Floor Statements

I thank the gentleman, Mr. Veasey, and also Mrs. Demings for their leadership in this hour.

I know that our theme is ``What Do We Have to Lose''? That is something that the President, during his campaign, asked the African- American community: What do you have to lose? Why don't you think about voting Republican this time?

So I was a part of the group that Mr. Clyburn referred to that went and met with the President last week. Members of the Congressional Black Caucus Executive Committee met with the President. We went over to the White House to answer the question: What do we have to lose?

As my colleagues who have spoken before me mentioned, we believe that we have a lot to lose. I think that the budget is a reflection of all that we have to lose.

As my colleague, Val Demings, said, a budget is a reflection of your values. It is a reflection of where you think taxpayers' money should be spent. So, in the opportunity that I had to speak with the President, I mentioned to him that I was sure that he was aware that, in the United States, over 2 million people are incarcerated. In fact, we incarcerate more people in the United States than any other country on the planet.

What I told him that he probably wasn't aware of was that this was an issue--a bipartisan, bicameral issue--that Members of Congress in both Houses were looking at because we recognized, over the years, that incarceration is not the solution to communities that are experiencing crime. We told him that there was a trend in Congress to actually reconsider policies that led to overincarceration. We told him that the Congressional Black Caucus was concerned about messages that we heard from him: one that is reflected in his budget; two, that was reflected in his new deal for Black America where the focus was on law and order.

We told him that we were concerned about his proposals to address problems in poor communities, and our chair, Cedric Richmond, specifically pointed out that he was concerned about the way African- American communities were consistently described as riddled by violence and as almost uninhabitable.

We told him that we thought he probably wasn't aware that 95 percent of prisoners return to communities and that maybe he was not aware that many of these inmates return to certain ZIP Codes. If you have a community in certain ZIP Codes where a number of people have been released from prison without any services, then, naturally, you are going to have a problem with recidivism. We have people coming out of prison who then find out that they are prohibited from working and that they are ineligible for public benefits, including even a driver's license.

In the State of California, we had a program in State prisons where we trained you to be a barber, but then we didn't allow you to have a license if you had been a prisoner. So we had to change State law to change that.

We told him that, if we don't find ways to reintegrate people into society, he needed to understand that that was actually a contributing factor to crime and violence in many communities.

When we went to the White House, we didn't just go to point out problems, but we also went to talk about solutions. Here is the concern when it comes to the budget. The budget that the President delivered to Congress so far is so general that we don't know whether or not some of the cuts to discretionary spending would include programs like the Second Chance Act.

The Second Chance Act is a program that provides funding to States to address and reduce recidivism. The Second Chance Act has programs that work with inmates before they are released to address the root causes of why they offended in the first place. Many people in prison--a large percentage--did not graduate high school. So services that are provided by the Second Chance Act include employment services, mental health, substance abuse, housing, education, and family reunification.

As we talked about a budget being a reflection of values, for the values to

me that will help the African-American community, we need to make sure that the Second Chance Act is fully funded. We won't know what is fully funded in the President's budget until he sends us more details in the month of May. But it is my hope that he listened to the presentations that members of the Congressional Black Caucus made when we had a meeting with him last week and that, when the budget comes out in May, we will see that the Second Chance Act is fully funded.

Mr. Speaker, since January I have received hundreds of messages from constituents who are panicked that they will lose healthcare coverage with the Republican plan, where people will pay more for less.

Although the talking points of the Republican plan references access to health care, care will only be accessible for people with enough money to pay.

A message I received from Vera Caldas:

My husband has leukemia, and if it wasn't for the ACA, he

would be dead by now. I am living in fear that if he loses

ObamaCare, that will mean his death sentence since he won't

be able to afford insurance to continue his treatment.

A message from Lee Portillo:

The ACA allowed my wife to start her Silicon Valley beach

business in Venice, California and still have access to

health care. The ACA is pro small entrepreneur and gives us

the freedom to work on our own and still have insurance.

My constituents, like millions across the Nation, are afraid they might be one of the 14 million people who will lose coverage if the Republican plan is passed.

Mr. Speaker, last month, the U.N. declared a famine in parts of South Sudan. As I rise today, more than 100,000 men, women, and children there are facing immediate starvation. Arguably, this was an avoidable crisis.

Internal conflicts have worsened the dire living conditions for the people of South Sudan, and the government of the Republic of South Sudan must live up to its promise and ensure access to the most vulnerable communities by humanitarian organizations. According to recent estimates, without immediate action, an additional 5.5 million people living in South Sudan will experience famine.

Although we haven't yet seen the President's budget, it is reported that there is a 37 percent decrease in foreign aid. This could include severe cuts to humanitarian funding.

In this regard, I introduced H. Res. 187 in support of the efforts by USAID and other providers of humanitarian assistance in the international community. I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support this bipartisan resolution, and, by doing so, begin an end to this crisis.

Mr. Speaker, in order to attend a previously scheduled event I had to return to California; however, if I had been present today, I would have continued to voice my strenuous objects to the use of the Congressional Review Act to invalidate a seemingly endless number of agency rules. Today, I would express my opposition to and voted against H.J. Res. 43 and H.J. Res. 69. Use of the Congressional Review Act in the month of February to eliminate agency regulations thereby barring their return in substantially the same form as in some instances negated years of work on the part of agency officials, stakeholders, advocates, and the public. H.J. Res. 43 represents another vehicle to prevent families from having legitimate access in every state to the Title X program, which has been in effect for over 40 years.

Title X of the Public Health Services Act is the only dedicated source of federal funding for family planning. It provides grants to both nonprofit and public entities that, in turn, provide a wide range of both preventative and family planning services. These clinics have provided service to over 4 million men, women and children. The services include preconception health services, contraceptive care as well as breast and cervical cancer screenings and prevention. H.J. Res. 43 would prevent the implementation of a final rule by the Department of Health and Human Services that would have ensured that these patients continued to have access to all qualified Title X providers.

At a time when there has been a call to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which will result in 20 million Americans losing insurance, and negatively impact the benefits currently received by those with insurance and no viable replacement option being put forward. Our efforts should be spent addressing this issue. Instead, we are voting on a measure that will only serve to decrease access to health services that impact the long term health needs of families.

As for H.J. Res. 69, it represents yet another effort to use the Congressional Review Act to undermine the efforts of stakeholders, advocates, and agencies to address an issue. The promulgation of the rule by the Fish and Wild Life Services addresses Non-Subsistence Take of Wildlife, and Public Participation and Closure Procedures. In effect the rule is designed to limit state sponsored and recreational killing of species like grizzly bears and gray wolves unless there is full compliance with existing federal law as well as compliance with the purposes of the refuge. At this time those who have opposed this rule have not provided a scientific bases or sound science as a basis for opposing the final rule issued by the Department of the Interior.

For these reasons and more, I would have opposed H.J. Res. 43 and H.J. Res. 69.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to honor the life and memory of California Appeals Court Justice Vaino Hassan Spencer.

A month after Vaino was born in 1920, women gained the right to vote. She grew up during the Great Depression, started her professional career as a real estate broker, and married fellow broker Lorenzo Spencer in the late 1940s. She embarked on a legal career after graduating from Southwestern Law School in 1952, and practiced for nine years before then-governor Pat Brown appointed her to the Municipal Court bench in 1961, the first African American woman to hold a judgeship in California. She was elevated to the Superior Court in 1976 by then-Governor Jerry Brown, who went on to name her as presiding justice of Division One of the Second Appellate District Court of Appeal in 1980, making her the first Black woman to sit on a California appeals court.

Justice Spencer believed in the concept of ``lift as you climb'' and worked to create opportunities for women and people of color, especially in the legal profession. She founded the Black Women Lawyers Association of Los Angeles in 1974 to provide support to those already in the profession, and to assist others with scholarships, mentoring and guidance. The very next year, she joined with another Appeals Court Justice to coordinate efforts in support of women nominated to federal and state supreme courts. That collaboration grew into the National Association of Women Judges, which aimed to increase the number of women in the judiciary and to address the gender bias problems experienced by the few women who were on the bench. President Jimmy Carter met with NAWJ in 1980, having appointed nearly four times the women to the federal bench (38) than had ever been appointed by all of his predecessors.

In remarks later, she said: ``We have been warmly greeted [everywhere], and we've gotten tremendous support, even from local judges who were openly resentful of our organizing initially. They have come around to be quite supportive. . . .''

She served one of the longest tenures on the bench in California history, retiring in 2007. I salute the life and legacy of Justice Spencer, a legacy of service to the legal profession, to the state of California and to the nation.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to honor the life and memory of my friend and mentor, Oneil Marion Cannon, who passed away on January 20, days before his 100th birthday.

Oneil was born in Louisiana on January 28, 1917. He began early to fight against injustice. As a young insurance agent in New Orleans, he joined an office workers union, and he defied miscegenation laws to associate with white students at Tulane and Dillard Universities. He served honorably in the Pacific Theatre during World War II and settled with his wife and children in Los Angeles after his discharge. There he learned the printing trade on the GI Bill. He believed all his life in collective action, and fought to become the first African American member of the Printer's Union in Los Angeles.

Union membership, however, did not guarantee him work in that segregated industry, so he started his own print shop in the basement of the progressive Black newspaper The Eagle. Fidelity Educational Press became known as the ``union printer to the left,'' producing leaflets, journals, and brochures for community groups, activists and churches. Oneil taught the printing trade to generations of printers in South Los Angeles. His passion for education further led him to fight for ``Negro History Week'' in L.A. schools, and to take an active part in the multi-year struggle for a junior college in South L.A. That battle culminated in the opening of L.A. Southwest College in 1967.

In 1985 he co-founded the Paul Robeson Center, which quickly became a community hub. For years it pursued its mission of seeking interracial and intercultural understanding. Oneil was instrumental in supporting my own work as a community organizer early in my life, and without his help my life would have taken a very different path.

Deeply involved in politics, Oneil belonged to the Independent Progressive Party and campaigned to put Henry Wallace on the ballot in the late 1940s. As part of the IPP, he used economic power to force employers to hire Black and Mexican American workers, using the slogan ``don't bank or buy where you can't work.'' He worked for decades to elect

representatives of color to office, including Tom Bradley, Ed Roybal, and even campaigning at age 90 for Barack Obama.

I would like to salute Oneil Cannon for his longstanding commitment to serving and uplifting others, and for a century of fighting to make the world a better place.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate Chief William ``Bill'' Scott on his swearing in as San Francisco Chief of Police on January 17, 2017.

Chief Scott spent much of his career in law enforcement in the Los Angeles Police Department. He was first appointed to the Department in 1989, and has worked assignments across the spectrum of police work, from patrol to detective to gang intervention. He has served LAPD in the Operations West Bureau, Internal Affairs, Professional Standards Bureau, the Office of Operations, and as Patrol Commanding Officer and Area Commanding Officer.

He was promoted to the rank of Commander in 2012, and was assigned as the Assistant Commanding Officer, Operations in the West Bureau. Prior to his selection as San Francisco Chief of Police, Chief Scott served as the Assistant Commanding Officer for Operations in the South Bureau, which covers much of my district.

He brings a wealth of experience to his new role, including his service during periods when the LAPD was under significant public scrutiny. Chief Scott is a graduate of the Senior Management Institute of Policing (SMIP), and has a Bachelor of Science degree in accounting.

I appreciate Chief Scott's commitment to public service and his focus on community. As he embarks on a new phase of service to the City of San Francisco, I would like to thank him for his work here and wish him all the best as he undertakes his new responsibilities.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his leadership tonight, and also Representative Plaskett.

Let me share with you, especially Representative Plaskett, that on my first day here 7 years ago, one of the first things that happened was a motion on the floor to further deny the right to vote for Representatives from the territories. And I have to tell you that I think, for myself, as well as the majority of people in our country, we don't realize that you only have democracy 50 percent. So I am glad that you raised it tonight, and I think it is very important that we continue to fight so that people from the territories will have the full representation of their country.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to address the travesty that is taking place in our country, a travesty that has resulted in innocent people, students, grandparents, mothers, fathers, and children being unable to travel and enter the United States.

People are caught in a web of suspicion and hatred as a result of the recent executive order which is nothing less than a religious ban. So today, I speak for the Africans that are caught in that ban.

Let me give you an example of who has been caught up by the Muslim ban--a brilliant Stanford student, Ms. Nisrin Omer, studying anthropology. She is a graduate of Harvard who is from Sudan and has lived in this country since 1993.

She has a green card and is a legal resident who was returning to the U.S. from research in Sudan. She was detained for 5 hours and handcuffed, simply because she is from Sudan, the very same country that President Obama worked long and hard to improve relations and to move the country and the region forward.

Another example, a Somali woman and her two children detained at Dulles Airport for 18-plus hours as a result of the Muslim ban. According to reports, the children have U.S. passports, and their father was allowed to stay in the U.S., but his Somali wife would have been deported were it not for the emergency stay granted by the New York Federal judge.

Then there are refugees, mostly Somali, stuck in Kenya following the cancellation of their flight as a result of the executive order. These stranded travelers had been waiting, according to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, 10 to 15 years to resettle.

And I speak of seven people who are reportedly being detained at the airport in my city, Los Angeles airport. All of these situations are a result of the President's executive order which, despite the protestations from the administration, is nothing less than a Muslim ban.

I also speak of persons fleeing for their lives from Libya, who are now stigmatized worldwide because of this ban.

Day 10 of the Trump Presidency. Heaven help us.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 5537, the Digital Global Access Policy Act or the Digital GAP Act. I commend Chairman Royce's timely piece of legislation, which aims to facilitate greater coordination between the U.S. and foreign governments, international organizations, regional economic communities, businesses, and civil society regarding the promotion of information technology and cybersecurity in developing economies.

The focus of the critical IT sector, particularly in developing countries, is the goal of not only Chairman Royce's Digital GAP bill but also of a possible companion bill in the Senate sponsored last year by Senator Markey.

I understand that Senator Markey plans to reintroduce his bill in the Senate, and it is my hope that we can work with the Senate in support of this legislation. Both bills address the critical issue of the U.S. working with developing economies on the core issue of information technology and cybersecurity.

In many countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, the information technology sector has literally taken off and enabled young, innovative, and talented entrepreneurs to develop IT-related solutions to everyday problems.

Last summer, I traveled with Senator Markey and Representative Maloney to Nigeria and Senegal where we met with a number of local IT experts. What was clear from our in-depth discussions is that Internet access has quickly become a critical component of economies and economic growth throughout the developing world.

Many developing economies, which have traditionally had to navigate institutional or infrastructural impediments, are able to utilize information technology to resolve everyday problems. Case in point, telephone land lines in some developing economies are often in need of constant repair and maintenance. As a result, over the years, land lines became the preserve of the middle class and affluent sectors of capital cities.

This is no longer the case because astute entrepreneurs have found a way to circumvent this impediment by buying and/or renting out cell phones for public use. Today, in just about any country you visit in Sub-Saharan Africa, you will see countless men, women, and children using cell phones.

On our codel, our visit to Senegal included a meeting with the CEO of Wari, an 8-year-old company providing an innovative platform offering convenient service and an aggregation of products and services of various partners. Wari has over 220 million users of the platform throughout 40 countries.

We also met with the director of Millennium Connect Africa. Formerly with Hughes Satellite Systems, Mr. Diop was educated at Wharton and UCLA and worked in the U.S. for 20 years. His company is a subsidiary of Wari.

In Kenya, IT entrepreneurs have excelled in the development of a host of innovative apps. For example, a young Kenyan innovator developed an app called iCow to better enable dairy farmers to keep current with market prices.

Throughout Sub-Saharan Africa, there are many examples of IT expertise. The importance of an IT-literate population complements the ongoing push for capability training.

To the degree the U.S. Government can actively participate in this important process is to the mutual benefit of this country and a spectrum of developing countries worldwide.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of the bipartisan Strengthening Child Welfare Response to Trafficking Act, which I introduced with a group of bipartisan Members of Congress.

The same version of this bill was unanimously passed in the 113th Congress. This legislation demonstrates how critical it is that Members of Congress work together to move policy that protects children from being sexually exploited. The work that both sides of the aisle have done on sex trafficking demonstrates a strong commitment to preventing our most vulnerable populations from becoming victims.

First, I would like to thank Chairman Kline, Representative Walberg, and Ranking Member Scott for their leadership on continuing to support this legislation that works towards ensuring that no child in the United States becomes a victim of sex trafficking. I am grateful for their knowledge and assistance that helped bring this important bill to the floor today. I would also like to thank Judge Poe for his ongoing leadership on this issue.

My colleague and friend, Representative Tom Marino, has been a leader in fighting for children in the foster care system. Mr. Marino, along with the Congressional Caucus on Foster Youth cochairs--Jim McDermott, Trent Franks, Jim Langevin, and Diane Black--all served as original cosponsors of H.R. 469 and have demonstrated leadership by both making significant change in the child welfare system and by bringing attention to the horrendous intersection between sex trafficking and our child welfare system.

The U.S. Department of Justice reports that between 2008 and 2010 40 percent of sex trafficking cases involved the exploitation of children. Tragically, many of these children are forgotten without the appropriate services to ensure their safety. This highlights the failure of our system to prevent them from becoming victims.

More than 200,000 youth in our country are at risk of trafficking per year. In my hometown of Los Angeles, the Probation Department reports that 61 percent of identified trafficking victims are foster youth. It is noteworthy that this statistic comes from the Probation Department and not the child welfare department. This legislation hopes to correct that. We want to make sure that child welfare agencies, in addition to juvenile justice, begin to document this problem.

In Los Angeles, we are fortunate to have the STAR Court, which is a specialized, collaborative courthouse designed to serve youth who have been trafficked. The STAR Court team reports that 80 percent of the girls entering their courtroom have previously been involved in the child welfare system.

As cochair of the Congressional Caucus on Foster Youth, I have had the opportunity to travel throughout the country as part of our Nationwide Listening Tour. Unfortunately, I have heard far too many stories about youth in foster care falling through the cracks in the system. Sometimes they are thought to be runaways. Sadly, they report that no one looked for them and that, in fact, they had not run away but had been abducted or tricked or drugged by a pimp when the system assumed they were bad girls who had just run away.

Most of us were so moved by one woman that we often repeat her story. She told us in hearings that she felt the foster care system prepared her for exploitation because her pimp was the first person who told her that he loved her and that, while in foster care, she was moved so often and told so often that she was just a paycheck that she formed no healthy attachments and had nowhere to turn.

We have to close the cracks in our system that leave a child feeling her

pimp is the only one she can turn to or that she would rather be with a pimp than be bounced around from foster home to foster home. The system that is supposed to be designed to help vulnerable children should not turn around and victimize the children or allow them to fall into the hands of exploiters.

Many of the young survivors we have met told us that, during the time they were being trafficked, they had numerous encounters with the child welfare system but that no one asked what was happening to them, especially girls in group homes. Pimps know this population is especially vulnerable. H.R. 469 will allow child welfare agencies across the Nation to develop State protection plans to outline provisions and procedures to identify and assess all reports of children known or suspected to be victims of sex trafficking.

H.R. 469 begins to prepare the child welfare system for this population. A first step is to document the extent of the problem. Another step is to ensure that each State has a plan to train social workers to identify and address the needs of this population. Arresting these children should not be the way we provide services. Arresting them treats them as criminals, and one has to question if jail is ever an appropriate place to provide the type of services these children need.

H.R. 469 also requires that, within 1 year, the Department of Health and Human Services report to Congress on the prevalence and type of trafficking they have encountered. The report will assess State practices used to identify and serve trafficking victims and Federal laws and policies that might, in fact, prevent States from supporting these victims, including the absence of trafficking in the Federal definition of ``child abuse and neglect'' under CAPTA, the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act.

I am encouraged by the momentum that has been created to reform our child welfare system and to ensure that vulnerable children are provided with the resources they need. I strongly urge my colleagues to support H.R. 469, the Strengthening Child Welfare Response to Trafficking Act, and to continue to work together in Congress to combat domestic minor sex trafficking.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of H.R. 246, a bill to improve the response to victims of child trafficking.

First, I would like to commend my colleague, Representative Joyce Beatty, for her commitment to transforming the language that we use to discuss child victims of sex trafficking and for taking the lead on this important legislation. After all, a child cannot consent to sex, so a child cannot be considered a prostitute. And her exploiter should never be called a john; he should be called what he is, a child molester.

While trafficking advocates and organizations have worked tirelessly over the years to ensure that the framework and language we use to describe child victims of trafficking recognizes that they are, in fact, victims, we still have a long way to go. These children have gone through enough trauma. They do not need to continue to hear language that places the blame on them for a crime that an adult committed.

Phone hotlines and cyber tip lines operated by organizations throughout the country are critical to ensuring that individuals have a means to report these incidents of human trafficking and child exploitation.

Under this legislation, reports of domestic minor sex trafficking to the CyberTipline of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children would be classified as ``child sex trafficking'' and no longer as ``child prostitution.'' This change would reinforce the fact that the children are victims and not criminals.

Representative Beatty's bill is another critical building block to transforming the framework and dialogue around child victims of sex trafficking. I look forward to continuing to change the conversation and urge my colleagues in the House to support this important legislation.

Mr. Speaker, today I recognize and celebrate the designation of January 16, 2015 by the City of Los Angeles, California as Dr. La-Doris McClaney Day, in honor of the noteworthy career and remarkable generosity of La-Doris McClaney, Ph.D.

The McClaney family has risen from the humblest of roots: Dr. McClaney's mother, Eula McClaney, grew up picking cotton with her sharecropper parents in Orion, Alabama and was self-educated after the sixth grade. Nonetheless, a powerful drive to succeed, personal discipline, strong faith, and a talent for entrepreneurship built a real estate business that allowed Mrs. McClaney and her family not only to thrive but also to lift others as they climbed.

La-Doris McClaney and her late sister Burnie McClaney worked with their mother to expand both their business and their philanthropy across six states, donating buildings and money to improve the lives of others. Dr. La-Doris McClaney shares both her mother's aptitude for business and her deep commitment to charitable works. Over her 40-year career in real estate and philanthropy, Dr. McClaney has contributed 10% of her gross income to charities large and small, amounting to many millions of dollars. She gives of herself as well, writing, and lecturing, assisting families in need, and mentoring African American college students and sponsoring their tuition. Dr. McClaney holds a masters degree from Pepperdine University and a doctorate degree from Bethune Cookman College, and the themes of education and health research emerge from a brief review of those receiving her charitable contributions: American Diabetes Association, American Heart Association, American Lung Association, Bethune Cookman College, The Christian Broadcasting Network, City of Hope, King Drew School of Medicine, Save African's Children, and the United Negro College Fund, among many others.

Dr. McClaney has been recognized over 500 times with commendations, awards, resolutions and honors for her many good works. I congratulate her and I commend the City of Los Angeles for celebrating her many contributions.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 5081, the Strengthening Child Welfare Response to Trafficking Act of 2014, and I would like to thank Chairman Kline and Ranking Member Miller for their support and collaboration on creating momentum for this policy that will be a critical step towards preventing child sex trafficking. I appreciate both their insight and assistance in bringing this bill to the floor today.

I also want to thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania, Representative Marino. He has been a tireless advocate for children in the foster care system. Mr. Marino, along with the Congressional Caucus on Foster Youth cochairs, Representatives McDermott and Bachmann, all served as original cosponsors of the Strengthening Child Welfare Response to Trafficking Act, and their continuing commitment to transforming the child welfare system has brought national attention to the intersection between child sex trafficking and the child welfare system.

The U.S. Department of Justice reports that more than 300,000 children in the country are at risk of sexual commercial exploitation and trafficking each year. These are 300,000 too many, and tragically, this number shows that a comprehensive and aggressive response is needed in order to combat child trafficking throughout the country.

In my city, the Los Angeles County Probation Department reports that 61 percent of identified trafficking victims are foster youth. The Los Angeles STAR court is a specialized collaborative courthouse designed to serve commercially exploited youth and reports that 80 percent of these girls have been previously involved in the child welfare system.

As cochair of the Congressional Caucus on Foster Youth, I have had the opportunity to travel throughout the country as part of our nationwide listening tour. Unfortunately, the stories I have heard from advocates and youth is that children in the child welfare system continue to be preyed upon by traffickers who use their vulnerability as an opportunity to exploit them.

The stories that emerge are those like Caroline's, a young girl who grew up in a household where she was physically, sexually, and emotionally

abused. When Caroline was just 13 years old, a 35-year-old man attended a sporting event at her school and deceived her into believing that he loved her and would give her the attention she craved.

Instead, this man began to sell Caroline to numerous men for sex. Throughout this time, she had many encounters with the child welfare system, but no one picked up that she was a victim of trafficking. The social workers did not have the training or the proper tools to assess that she needed specialized services.

Our bill would ensure that children like Caroline do not slip through the cracks, as State and county child welfare departments have protection plans that will outline provisions and procedures to identify and assess all reports of children known or suspected to be victims of sex trafficking.

State systems do not currently have the proper protections, services, or protocols to adequately serve those in the system who have been victims of trafficking. States also lack such support for victims who enter the child welfare system.

In fact, during a site visit recently on the Foster Youth Caucus listening tour to Missouri, a law enforcement officer told us that he had no other option but to arrest the girls, to ensure that they receive the proper services.

In Los Angeles, the child sex trafficking unit of the county probation department specifically addresses the needs of child victims, and it is the only such division in the country. I commend their critical work and commitment to ensure the trafficking victims receive the resources they need.

We must not continue to arrest these children in order to provide them with these services. Our bill will be a first step toward ensuring that there are policies and procedures in place to connect child sex trafficking victims to public or private specialized services.

Last year, in a meeting with children in the child sex trafficking unit of the Los Angeles County Probation Department, the girls all echoed the same sentiment. While they were grateful to have the resources they needed to begin to deal with their trauma, they felt stigmatized by having to be arrested in order to receive these services.

Our bill would ensure that each State has a training plan for child protective service workers to appropriately respond to reports of trafficking, so that trafficked children would be provided the same resources as youth in the child welfare system and be classified as victims of crime, not as criminals.

We have story after story across the country of children being raped and sold as if they were little more than objects, but we do not have the concrete data to help them find the appropriate services. H.R. 5081 requires that, within 1 year, the Department of Health and Human Services report to Congress on the prevalence and types of trafficking they have encountered.

Many advocates believe that labor trafficking is also a critical issue with children in the child welfare system. The reality is we need hard data to evaluate what is happening to the children, so that proper resources can be allocated in the future. Our bill also allows States to establish the same policy and procedures for children if they are victims of labor trafficking.

The report will also assess State practices used to identify and serve trafficking victims and Federal laws and policies that may prevent States from supporting these victims, including the absence of trafficking in the Federal definition of child abuse and neglect under CAPTA, the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act.

These critical steps to reforming our child welfare system will help ensure that victims are provided with the same resources and access as other children. I strongly urge my colleagues to support our bill and continue to build momentum to combat domestic child sex trafficking.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Washington State, Mr. McDermott.

(Mr. McDERMOTT asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York, Ms. Yvette Clarke.

Mr. Speaker, I yield the gentlewoman an additional 1 minute.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. Langevin).

(Mr. LANGEVIN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

The fight against child sex trafficking is a bipartisan issue, and I appreciate that both parties have come

together today to support the development of legislation that would make a significant impact on one of the most vulnerable populations in our Nation.

The Strengthening Our Child Welfare Response to Trafficking Act is an important step in ensuring that child welfare agencies have the proper systems in place to identify, assess, and document child victims of trafficking.

Stories like those of Caroline and the other young girls in the child sex trafficking unit of the Los Angeles County Probation Department are critical to understanding exactly the effect our bill would have in laying the foundation of transforming the way our Nation responds to child sex trafficking.

However, it is also important to recognize that this bill and the other bills on the floor today are steps on that journey, and there is still an enormous amount of work that needs to be done.

Again, I would like to thank members of the Education and Workforce Committee and the Congressional Caucus on Foster Youth for their continued commitment to advancing policies that help change the lives of children.

I would also like to take this opportunity to thank my staff, Adriane Alicea, and especially my former deputy chief of staff, Jenny Wood, who did the lion's share of work to make this legislation happen, and without her hard work and dedication, this legislation would not be on the floor today.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of H.R. 5111, a bill to improve the response to victims of child trafficking.

First, I would like to commend my colleague, Representative Joyce Beatty, for her commitment to transforming the language that we use to discuss child victims of sex trafficking and for taking the lead on this important legislation.

While antitrafficking advocates and organizations have worked tirelessly over the years to ensure that the framework and language that we use to describe child victims of trafficking recognize that they are, in fact, victims, we still have a long way to go.

For example, men who exploit the children, we call them ``johns.'' We arrest the traffickers, we arrest the victims, but the men are seldom arrested, and when they are, it is for soliciting.

As we change the way we speak about the girls, we must change the way we speak about the men, the men who are not johns, but child molesters.

Representative Beatty's bill is another critical building block to transforming the framework and dialogue around child victims of sex trafficking. I look forward to continuing to change the conversation and urge my colleagues in the House to support this important legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of H.R. 4980, the Preventing Sex Trafficking and Strengthening Families Act.

First, I would like to commend Chairmen Camp and Reichert and Ranking Members Levin and Doggett for their work on this important legislation and for their ongoing commitment to our Nation's foster youth.

As cochair of the Congressional Caucus on Foster Youth, I have had the opportunity to hear stories from youth across the country during our listening tour. Many of the young people I have heard from share similar stories--from Washington State to Missouri--that they just want to be a part of loving families and have the ability to participate in sports, hang out with their friends, and have the same experiences as their peers. I strongly believe this legislation will help bring a greater sense of stability to foster youth and give kids a chance to be just like their friends.

Since 1997, when the adoption incentives legislation became law, we have seen a significant reduction in the number of kids in foster care. By improving adoption incentives, we help children find their forever families. This is why it is so critical to highlight this legislation's investment in legal guardianship and relative caregivers.

More than half of the youth in the child welfare system are placed with a relative caregiver: a grandmother, an aunt, uncle, or older sibling. Guardianship is often the preferred type of family permanence for relative caregivers.

In addition, parts of H.R. 4980 include the funding for Family Connection Grants, which provide critical resources to ensure children find permanent homes, oftentimes with relatives.

In my Los Angeles district, relative caregivers are the largest group of foster care providers. Research shows that

foster placement with relatives are good for children. They allow children to stay in their schools, receive continued support from their community and culture, and feel connected to families that continue to love them.

Despite the importance of relative caregivers, they face unique obstacles. Becoming a caregiver changes lives in every way: physically, emotionally, and financially. Stable middle class families or seniors who live on their life savings are often pushed to the brink of poverty because they have accepted the unexpected financial burden of caring for a child.

I am greatly encouraged by the critical work this legislation before us encourages--children having forever families through both adoption and guardianship throughout the country--and hope to continue this work with my colleagues in the House.