Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2011
Latest action · Nov 17, 2011 By Senator Leahy from Committee on the Judiciary filed written report. Report No. 112-96. Additional and Minority views filed.
Progress
Where this bill reached, and when. A stage with no date was not reached; one that failed a vote and later carried shows the date it carried.
- IntroducedJun 29, 2011
- Passed SenateNot reached
- Passed HouseNot reached
- To the PresidentNot reached
- Became lawNot reached
Summary
Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2011 - Title I: Combating International Trafficking in Persons - (Sec. 101) Amends the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 to require that: (1) each Department of State (Department) regional bureau annually submit a list of goals for combating trafficking in persons (trafficking) for each country in its geographic area of responsibility, and (2) host governments be informed of such goals.
(Sec. 102) Authorizes the Secretary of State to appoint anti-trafficking officers at U.S. embassies who shall: (1) collaborate with other countries to eliminate human trafficking, (2) enhance Department anti-trafficking efforts, (3) monitor regional trafficking trends, and (4) assist U.S. embassies to prepare the annual Trafficking in Persons Reports.
(Sec. 103) Requires the Director of the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking to build U.S. government-private entity partnerships to ensure that: (1) U.S. citizens do not use any item, product, or material produced or extracted with the labor of victims of severe forms of trafficking; and (2) such entities do not contribute to trafficking in persons involving sexual exploitation.
Directs the President to establish programs with foreign governments and civil society to enhance their anti-trafficking capacity.
Authorizes the Secretary to: (1) establish a fund to assist foreign governments meet urgent trafficking prevention needs, protect victims, and prosecute trafficking offenders; and (2) provide assistance for each country with a high prevalence of trafficking that enters into a child protection compact with the United States.
(Sec. 104) Requires an annual congressional briefing on Department and United States Agency for International Development (USAID) efforts to promote international international cooperation regarding victim protection and assistance.
(Sec. 105) Revises Department standards for measuring efforts to eliminate human trafficking.
(Sec. 106) Revises Department reporting requirements regarding the status of severe forms of trafficking in persons.
(Sec. 107) Amends the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008 to require that a video about U.S. legal rights and resources be developed and shown in embassies and consulates with the greatest concentrations of aliens applying for employment- or education-based nonimmigrant visas.
(Sec. 108) Amends the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 to direct the Secretary of State to establish a strategy: (1) to prevent child marriage, (2) to promote the empowerment of girls at risk of child marriage in developing countries, and (3) that addresses the needs of girls younger than 18 years of age in developing countries.
Amends the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 to require the annual State Department Country Reports on Human Rights Practices to include reporting on child marriage.
(Sec. 109) Amends the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008 to prohibit the provision of peacekeeping operation funds to countries that use child soldiers. Waives such prohibition for programs to professionalize military or security forces or to demobilize child soldiers.
(Sec. 110) Amends the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 to include "technological innovation" as a basis upon which the President may select an honoree for the Presidential Award for Extraordinary Efforts to Combat Trafficking in Persons.
(Sec. 111) Revises federal contracting provisions regarding trafficking in persons to require the government to include a condition in every contract, grant, or cooperative agreement that authorizes contract termination if the contractor or subcontractor engages in acts related to trafficking, procuring commercial sex acts, or use of forced labor in the performance of the grant, contract, or cooperative agreement. Specifies grounds for contract termination.
Requires federal contractors, in certain overseas contracts or agreements in support of contingency operations, to: (1) create a compliance plan to prevent activities related to trafficking in persons, procurement of commercial sex, or forced labor; and (2) certify upon due diligence that neither the contractor nor any subcontractors are engaged in such activities.
(Sec. 112) Requires the Interagency Task Force to Monitor and Combat Trafficking (DOD) to include in its annual report information on trafficking cases, including such activities by DOD contractors.
Title II: Combating Trafficking of Persons in the United States - Subtitle A: Penalties Against Traffickers and Other Crimes - (Sec. 201) Amends the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) to include labor contract fraud under the scope of such Act.
Amends the federal criminal code to subject a U.S. citizen or permanent resident alien who resides overseas and engages in illicit sexual conduct, including sex trafficking, with a person under 18 years old to fine and/or imprisonment.
Subjects a person to fine and/or imprisonment for the knowing destruction, concealment, removal, confiscation, or possession of certain immigration documents.
(Sec. 202) Increases the statute of limitations to 10 years for a person to bring a civil action for an injury received while a minor that was caused by specified sexual- or forced labor-related violations of federal criminal law.
Subtitle B: Ensuring Availability of Possible Witnesses and Informants - (Sec. 211) Amends the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) to: (1) make eligible for a nonimmigrant T visa (trafficking victims cooperating with law enforcement) adult or minor children of certain derivative family members of a T visa alien if such children face a danger of retaliation in their home country by the traffickers, and (2) make an alien who was the victim of foreign labor contracting fraud eligible for a nonimmigrant U visa (victims of certain crimes).
Subtitle C: Ensuring Interagency Coordination and Expanded Reporting - (Sec. 221) Revises certain trafficking-related reporting requirements for the Attorney General (DOJ) and the Secretary of Labor.
(Sec. 223) Amends the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2005 to direct the Secretary of State to provide the Department of Labor with information relating to child labor and forced labor in the production of goods in violation of international standards.
(Sec. 225) Requires the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to report to Congress regarding the use of foreign labor contractors.
(Sec. 226) Sets forth specified audit and oversight requirements for DOJ grants.
Subtitle D: Enhancing State and Local Efforts to Combat Trafficking in Persons - (Sec. 231) Amends the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2005 to authorize the Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Justice Programs to make renewable one-year block grants to four eligible state or local government entities in different regions of the United States to combat sex trafficking of minors. Authorizes FY2012-FY2015 appropriations. Terminates the program four years after enactment of this Act.
(Sec. 232) Authorizes appropriations through FY2015 for grants for local law enforcement investigations and prosecutions of trafficking and commercial sex act violations.
Directs GAO to evaluate the program.
(Sec. 233) Includes in the model state criminal provisions protections for persons under 18 years old who have been arrested for engaging in commercial sex acts.
Title III: Authorization of Appropriations - (Sec. 301) Amends the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 to authorize appropriations through FY2015 for: (1) the Human Smuggling and Trafficking Center, (2) the Interagency Task Force to Monitor and Combat Trafficking, (3) the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking, (4) the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) for trafficking victim assistance, (5) the Secretary of State to combat trafficking, (6) the Attorney General for trafficking victim assistance in the United States, (7) the President for foreign trafficking victims assistance and to foreign countries to meet minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking, (8) the Secretary of Labor for trafficking victim assistance in the United States, and (9) the Secretary of Homeland Security (DHS) for trafficking investigations by the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
(Sec. 302) Amends the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2005 to authorize appropriations through FY2015 for studies and conferences addressing trafficking and sex trafficking in the United States.
Amends INA to extend specified asylum and removal protections to aliens who are under the age of 18 as of a qualifying event.
Title IV: Unaccompanied Alien Children - (Sec. 401) Amends the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008 to direct: (1) the Secretary of Health and Human Services to establish specified child advocate programs at immigration detention sites for trafficking victims and vulnerable unaccompanied alien children; and (2) the Secretary of Homeland Security, with respect to individuals who reach the age of 18 and are transferred to DHS, to consider placement in the least restrictive setting available, including alternative detention programs.
Authorizes appropriations through FY2015 for such child advocacy programs.
Directs GAO to: (1) conduct a study of the effectiveness of the HHS child advocate program, and (2) conduct a study of the effectiveness of DHS border screening of unaccompanied alien children to determine whether they are trafficking victims.
(Sec. 403) Makes a child granted U visa status eligible for certain assistance for refugee children.
Cosponsors 56
Members who signed on, in the order they did. Signatures ran from Jun 29, 2011 to Dec 20, 2012; 5 are original cosponsors, there from the day it was introduced.
| Seat | Cosponsor | Signed on | |
|---|---|---|---|
| D-CA | Barbara Boxer | Original | Jun 29, 2011 |
| D-MD | Benjamin L. Cardin | Original | Jun 29, 2011 |
| D-MA | John F. Kerry | Original | Jun 29, 2011 |
| D-OR | Ron Wyden | Original | Jun 29, 2011 |
| R-MA | Scott P. Brown | Original | Jun 29, 2011 |
| D-CA | Dianne Feinstein | Jul 7, 2011 | |
| R-FL | Marco Rubio | Jul 14, 2011 | |
| R-MS | Thad Cochran | Jul 19, 2011 | |
| D-NY | Kirsten E. Gillibrand | Jul 20, 2011 | |
| D-LA | Mary L. Landrieu | Sep 12, 2011 | |
| D-NY | Charles E. Schumer | Sep 13, 2011 | |
| R-NC | Richard Burr | Sep 15, 2011 | |
| D-OH | Sherrod Brown | Sep 15, 2011 | |
| D-DE | Christopher A. Coons | Sep 20, 2011 | |
| D-HI | Daniel K. Akaka | Sep 22, 2011 | |
| D-CO | Mark Udall | Sep 26, 2011 | |
| D-MD | Barbara A. Mikulski | Oct 3, 2011 | |
| R-NV | Dean Heller | Oct 4, 2011 | |
| D-MN | Amy Klobuchar | Oct 11, 2011 | |
| R-GA | Johnny Isakson | Oct 11, 2011 | |
| D-NC | Kay R. Hagan | Oct 12, 2011 | |
| D-FL | Bill Nelson | Oct 13, 2011 | |
| D-MI | Debbie Stabenow | Oct 13, 2011 | |
| D-IL | Richard J. Durbin | Oct 13, 2011 | |
| D-MN | Al Franken | Oct 17, 2011 | |
| R-OH | Rob Portman | Oct 17, 2011 | |
| D-PA | Robert P. Casey Jr. | Oct 17, 2011 | |
| D-OR | Jeff Merkley | Oct 18, 2011 | |
| D-CO | Michael F. Bennet | Oct 31, 2011 | |
| D-MT | Jon Tester | Nov 2, 2011 | |
| R-GA | Saxby Chambliss | Nov 7, 2011 | |
| D-CT | Richard Blumenthal | Dec 5, 2011 | |
| D-NJ | Frank R. Lautenberg | Jan 24, 2012 | |
| I-VT | Bernard Sanders | Mar 5, 2012 | |
| D-WA | Maria Cantwell | Mar 7, 2012 | |
| D-NJ | Robert Menendez | Mar 7, 2012 | |
| D-WA | Patty Murray | Mar 8, 2012 | |
| I-CT | Joseph I. Lieberman | Mar 19, 2012 | |
| D-AR | Mark L. Pryor | Mar 27, 2012 | |
| D-RI | Jack Reed | Apr 26, 2012 | |
| D-RI | Sheldon Whitehouse | Apr 26, 2012 | |
| R-MS | Roger F. Wicker | May 10, 2012 | |
| D-NH | Jeanne Shaheen | Jun 6, 2012 | |
| R-NH | Kelly Ayotte | Jun 7, 2012 | |
| R-TX | Kay Bailey Hutchison | Jun 27, 2012 | |
| D-AK | Mark Begich | Jun 29, 2012 | |
| D-NM | Jeff Bingaman | Sep 10, 2012 | |
| R-ME | Susan M. Collins | Sep 10, 2012 | |
| D-IA | Tom Harkin | Sep 13, 2012 | |
| D-ND | Kent Conrad | Sep 20, 2012 | |
| R-IL | Mark Kirk | Sep 20, 2012 | |
| R-AK | Lisa Murkowski | Sep 21, 2012 | |
| D-HI | Daniel K. Inouye | Nov 27, 2012 | |
| D-NM | Tom Udall | Nov 27, 2012 | |
| R-ME | Olympia J. Snowe | Dec 18, 2012 | |
| D-MO | Claire McCaskill | Dec 20, 2012 |
Committees 1
Where it was sent and what each committee and subcommittee did with it, in order.
| Chamber | Committee | What it did |
|---|---|---|
| Senate | Judiciary Committee | Referred Jun 29, 2011Hearings Sep 14, 2011Markup Oct 13, 2011Reported Oct 13, 2011 |
Actions 8
Everything that happened, newest first.
- Nov 17, 2011By Senator Leahy from Committee on the Judiciary filed written report. Report No. 112-96. Additional and Minority views filed.
- Oct 13, 2011Committee on the Judiciary. Ordered to be reported with amendments favorably.
- Oct 13, 2011Committee on the Judiciary. Reported by Senator Leahy with an amendment in the nature of a substitute. Without written report.
- Oct 13, 2011Placed on Senate Legislative Calendar under General Orders. Calendar No. 193.
- Sep 14, 2011Committee on the Judiciary. Hearings held.
In the Congressional Record 5
Days the Record’s own index lists this bill, newest first, with the pages and the members it names. Pages starting H are the House, S the Senate, E Extensions of Remarks.
| Where | In the Record | Members | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| Senate | Debate and remarks S8035 | Patrick J. Leahy D-VT | Dec 13, 2012 |
| Senate | Debate and remarks S7693, S7695, S7698, S7699 | Christopher A. Coons D-DE, Marco Rubio R-FL, Richard Blumenthal D-CT | Dec 10, 2012 |
| Senate | Debate and remarks S7102 | Marco Rubio R-FL | Nov 3, 2011 |
| Senate | Debate and remarks S4627 | Jim Webb D-VA | Jul 18, 2011 |
| Senate | Debate and remarks S4228Text printed S4228–S4234 | Patrick J. Leahy D-VT (text) | Jun 29, 2011 |
Research
What has been written about this bill: committee reports, cost estimates, the sponsor’s authority statement, printed hearings and the Congressional Research Service’s work.
Committee report
Printed hearings 1
Hearings whose printed record names this bill, newest first: hearings on it, and wider hearings where it came up.
| Number | Hearing | Committee | Held |
|---|---|---|---|
| S. Hrg. 112-605 | THE NEXT TEN YEARS IN THE FIGHT AGAINST HUMAN TRAFFICKING: ATTACKING THE PROBLEM WITH THE RIGHT TOOLS60 pages | Foreign Relations Committee | Jul 17, 2012 |
CRS reports 1
Congressional Research Service work that CRS links to this bill or the law it became, newest first.
Cite it 1
Products on other subjects that cite it, usually among other measures.
| Product | Title | Kind | Published |
|---|---|---|---|
| RL34317 | Trafficking in Persons: U.S. Policy and Issues for Congress Archived | Report | May 1, 2014 |
Titles 3
Every title it has carried, official and short, at each stage.
- Official Title as Introduced
- A bill to authorize appropriations for fiscal years 2012 through 2015 for the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000, to enhance measures to combat trafficking in persons, and for other purposes.
- Short Titles as Introduced
- Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2011
- Short Titles as Reported to Senate
- Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2011
Subjects
Assigned by the Library of Congress. Policy area: International Affairs.
- Administrative remedies
- Adoption and foster care
- Border security and unlawful immigration
- Child safety and welfare
- Civil actions and liability
- Congressional oversight
- Crime victims
- Crimes against children
- Crimes against women
- Criminal investigation, prosecution, interrogation
- Detention of persons
- Diplomacy, foreign officials, Americans abroad
- Domestic violence and child abuse
- Employment discrimination and employee rights
- Foreign aid and international relief
- Foreign labor
- Fraud offenses and financial crimes
- Human rights
- Human trafficking
- Immigration status and procedures
- International Affairs
- International organizations and cooperation
- Law enforcement administration and funding
- Organized crime
- Refugees, asylum, displaced persons
- Sex offenses
- Smuggling and trafficking
- Visas and passports
- Women's rights
- Youth employment and child labor
Text 2
Each version as it was printed, newest first.
- Oct 13, 2011Reported to Senate
- Jun 29, 2011Introduced in Senate
Everything here is as published by Congress: the summary is the Congressional Research Service's, the action wording is the clerks', and the subjects are the Library of Congress's. How far it got is read from the actions themselves, taking the most recent one of each kind, so a bill that failed a vote and later passed is shown as having passed. Records come from this bill on Congress.gov and govinfo.gov; cost estimates are the Congressional Budget Office's, and the hearings are the printed hearings GovInfo publishes, which can appear months after the hearing.