Sens. Rubio, Menendez stand up to human trafficking

By JUSTIN HASKINS, CONTRIBUTOR
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 2/17/17 7:00 AM

On Tuesday, Sens. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Bob Menendez, D-N.J., reintroduced the Trafficking in Persons Report Integrity Act in the Senate. The legislation would, according to a press release issued by Rubio's office, "comprehensively reform the State Department's annual Trafficking in Persons Report."

TIP is the most important report issued on human trafficking by the federal government, and its findings are vital in helping to assess the state of human trafficking around the world. They play a role in crafting international agreements between foreign nations and the United States. Unfortunately, in recent years, TIP was altered to serve the political goals of the Obama administration, which gave certain nations more-favorable human trafficking ratings than many experts believe were warranted.

TIP places countries into three tiers. Tier 1 nations are those "whose governments fully meet the Trafficking Victims Protection Act's (TVPA) minimum standards." Tier 2 countries "do not fully meet the TVPA's minimum standards, but are making significant efforts to meet those standards." Tier 3 nations "do not fully meet the minimum standards and are not making significant efforts to do so."
Problems in the TIP report have emerged as a result of the significant latitude given to State Department officials to subjectively determine whether a country has met certain qualifications. According to Rubio, Menendez and others, some countries were deliberately placed in categories they should not have been in to achieve political aims.

"In recent years, political agendas at the State Department have interfered with America's efforts to expose and combat human trafficking around the world and send clear and unmistakable messages to foreign governments that we are watching them closely," said Rubio in the press release.

"The past two TIP reports contained unwarranted, politically-driven upgrades of countries with deplorable human trafficking records, like Cuba and Malaysia," said Menendez. "As a new administration takes office, Congress must ensure that the United States reasserts its commitment and credibility in fighting the scourge of modern slavery."

Cuba and Malaysia were both listed in the Obama administration's 2016 TIP report on the "Tier 2 Watch List." According to the report's own assessment, Tier 2 nations are supposed to be those "making significant efforts to meet" TVPA's minimum standards, but countries with large numbers of victims that are unable to show any evidence they are making significant efforts to battle human trafficking can be placed on the Tier 2 Watch List if they make "commitments … to take additional future steps over the next year."

This means Obama administration officials had the power to subjectively determine, whenever it wanted, to classify a country as a "Tier 2 Watch List" nation rather than a Tier 3 nation. According to Rubio and Menendez, the Obama administration used this power to misclassify Cuba in order to help open and keep open Cuba's doors, which had previously been closed for more than 50 years because of the country's ties to communism and mistreatment of its own citizens.

Under the proposed Trafficking in Persons Report Integrity Act, TIP report minimum standards, transparency, and congressional oversight would all be enhanced. Notably, no country would be able to be listed on the Tier 2 Watch List for simply promising to make improvements in the future, and "any country whose government sponsors forced labor [will] be ranked Tier 3," according to a summary of the bill's provisions.

Rubio and Menendez, along with Sens. Tim Kaine, D-Va., and Cory Gardner, R-Colo., should be applauded for their efforts to improve the TIP report and strengthen the U.S.'s stance against human trafficking, a $150 billion industry that currently enslaves more people than when slavery was legal in the U.S. and Europe.

The decision made by the Obama administration to utilize this important human trafficking report to serve political goals was abhorrent. Hopefully Rubio and Menendez's legislation will succeed in Congress, preventing the politicization of U.S. human trafficking efforts in future administrations.

Justin Haskins (@TheNewRevere) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner's Beltway Confidential blog. He is an executive editor at The Heartland Institute.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/se...rticle/2615087