Political Quotes

“I rise today to recognize Human Trafficking Awareness Month and to speak about the serious threat human trafficking represents here and globally. Human trafficking is the second largest criminal enterprise in the world, second to only that of drug trafficking. Human trafficking generates an estimated $150 billion a year and enslaves nearly 50 million people. The most vulnerable are our children and young adults. They are being targeted and exploited through their phones, through their computer systems, through gaming systems, and through social media. Every 30 seconds a child is sold into slavery. Every 30 seconds another child is sold into slavery. Human trafficking is not just a distant overseas problem. The issue is here. It is in our communities. It is in our small towns. It is in our big cities. I am from Texas and Texas being a border State, we are a hot spot for human trafficking. We lead the country in that issue. I asked our elected officials and I asked our law enforcement officials: How do we combat this? How do we defeat this mechanism? These cartels and these gangs move these people every day. It starts with community awareness. You have to be willing to recognize the problem. You have to be willing to watch. We have the FIFA World Cup and we have the Super Bowl coming up. This will swarm our country even more so than now with this issue.”