Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ), the author of five major anti-human trafficking laws, praised Trump Administration officials—including Acting U.S. Attorney General (AG) Todd Blanche and U.S. Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Markwayne Mullin—who announced today that the Administration has indicted three fraudulent “sponsors” and located over 146,000 unaccompanied migrant children, the vast majority of whom were trafficked through the southern border due to the Biden-Harris Administration’s weak and negligent open border policies.

                “I am grateful to the Trump Administration—including U.S. AG Blanche, DHS Sec. Mullin, and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.—for their unwavering commitment to securing our southern border and finding and protecting the thousands of unaccompanied migrant children, who were forcibly brought into the United States alone,” said Smith.

                In May of 2023, Smith, who served as Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations, chaired a congressional hearing on the thousands of unaccompanied migrant children who went missing during the Biden Administration, where he asked the State Department’s Ambassador-at-Large to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons Cindy Dyer:

“But one of the concerns, and I know the New York Times underscored this, that [HHS] Office of Refugee Resettlement similarly has lost some 85,000 migrant children, unaccompanied minors… It was pointed out [that] our government continued not to mandate human trafficking screening for all foreign national adults in immigration detention or custody. And it did not screen for trafficking indicators among the people it removed…

“And if you could, do we know what has happened to those children? Is there any further insight? I mean, we all, you know, have heard from victims today. To think that there could be tens of thousands of victims who—and children—that we just do not know where they are.”

                Ambassador Dyer—who was nominated by President Biden—replied that “addressing the challenges of irregular migration, specifically providing protection to refugees and asylum seekers and offering lawful migration pathways, are key priorities for the [Biden] Administration,” and that DHS and HHS would have the “answers.”

                Later that year, Smith chaired another congressional hearing, which featured the compelling testimony of Tim Ballard, the subject of the blockbuster movie “Sound of Freedom,” and focused on the chaos at the U.S. southern border and how it intensified child trafficking, as well as the United States’ concerning complicity in the sex tourism industry.

                Smith also authored legislation (the Safeguarding Endangered Children, Unaccompanied and at Risk of Exploitation (SECURE) Act of 2023)—introduced under the Biden Administration—to require reporting on the federal government’s efforts to locate, establish contact with, conduct wellness checks on, and investigate any suspicion of human trafficking related to the approximately 85,000 unaccompanied migrant children released from federal custody without continued official contact.

                “Nearly two years later, and the United States is still recovering from President Biden’s disastrous and dangerous open border policies, which have enabled human trafficking crimes to flourish. During the Biden Administration, more than 475,000 unaccompanied migrant children illegally entered the United States, and disgracefully, over 300,000 of them could not be accounted for by the end of 2024.

                “So-called ‘sponsors,’ who underwent minimal, if any, vetting by the Biden Administration, would traffic and pick up these unaccompanied minors at the southern border, subjecting them to horrific sexual violence, exploitation, and forced labor along the way,” continued Smith, a longtime leader in the global fight against human trafficking.

                “Under President Trump’s leadership, the federal government is no longer standing idly by while our southern border is being trespassed and innocent children are being trafficked, exploited, and abused,” stated Smith.

                In addition to Smith’s five anti-human trafficking laws—the original Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) of 2000, three reauthorizations of the TVPA (2003, 2005, 2018) and the International Megan’s Law (PL 114-119)—he recently authored and introduced his Frederick Douglass Trafficking Victims Prevention and Protection Reauthorization Act of 2025 (HR 1144), which he highlighted at a widely attended press conference in April.

                Once enacted, HR 1144 will:

• Fully support survivor-informed programs, like the Frederick Douglass Survivors Employment and Education Program;
• Ensure robust prosecutions—with strong investigations and jail time commensurate with the crime;
• Enhance sustainable child trafficking prevention education in schools and communities—because situational awareness saves lives;
• Strengthen partnerships among federal, state, and local authorities; and
• Reauthorize International Megan’s Law to continue protecting children abroad.

###