House panel pushes Trump administration on combating human trafficking

The House foreign affairs committee unanimously passed an amendment to the US Department of State’s budget late Wednesday that would require additional congressional oversight of the government’s efforts to combat human trafficking in the United States and around the world.

The bipartisan agreement came hours after the Guardian published an investigation that revealed the Trump administration had dramatically rolled back efforts to fight human trafficking across the federal government.

That included a more than 70% reduction of the workforce at the state department’s office to monitor and combat trafficking in persons (Tip office), which is responsible for leading anti-trafficking efforts across the US government.

“This is a bipartisan instance of accountability over the administration that we see far too rarely in this Congress,” the measure’s sponsor, Representative Sarah McBride, said after the move received unanimous support in the committee.

“Human trafficking is a crisis,” McBride, a Democrat from Delaware, said. “We have to respond with a seriousness of purpose that meets the crisis.”

The White House told the Guardian that it was “total nonsense” for Democrats to assert that the administration has pulled back on fighting human trafficking. A spokesperson said “President Trump has totally secured our border to stop the trafficking of children” and “implemented tough-on-crime policies” that go after human traffickers and “hold these disgusting monsters accountable to the fullest extent of the law”.

The Guardian also found that the state department had failed to publish a legally-required annual report that documents human trafficking in the US and more than 185 other countries. The Trafficking Victims Protection Act mandates the report – which charts global trends in human trafficking and provides a country-by-country assessment of efforts to combat it – be provided to Congress no later than 30 June.

The report is seen as a powerful diplomatic tool on human rights-related issues. Countries that get poor marks are ineligible for many forms of US foreign aid. Multiple sources told the Guardian that the report has been completed but had not been provided to Congress.

A state department spokesperson declined to comment on McBride’s amendment but said the department was in the final stages of vetting the anti-trafficking report and that it planned to “release it soon”.

The spokesperson said the report had undergone a “rigorous review process” to maintain its integrity. Staff cuts in the Tip office were part of “a historic reorganization” to better align the agency with an “America First” foreign policy, the spokesperson said.

McBride’s budget amendment, approved by a voice vote by the House foreign affairs committee, directs the state department to report to Congress within 180 days on the impact of staff reductions and the reorganization of the Tip office and how those actions have affected the timeliness and accuracy of the legally-required, Trafficking in Persons (Tip) Report. It also requires that Secretary of State Marco Rubio engage in “regular consultation” with Congress on these issues.

“If this admin has to defend its efforts to deplete this office the hope is they will re-evaluate their actions destroying this office,” McBride said.

The amendment was made to the House bill titled Department of State Policy Provisions Act (HR 5300), which now moves to the full House of Representatives for consideration.

In Congress’s upper-chamber, Senator Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, the top Democrat on the Senate foreign relations committee, said her office had “not received any communication from the state department” on the status of the anti-trafficking report, including “a request for an extension”.

“I’ve seen longstanding, robust bipartisan support for the Tip office and its annual report, but the administration has regrettably gutted much of the staff responsible” for producing it, Shaheen said. She called the annual report “critical to the United States’ ability to monitor, prevent and respond to human trafficking”, making the state department’s silence “deeply concerning”.

Human trafficking has been at the center of debate on Capital Hill this week, with lawmakers in both the House and Senate grilling the FBI director, Kash Patel, about the administration’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein case.

Senator Alex Padilla, a Democrat from California, linked the Trump administration’s retreat on human trafficking to its treatment of children who enter the US on their own.

“They’re not protecting victims and children – they’re abandoning them,” he wrote in a social media post about the Guardian’s investigation.

At a Senate judiciary subcommittee hearing Wednesday, Padilla denounced the administration’s efforts to cut off legal services for unaccompanied migrant children that was mandated by federal law to identify and assist potential victims of exploitation and human trafficking.

“Every single one of us here has a responsibility to stand up for the children in our immigration system, whether it’s because of trafficking, physical or sexual abuse, child labor, or violations of their due process,” he said.

The White House did not answer questions about the administration’s effort to cut funding for legal services for unaccompanied minors.

• Aaron Glantz is a fellow at Stanford University’s Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences.

• Bernice Yeung is managing editor at the Investigative Reporting Program at UC Berkeley Journalism.

• Noy Thrupkaew is a reporter and director of partnerships at Type Investigations.