Aderholt Secures Funding for Programs Combating Child Exploitation

Contact: Darrell “DJ” Jordan
(202) 226-7602

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Congressman Robert Aderholt (R-Haleyville) today announced that he successfully increased funding by $5.7 million in the House Appropriations Committee for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) investigations of child exploitation, in the Fiscal Year 2009 Homeland Security Appropriations bill.

The $5.7 million was added to the budget of ICE’s Cyber Crimes Center, which investigates the trans-border dimension of large-scale producers and distributors of images of child abuse, as well as individuals who travel in foreign commerce for the purpose of engaging in sex with minors.

“It is very unfortunate that pedophiles are exploiting children, but it is a fact,” said Congressman Aderholt. “However, with this extra funding ICE should be able to capture more and more of these degenerates.”

The extra $5.7 million was included in President Bush’s FY2009 Budget Request, but was not funded by the Democrat majority. The base funding for the ICE Cyber Crimes Center is $18.5 million.

Operation Predator, run by the Cyber Crimes Center, targets child porn distributors and users, people who smuggle children and those who travel abroad to molest children. In less than two years, more than 5,700 people have been arrested in more than 100 countries, with crucial support from the Cyber Crimes Center. About 5,000 were apprehended in the United States; the others are being prosecuted in their own countries. The investigations are continuing.

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