Admitting he would face pushback even from allies for expanding the death penalty to drug dealers whose clients die, former President Donald Trump is undaunted and calling for capital punishment for human traffickers, dubbing their practice "modern-day slavery."
"I will urge Congress to ensure that anyone caught trafficking children across our border receives the death penalty immediately and that includes also for women, because women, as you know, are No. 1 in trafficking," Trump said Friday in his latest Agenda47 policy video shared on Rumble.
"Children are actually No. 2."
Trump said he was moved to unveil this policy agenda after hosting a screening of the "Sound of Freedom" this week in Bedminster, New Jersey, with the film's star, Jim Caviezel. He plays the role of former Department of Homeland Security agent Tim Ballard in telling the real-life story of the "evil of child trafficking" as produced by Angel Studios and Mexican filmmaker Eduardo Verástegui.
"I want to thank Eduardo, Jim, Tim Ballard, and everyone else involved in this film for their incredible efforts and their great genius," Trump said. "Together, we will end the scourge of human trafficking, and we will defend the dignity of human life."
"Sound of Freedom" reportedly has surpassed $100 million at the box office. After this week's private screening at Trump's summer home, Caviezel called Trump "the new Moses" and urged his election because "he's got to be in there" to "go after the traffickers."
"Even though the fake news media has tried to ignore it, 'Sound of Freedom' has been a national sensation and a colossal success at the box office, really big numbers. Everyone should see it," Trump said in unveiling his policy of the death penalty for human traffickers. "This is a very important film and very important movie, and it's a very important documentary all wrapped up in one. It's really about an issue that has to be discussed."
Trump hailed his past actions on curbing human trafficking, including:
- "Executive order targeting transnational criminal organizations that traffic and exploit innocent people."
- Signed the Frederick Douglass Trafficking Victims Prevention and Protection Reauthorization Act, authorizing $430 million to fight sex and labor trafficking.
- Signed legislation "to crack down on foreign countries who are not meeting standards for eliminating trafficking."
- Signed into law the Abolish Human Trafficking Act, "which strengthened programs supporting survivors and provided more resources for ending modern slavery."
- Created the White House position on combating human trafficking.
- "Created the most secure border in U.S. history by far, dealing a major blow to the cartels and traffickers."
"When I'm back in the White House, I will immediately end the Biden border nightmare that traffickers are using to exploit vulnerable women and children," Trump added in the video. "We will fully secure the border. I will wage war on the cartels, just as I destroyed the ISIS caliphate — 100% gone, 100% destroyed. They'll come back now because we have a weak administration."
And Trump vowed to restore Title 42, a pandemic-era policy he started during his administration but ended by the Biden administration.
"I will use Title 42 to end the child-trafficking crisis by returning all trafficked children to their families in their home countries and without delay," Trump said.
Trump noted human trafficking is not drawing the same concern as left-wing activists who are pushing to seek reparations for the scourge of slavery the U.S. abolished after the Civil War.
"We do have modern slavery, if you can believe it," Trump said.
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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