Vice Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Marco Rubio (R-FL) delivered opening remarks and questioned witnesses at a hearing on countering China’s influence in the United States. Watch Rubio’s opening remarks here as well as Part I and Part II of...
Approximately 302,000 Americans live with spinal cord injuries. To help these people achieve a better quality of life, there is a need to increase education and invest in research. U.S. Senators Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) successfully led a bipartisan...
Foreign investment is one of the legal means that adversaries, like China, can use to collect Americans’ data, exasperating both privacy and national security risks. To counter this, U.S. Senators Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Raphael Warnock (D-GA) reintroduced the...
U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) joined Special Report with Bret Baier to discuss the impending government shutdown, the possibility of a Saudi-Israeli normalization deal, and the indictment of Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ). See below for highlights and watch the full...
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced three additions to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) Entity List. These are the first additions by the Biden Administration since June. U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL), author of the bipartisan...
Congress should think before it regulates AI U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) September 26, 2023 Washington Times To prevent next-generation computer programs from wreaking havoc on American society, [some members of Congress want] to enact comprehensive regulation at...
Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senators Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) today introduced the End Banking for Human Traffickers Act, legislation that would aid financial institutions in identifying and reporting instances of human trafficking so that offenders can be prosecuted and victims can be protected.
“Human trafficking is a human rights violation that can happen in our own backyards without us even knowing it,” said Rubio. “That’s why we must encourage the development and implementation of effective tools to detect and stop criminals from profiting from this heinous crime. This bipartisan legislation would help provide financial institutions and law enforcement with additional support in their ongoing efforts to help stop human trafficking and hold perpetrators accountable.”
“We have an obligation to end human trafficking to ensure that every person can live with freedom and dignity,” said Warren. “To stop this terrible crime, we need to cut off traffickers’ access to the banking system, and this bipartisan bill will give financial institutions and regulators better tools to do so.”
Human trafficking is pervasive, and profitable for perpetrators of this crime, who earn $99 billion each year in profit from the sexual exploitation of victims around the world. Preventing traffickers from accessing the banking system, which they use to finance their illegal operations, is critical to stopping human trafficking. The End Banking for Human Traffickers Act will help provide additional support to financial institutions, federal regulators, and law enforcement in their efforts to stop human traffickers in their tracks.
The End Banking for Human Traffickers Act would direct federal banking regulators to work with law enforcement and financial institutions to combat the use of the financial system for human trafficking, add financial intelligence and regulatory officers to the President’s Interagency Task Force to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons (PITF) to increase collaboration between law enforcement and experts in financial crimes, and require the PITF to review existing anti-money laundering programs and, if necessary, develop recommendations for Congress and regulators that would strengthen such programs to better target human trafficking. The PITF will draw on the expertise of the public, private, and non-profit sectors, identifying successful anti-trafficking programs and proposing new measures that will ensure our banking system is not used to facilitate this terrible crime.
The legislation is supported by Human Rights First and The Alliance to End Slavery & Trafficking (ATEST), an advocacy coalition including Verité, Free the Slaves, and Polaris.