Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I thank Judge Poe for his tireless work on this issue. And I appreciate the leadership, and Lloyd Smucker. And as he has talked about, this is a bipartisan issue. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to call attention to modern-day slavery, because that is what this is, in the form of human trafficking. Most people believe human trafficking only occurs at home. It is a foreign crime that would never happen in our community, let alone their own backyard. To that I say: Let me tell you about human trafficking in rural America. I come from a district that is very rural. We had several summits on this issue. We talked to the local sheriffs and to the local police departments, and they said: Do you know what, we don't have that problem here. We are okay. We invoked the help of the Department of Homeland Security, and they have got a great campaign called the Blue Campaign. We encouraged these officers to show up. And I am happy to say that most of the people that we talked to--the counties and the sheriffs--showed up. And it wasn't more than about 2 weeks that I started getting calls from the sheriffs. And they said: Do you know what, that is happening right here. It is an awareness campaign. And Ms. Gabbard from Hawaii mentioned how underreported it is. Of course, it is, if people aren't aware of it. But when you bring awareness through campaigns like the Department of Homeland Security's Blue Campaign, people wake up to this issue.…”