Vietnam's accession to the World Trade Organisation should be linked to it improving its human rights record, a US Congressman has said, even though Washington has steered clear of making such a tie. Read more

The US Congress will keep a close eye on Vietnam to ensure that the communist country fulfills its pledges to expand religious freedoms, US lawmaker Christopher Smith said here. Read more

New Jersey Rep. Chris Smith said Thursday that the Vietnamese government should be more forthcoming in providing the United States with better information on American soldiers listed as missing in action during the Vietnam War. Read more

U.S. Representative Chris Smith (R-NJ) – Chairman of the House Subcommittee on Global Human Rights, Africa and International Operations – is leading a Congressional Delegation that arrived in Vietnam this morning for four days of meetings with government officials, religious leaders and the relatives of political prisoners to discuss religious freedom, human rights and trafficking. Smith is the author of a landmark human trafficking law, and is currently sponsoring the reauthorization of that law in a strengthened version. Smith will also meet with Vietnamese and US Personnel Accounting Command to discuss ongoing problems in the unresolved MIA cases from the Vietnam War. Read more

U.S. Rep. Chris Smith (R-Hamilton) will attend a ribbon cutting ceremony for a new science building at Georgian Court University. The Science Center will be outfitted with state of the art technology that was obtained through a federal Education grant that Smith secured. The $223,000 grant focuses on distancing learning efforts related to women in science and education. Read more

U.S. Representative Chris Smith’s (R-NJ), Co-Chairman of the US Helsinki Commission, today introduced legislation urging Romania to reform its adoption policies which have prevented thousands of children from being placed in permanent loving families in the United States and Western Europe. More than 200 Americans had pending adoption applications when the new law prohibiting inter-country adoptions took affect. Smith has conducted a hearing on the effect of the law and the dire situation for Romania’s abandoned children. Read more

Even though leadership officials snubbed him less than a year ago, ousted House Veterans’ Affairs Committee Chairman Chris Smith (R-N.J.) wants another chance at a gavel. Read more

U.S. Attorney Christopher J. Christie (Newark) today announced that the "enforcer" of a human trafficking ring that smuggled young Honduran women into the United States and forced them to work at three Hudson County bars pleaded guilty today to her role which violated of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000, which was authored by Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ). Read more

U.S. Representative Chris Smith’s (R-NJ) Subcommittee on Africa, Global Human Rights and International Relations today approved a resolution he introduced calling on Russia to fully protect the freedoms of all religious communities as is required under its constitution and international commitments. Read more

Once again we are gathered to praise the outstanding work that Michael Cromartie and the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom are doing. They continue to perform exactly as the Congress intended when it passed the International Religious Freedom Act, which created the Commission. They have kept the eyes of the world, and of our own policy makers, on the central importance of religious freedom in our foreign policy. I am proud to have been an original co-sponsor. Read more