Former Homeland Security agent Tim Ballard attended a conference held by Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) on Tuesday that introduced legislation to require the Biden administration to locate 85,000 missing children in the United States.
Smith, who announced last month that he was preparing the legislation, has been a major advocate for trafficking victims.
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The Republican invited Ballard to the conference, as Ballard has rescued thousands of children from human trafficking. Since leaving his job as a federal agent, Ballard founded Operation Underground Railroad, a nonprofit anti-sex trafficking organization. Ballard’s story was told in the film Sound of Freedom, which was released earlier this year and has raised awareness about the human trafficking of children in the world.
“I propose to you that foreign children are children of God, just as much as any American child is a child of God,” Ballard said. “And they deserve the exact same protection that any U.S. child should deserve. Background checks, DNA run the whole gambit. Do not release these children into the United States; 85,000 are missing and that’s thanks to the Biden administration. They did this and thanks to Congressman Smith and the sponsors of this bill, we’re going to go find those children. And we’re going to prevent any other child from being subjected to what is really slavery in our nation.”
Smith’s legislation was created with the intention of “locating, establishing contact with, [conducting] wellness checks, and [investigating] trafficking” of the 85,000 immigrant children, the congressman said last month. Smith added that the children the Biden administration lost contact with “need to be protected” from traffickers.
In addition to attending Smith’s conference, Ballard will also testify before Congress on Wednesday and Thursday, with Wednesday’s testimony being before the House’s Homeland Security Committee and Thursday’s testimony before the House’s Foreign Affairs Committee, according to a press release.
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The film Sound of Freedom details the true story of how Ballard, portrayed by Jim Caviezel, quit his DHS job and risked his life to journey into the jungles of Colombia in an effort to save children from sex slavery.
The film has been a surprise financial success, beating out multiple other major films at the North American box office, such as the latest Indiana Jones and Mission Impossible movies.
