Pomeroy Announces House Passage of International Megan's Law

Press Release

Congressman Earl Pomeroy announced today that the House of Representatives voted to pass late Tuesday night, H.R. 5138, the International Megan's Law, legislation that protects children from high risk sex offenders traveling abroad.

This legislation, of which Congressman Pomeroy is a cosponsor, creates a system to notify foreign countries when high risk sex offenders from the United States seek to travel abroad. The bill also established registration requirements for sex offenders living abroad and calls for new methods of notifying U.S. authorities when sex offenders seek to travel to the United States.

"In our world of instant communication and easy worldwide travel, it is all too easy for dangerous sex offenders to evade national jurisdictions and seek out victims abroad," said Congressman Pomeroy. "I believe that we have a moral obligation to protect children around the world from being victimized and this bill helps accomplish that."

Yesterday's passage of the International Megan's Law comes after last month's release of a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report that concluded that thousands of registered sex offenders have received passports and traveled abroad in the past year.

"What is shocking about this GAO report is that, in numerous instances, high risk offenders traveled to countries where the sexual exploitation of children is a known problem. That is shocking and a clear call for action on this important legislation."

Congressman Pomeroy has been a long-time advocate of protecting children and families from sexual predators working to enact Dru's Law, which established the Dru Sjodin National Sex Offender Public Website on which information about convicted sex offenders from all states is publically accessible and can be easily searched. In addition, Congressman Pomeroy successfully enacted the Keeping the Internet Devoid of Sexual Predators (KIDS) Act which made it easier to keep sex offenders off social networking websites, like MySpace and Facebook.

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