For reasons known only to themselves, Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee have blocked a measure that would have dramatically increased penalties for persons convicted of trafficking children for sex.
The provision, introduced by Rep. Chip Roy, would have increased punishment for child sex traffickers, including upping the maximum prison time for offenders.
BizPac Review noted:
The committee Dems were in lockstep unity in snuffing out the Texas Republican’s amendment despite the scourge of child sex trafficking, one issue that in a normal political environment would have been a slam-dunk to pass, ensuring that predators would stay locked up and away from society.
According to Roy’s amendment, the minimum prison time for those convicted of “trafficking children by force, fraud, or coercion” would be increased by 5 years which many would likely feel is still too lenient for such heinous crimes but uncontroversial enough to get Democrats on board.
On Wednesday, the Texas Republican’s office revealed that “Judiciary Committee Democrats just unanimously REJECTED Rep. Roy’s amendment to increase penalties for all child sex trafficking offenses.”
🚨🚨 #BREAKING: Judiciary Committee Democrats just unanimously REJECTED Rep. Roy's amendment to increase penalties for all child sex trafficking offenses. pic.twitter.com/ZNyhJU9eU3
— Rep. Chip Roy Press Office (@RepChipRoy) July 13, 2022
Colorado Republican Rep. Ken Buck asked, “Mr. Roy, can you think of any circumstance in which an individual induces, coerces, controls a child and forces that child into the sex trade, where that individual, that defendant, that criminal doesn’t deserve 15 years in prison?”
“I cannot, no,” Roy answered. “I mean, as a father of two, as a former prosecutor, it defies all belief, all common sense that you would say that someone who traffics a child in the sex industry — actually puts a child into that environment for that child to be sexually abused — that that individual should not have a minimum sentence or 15 years.”
“I don’t think there is a prison, a hole underneath a prison, deep enough to throw that individual in,” Buck added.
“It defies all belief, all common sense, that you would say that someone who traffics a child in the sex industry — actually puts a child into that environment, or that child sexually abused — that individual should not have a minimum sentence of 15 years?”
More on this: pic.twitter.com/IReVFQKCdD
— Rep. Chip Roy Press Office (@RepChipRoy) July 13, 2022
Thanks to President Joe Biden’s reversal of his predecessor’s tough immigration and border enforcement policies, illegal immigration — along with sex trafficking of minors and drug smuggling — has skyrocketed over the past 18 months.
As to the trafficking of minors for sex, a Texas Public Policy Foundation report published in January noted that as Biden’s lax immigration policies created a virtual porous border, incidents have skyrocketed.
“Sophisticated transnational syndicates are notorious for using children to get single, adult males not just across the border, but through Border Patrol processing,” the report noted. “Once these men are granted a stay, they smuggle the children back across the border where they will continue to be trafficked.
“Studies done by the Latin American branch of the Coalition Against Trafficking In Women estimates that 60% of Latin American children who set out to cross the border alone or with smugglers have been caught by the cartels and are being abused in child pornography or drug trafficking,” the report added.
