WASHINGTON—President Donald Trump signed the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act on Jan. 9, following several other anti-human trafficking bills.
It also establishes the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons within the State Department. The office is charged with compiling a report that ranks countries based on how well they’ve done at eliminating human trafficking.
The newly signed version of the act includes tighter criteria for determining whether countries are meeting the minimum standards for eliminating human trafficking, and what the United States will do if a country falls below that threshold.
The bill also puts pressure on the executive directors of multilateral development banks to incorporate anti-trafficking measures into project development and evaluation criteria.
Trump took the occasion of the signing to make the case for better border security. Open portions of the southwestern border provide routes for human traffickers to smuggle people between Mexico and the United States, he said.
“We cannot defeat the menace of international human trafficking if we do not secure our border,” he said. “They’re driving in, and they’re not going through checkpoints, because you can’t have four or five people sitting in the back of a car with tape over your mouth and your hands tied, and go through somebody that’s checking out your car or your van.”
Trump has been in a stalemate with congressional Democrats over funding for a border wall in the budget of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
Chris Coons (D-Del.), who attended the signing ceremony, told reporters afterward that he wasn’t in favor of a border wall, but that “Democrats have advocated for more and better technology,” when asked if they would be willing to fund those other requests for DHS’s budget.
