Hawley Provision to Fight Child Trafficking Passes Senate

Friday, June 05, 2026

WASHINGTON - Today, U.S. Senator Josh Hawley's (R-Mo.) provision to combat child exploitation passed the Senate. The provision, as part of the broader reconciliation bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security, will provide DHS with $108.5 million to hire 200 new child exploitation investigators and analysts. DHS currently employs only 7 full-time specialists to identify these victims.

"The Senate just passed my legislation with Tim Tebow to rescue thousands of children trapped in sex trafficking. That's two hundred new law enforcement officers to find and rescue kids trafficked by predators and a new initiative to coordinate local, state, and federal enforcement. This is the biggest surge against child trafficking ever by the federal government. Let's go rescue these kids," said Senator Hawley.

DHS' Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) plays a critical role in combating child exploitation online, but currently lacks the resources to fully execute its mission. In a Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing chaired by Senator Hawley in March, Tim Tebow-the Heisman Trophy winner who now leads the Tim Tebow Foundation and its work to end child exploitation-described how HSI's lack of staff for these cases hampers its ability to identify and find the exploited children who appear in child abuse images. Tebow told the subcommittee that 338,000 unique IP addresses have downloaded, shared, or distributed child rape images in the United States in just a matter of months, and as many as 89,000 unidentified child victims appear in these horrific materials. However, DHS currently employs only 7 full-time specialists to identify these victims.

Senator Hawley's provision, modeled on the Renewed Hope Act, will provide HSI with a generational investment to both identify and rescue these unidentified children. The provision would allow HSI to:

• Hire 40 new forensic analysts at the Victim Identification Laboratory at the Child Exploitation Investigations Unit of HSI
• Hire 30 new child exploitation investigators at the Victim Identification Laboratory of the Child Exploitation Investigations Unit of HSI.
• Hire 130 additional forensic analysts and child exploitation investigators at the offices of the Special Agents in Charge
• Establish a dedicated training program in victim identification for federal, state, and local law enforcement to better coordinate investigations

Read Senator Hawley's op-ed on the provision here.

Watch the Senator's floor speech here.

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