Sheila Jackson Lee: “As a senior member of the Judiciary Committee and the Chair of its Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland…”

“As a senior member of the Judiciary Committee and the Chair of its Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security, I rise in strong support of H.R. 983, the ``Preventing Crimes Against Veterans Act,'' commonsense and necessary bipartisan legislation that establishes a new criminal offense for knowingly engaging in or attempting to engage in a scheme to defraud veterans of their hard-earned benefits. My state of Texas is home to nearly 1.5 million veterans, and the state operates a large network of nursing homes for veterans called Texas State Veterans Homes. Houston houses over 282,000 of these veterans, many of whom live in these state-owned nursing homes. Veterans at these Texas nursing homes or those seeking treatment at medical facilities are susceptible to in-person scammers falsely claiming that they can facilitate the provision of additional veterans benefits when they are actually swindling veterans out of their benefits. H.R. 983 will help hold these con artists accountable and provide an additional tool to the Department of Justice to protect the integrity of veterans' benefits programs and prevent fraud. Protecting veterans and their survivors from these types of in-person scams is imperative since so many depend on service-connected disability payments, including those in my district in Houston.…”