The Largest Investment to Combat Child Trafficking Becomes Law

Nearly 90,000 unidentified children facing sexual abuse will finally be helped thanks to House Republicans funding the largest investment to fight child exploitation and trafficking.

A provision included in the newly passed Department of Homeland Security funding bill will allow 200 new investigators to identify victims of child sexual abuse.

“Right now, 89,000 unidentified image series of children being sexually abused have been seen by law enforcement—but these children have yet to be identified and are still waiting to be found due to resource and manpower shortages,” Tim Tebow, founder and chairman of the Tim Tebow Foundation, said.

“Today, we acted. I am grateful to our congressional leaders for getting this lifesaving legislation over the finish line, and to the law enforcement who never stop fighting for these kids,” Tebow continued.

House Republicans passed the $70 billion party-line budget bill, the Secure America Act, to fully fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection. The bill passed Tuesday night, 214–212, with all Republicans voting “yes” and all Democrats voting “no.”

The Renewed Hope Act was included to allocate $108.5 million to hire 200 additional victim identification analysts, forensic analysts, and investigators to identify unknown children seen in sexual images. Now they can be located, and future potential child victims can be safeguarded.

Tebow testified before Congress in March, where he brought this escalating crisis of online child exploitation to lawmakers’ attention.

He told the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Counterterrorism that there are over 330,000 unique IP addresses that have downloaded, shared, or distributed child-rape images in the United States in less than a year.

He highlighted the widening gap between the scale of exploitation and available federal resources; prior to this passage, there were only seven analysts whose job it was to find and protect tens of thousands of children. Now there will be 200.

“My legislation with Tim Tebow to rescue thousands of children trapped in sex trafficking just passed the House and is headed to the president’s desk,” said Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., who spearheaded the legislation. “This is the biggest surge against online child exploitation ever by the federal government. It’s time to rescue these kids.”

Tebow credited multiple members who helped author this legislation, including Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Reps. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida, Jamie Raskin of Maryland, Lucy McBath of Georgia, and Madeline Dean of Pennsylvania, all of whom decided to vote against the final passage due to it being connected to ICE funding.

“My prayer is that hope is renewed for many more boys and girls, and that their stories will be different because of this legislation. When we come together, real change can happen—and this is just the beginning,” Tebow said in a press release following the vote.