Political Quotes

“I am pleased to join my colleagues for this opportunity to recognize this month as National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month, and I thank my colleagues Congresswomen Ann Wagner and Kristi Noem for organizing this effort. I really appreciate how we are working together to raise awareness about this terrible crime that is happening in my district in northern Virginia and the Shenandoah Valley, throughout Virginia, and throughout--unfortunately--our country. This growing criminal enterprise we know knows no boundaries. Mr. Speaker, the Fairfax County Police Department in my district has established the northern Virginia Human Trafficking Task Force to crack down on this scourge. In the past 12 months alone, just to give you an idea of this crime that is in the local area, the task force has had 156 leads, 109 victim recoveries, 267 victims identified, and 73 suspects. Mr. Speaker, while we have done great work to combat this terrible crime in Virginia, we clearly have more work to do on every level: the local level, State level, and national level. Four years ago, Virginia, for example, was at the bottom of the Polaris Project anti-human trafficking State rankings. Now, we are at the top because we passed many of the kind of bills that we are going to be able to pass here tomorrow and additional bills that are going to be here tomorrow.…”