We need the TRAFFIC ACT to keep predators out of our transportation system
by U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn. · The Washington TimesOPINION:
Human trafficking is one of the fastest growing and largest criminal industries in the world, generating hundreds of billions in illicit profits each year through the exploitation of more than 27 million people. Its victims are coerced into the worst abuse imaginable, including prostitution and forced labor, living in conditions that can only be described as modern-day slavery. While victims come from all walks of life and every community across our country, their experiences often share at least one common thread: their abusers exploited transportation systems to commit their crimes.
Nearly 80% of international human trafficking is carried out across official ports of entry, moving by bus, train, airplane, car and boat. In many cases, transportation is involved at every point of the crime. A 2021 survey of survivors found 81% were transported by their abusers during their recruitment, 76% during their exploitation and 52% during their escape.
Worse still, commercial drivers — using federally issued licenses — have been the very predators preying on America’s most vulnerable. In 2014, a 55-year-old registered sex offender, Tony Eugene Wardlow, pleaded guilty to federal charges for using his commercial truck to transport a minor from Missouri to Texas to engage in illicit sexual activity. Two years before, commercial truck driver Kevin Donaldson of New York was convicted in federal court for transporting three of his underage relatives across state lines while sexually abusing them.
In response to cases like Wardlow’s and Donaldson’s, Congress passed the No Human Trafficking on our Roads Act, which President Donald Trump signed into law in 2018. The bipartisan legislation took a crucial step to prevent traffickers from reoffending, permanently barring anyone who uses a commercial motor vehicle to commit human trafficking from holding a federal commercial driver’s license. Before its enactment, individuals who committed such offenses could keep the very federal licenses that enabled their abuse. The law ended that loophole.
While the passage of the No Human Trafficking on our Roads Act marked a big step in the fight to end this horrific practice, there’s more work to be done. The law only covers offenders who used their commercial motor vehicle to engage in trafficking, meaning that traffickers who committed their crimes using personal vehicles can keep their commercial driver’s licenses. And it narrowly applies to commercial driver’s licenses — which are needed to operate trucks and buses — while leaving other federal transportation credentials untouched.
These gaps in the law unintentionally allow convicted traffickers to retain credentials of public trust they have no business holding. They are especially concerning as transnational criminal organizations — including the many cartels recently designated by the Trump administration as foreign terrorist organizations — develop increasingly sophisticated trafficking networks that exploit every mode of transportation into the United States.
Such loopholes are possible with even the best crafted legislation. But when discovered, it’s Congress’s responsibility to address them. That’s why Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., and I introduced the Trafficker Restrictions for Aviation, Federal Freight, and Interstate Carriers (TRAFFIC) Act. This bipartisan legislation would close the gaps in the law and ensure that the Trump administration has more tools available to keep traffickers out of America’s transportation system.
Under the TRAFFIC Act, anyone convicted of human trafficking would face a lifetime ban from possessing any federally regulated transportation credential. This would apply to convictions under federal, state, local, and Tribal law and to offenders who engage in trafficking in any fashion — with or without the use of their commercial vehicles.
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Crucially, the legislation would expand the scope of covered credentials from commercial driver’s licenses to those held by pilots, locomotive operators, train conductors, and merchant mariners. The TRAFFIC Act would also apply to any license issued by the Department of Homeland Security or the Department of Transportation concerning the operation of any form of transportation, meaning that any future credentials would fall under its purview.
There’s a reason why the TRAFFIC Act is endorsed by both the Association of American Railroads and the American Trucking Associations: It’s common sense. Congress has already recognized the urgent need to keep traffickers off our roadways. With our legislation, we can strengthen that enforcement and ensure that these predators are also prevented from flying our planes, operating our trains or piloting our merchant vessels. That way, we can make certain that the American transportation system serves the American people not the predators who have exploited it to target the most vulnerable among us.
• Sen. Marsha Blackburn is the senior senator for Tennessee and serves on the Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee.