By Mary Troyan of USA TODAY - A New Jersey lawmaker's bill that would track international travel by child sex offenders has passed Congress unanimously and awaits President Obama's signature. Known as International Megan’s Law, the measure will expand the domestic system of registering child sex offenders to alert U.S. and foreign authorities when they use their passport. It took Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., eight years to win final congressional approval for the proposal. It passed the Senate in D... Read more

A newly released bipartisan Senate investigative report which found that the Obama Administration not only failed to protect thousands of children from Central America who flooded over the southern border of the United States but actually also helped deliver them into the hands of human traffickers who exploited them, caused “grave concern” to U.S. Reps. Chris Smith (NJ-04) and Jeff Duncan (SC-03), the chairmen of the Foreign Affairs subcommittees that oversee Human Rights and Western Hemisphere... Read more

Statement from Speaker of the House Paul Ryan on the enrollment of Congressman Smith's International Megan's Law: "Megan was just seven years old when it happened. She was brutally assaulted and murdered by a convicted sex offender who lived across the street. This deplorable act was the catalyst for the Megan’s Law movement, a series of laws enacted at the state and federal levels that keep the public informed of sex offenders in their neighborhood. "This week, Congress expanded Megan’s Law to ... Read more

The problem of “gendercide”—the deliberate extermination of a girl child simply because she happens to be a girl—was the topic of a hearing chaired today by Congressman Chris Smith (NJ-04), chairman of the bipartisan Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC). At the hearing, Smith said that the “global crisis of Asia’s missing girls is not only a tragedy of lost potential but also a demographic time bomb, particularly in China, with social, political, and potentially even security impli... Read more

By Trentonian Staff Writer Sulaiman Abdur-Rahman - American pedophiles will have a harder time raping children overseas. After eight years of political legwork, the International Megan’s Law bill that was sponsored by Congressman Chris Smith (R-Hamilton) has finally cleared both chambers of Congress effective Monday and will soon arrive on President Barack Obama’s desk to be signed into law. The International Megan’s Law to Prevent Demand for Child Sex Trafficking, also known as H.R. 515, is ins... Read more

BY JONATHAN SALANT FOR NJ.COM - The U.S. House of Representatives on Monday cleared legislation requiring the government to notify foreign governments when convicted sex offenders travel abroad. U.S. Rep. Chris Smith (R-4th Dist.) first introduced the International Megan's Law to Prevent Demand for Child Sex Trafficking in 2008. The measure passed the House last year. The Senate followed suit with some changes, requiring the House to vote a second time. The bill, which passed by voice vote, now ... Read more

MARY CLARE JALONICK, Associated Press - Registered sex offenders who have committed crimes against children will have a harder time traveling internationally under legislation Congress has sent to the president's desk. The House passed the legislation by voice vote Monday after Senate passage in December. If signed by the president, the U.S. would let other countries know when a registered sex offender is traveling abroad. The United States would work with countries to receive information about ... Read more

Eight years after Congressman Chris Smith (Hamilton, NJ) first introduced a bill to protect children in the U.S. and around the world from convicted pedophiles who travel in secret to or from the United States—currently below the radar of law enforcement officials—it is now on the verge of becoming law. Smith (NJ-04), author of International Megan’s Law to Prevent Demand for Child Sex Trafficking, H.R. 515, announced that the House unanimously approved HR 515 today. “It will now be sent on to th... Read more

Following the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) decision to award New Jersey only $15 million in Superstorm Sandy funding of the nearly $1 billion designated for the National Disaster Resilience Competition (NDRC) after Congress approved the Superstorm Sandy aid package, Congressman Chris Smith (NJ-04) and several Members of the New Jersey Congressional Delegation have requested a meeting with HUD Secretary Julián Castro to discuss their serious concerns that New Jersey’s ... Read more

Rep. Chris Smith (NJ-04) spoke in support of H.R. 515, the International Megan's Law, today on the House floor. The following are excerpts of his remarks: Mr. Speaker, child predators thrive on secrecy, a secrecy that allows them to commit heinous crimes against the weakest and most vulnerable. Today the House has under consideration H.R. 515, the International Megan’s Law to Prevent Child Exploitation and Other Sexual Crimes Through Advanced Notification of Traveling Sex Offenders, a law that w... Read more