to the bill. Suddenly, it is a provision that nobody was aware of before. In fact, in committee, there was at least one amendment that amended the sentence right below this sentence. So are we not doing our job? Are we not reading these bills, or, are we just looking for a reason not to get anything done? Surely the Senate in the last half dozen years has proven to the country that the Senate can be dysfunctional. Surely we don't need to continue to make that case.

So let's get to work. Let's get down to business. Let's look at what needs to be done here. Let's see what we could do to set an example for the world. Frankly, there were colleagues who had amendments that could have been at least debated that would have talked about what could be done to carry this beyond our borders to deal with this modern-day slavery--whether for labor or for sex--in ways this issue should be dealt with.

I would love to see the President step forward and encourage the leaders of his party to get together and get the votes needed to pass this. Let's move to a conclusion and put this on the President's desk. I think without the language that some people now suddenly find objectionable, this bill wouldn't pass the House. But the bill will pass the House as reported out of committee, if the Senate would pass it, and it would be on the President's desk. There is nothing new here.

I hope we get this done. I think people are ready to see the Senate work. Let's get this done.

Let's get on with a budget for the first time in 7 years, if we could join with the House of Representatives and say, OK, let's present a plan to the country of how we are going to get back to a balanced budget and what our priorities are.

But one of our priorities should be to end the nightmare for victims of human trafficking, and we can't do that unless we face reality and get on this bill.

LETTER ON IRAN NEGOTIATIONS

Also, Madam President, while I am here, I want to talk a little bit about the letter I signed along with Senator Cotton and 45 others a few days ago. I thought the interesting thing about that letter is that the letter was essentially addressed to the Foreign Minister of Iran but released to every newspaper in America. In many ways it was an idea that is important that the American people understand.

I am sure the Iranian Foreign Minister, by the way, already understood it. If one had any interest in reading the Congressional Record or watching C-SPAN or reading any newspaper in the last 6 months, you would have seen that the Senate was very concerned in a bipartisan way that the President was negotiating an agreement with another country and was refusing to come to the Senate and ask for the approval that the Constitution anticipates should be there.

I was surprised by the Iranian Foreign Minister's response, which was: Well, really, when you are dealing with this kind of situation, it is international laws that prevail. The laws of any individual country don't matter. Well, we all take an oath when we are sworn in to the Senate that the law and the Constitution of the United States do matter and it is our job to uphold and defend the law and the Constitution of the United States. There was nothing I saw that suggested the Iranian Foreign Minister or anybody else should interpret that for me. The Constitution is pretty clear, by the way, that there is an advise-and-consent responsibility. Frankly, advise means to talk to the Senate while you are negotiating.

I read somewhere the other day that, well, it is so presumptuous for the Senate to want to give advice to the President before he has negotiated an agreement. Well, the Constitution says that we are in a position to do that. The traditions of the country say if the President doesn't keep at least the right people in the Senate informed--the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, the minority senior person of that committee, the chairman of the defense committee, the Armed Services Committee--if they aren't kept informed, you are not going to bring people along as you should. That is obviously part of trying to make the government work.

No matter what the President thinks, the Senate is not just an inconvenience; the Congress is not just an inconvenience. There is a reason for these branches of government.

Actually, in another interesting response, the Secretary of State said: Well, obviously this agreement is not binding on anybody but the person who signs it. That is what I have been saying for about a year, but it was interesting that it took this letter for the Secretary of State to say that. This agreement really doesn't bind anybody. If the President signs this agreement, it is an agreement, not a treaty. What does that mean? It means if it is not a treaty, then the government of the United States hasn't agreed to it. Only the President of the United States has agreed to it. President after President have brought agreements about nuclear weapons to the Senate--the START treaty, all the treaties which were approved by the Senate. It would have been unthinkable just a few years ago that one would even think about committing our country to something that involves nuclear weapons potential and not involve the U.S. Senate.

So I think getting these issues on the table is a good thing. Frankly, I think a nuclear-weapons-capable Iran is the most destabilizing thing that could happen in the world today. Not only our great ally and friends in Israel, but countries all over the Middle East will immediately be concerned. Countries within reach of those potential future weapons in Europe and other places would soon be concerned. We are headed down a bad path here, negotiating not that Iran will never be allowed to have nuclear weapons but apparently negotiating how long it will be from the moment they start until they can have the enriched material it would take to have a nuclear weapon.

There are many countries in the world today that have nuclear power that don't enrich in a way that would allow them to ever have a nuclear weapon. Iran, if it wanted to, could have added itself easily to that list. Iran, one of the most energy-rich places in the world, could easily have added itself to that list, if it wanted to add to all that nuclear energy power. I think it is obvious the shadow that Iran would like to cast over the next decade in the region they are already dominating in a handful of capitals is a shadow of nuclear weapons capability. The United States should be very concerned, and this discussion at the highest levels is the right kind of discussion for the country to be having.

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