the house votes on legislation to reopen the government. members also vote on a bill that would fund government agencies through february 28, but not including funding for president trump's border wall. in the senate, there is an agreement -- there was no agreement -- there is an agreement to have two votes this whether funding on the wall can be included in a bill including daca provisions. it will require the support of 60 senators to advance. ♪ >> c-span, where history unfolds daily. c-span was created as a public service by america's television companies. today we continue to bring you unfiltered coverage of congress,

the white house, the supreme court and public policy events in washington dc and around the country. c-span is brought to you by your cable or satellite provider. ♪ host: human trafficking, the topic of the last half-hour of our program today. joining us is bradley myles, executive director and ceo of polaris. guest: good morning. ?ost: what is polaris guest: we run the national human trafficking hotline for the country, which is the 24/7 government hotline on this issue. host: how are you supported? guest: some government grants from the department of health and human services, institutional grants, and thousands of individual donors. we run on a $10 million budget. host: this month highlights human trafficking.

why is that? guest: people realize this is something republicans and democrats can get behind. we realize people should not be forced to work against their will. people should not be forced into the sex trade against their will. this is a way to highlight it and for society at large to use this month as a spike in building political will around this issue. host: when it comes to the practice itself, how common is it? guest: more common than people realize. anytime someone is forced to work against their will, any time an adult is in the sex trade against their will, anytime there is a minor in the commercial sex trade, we believe it is a $150 billion criminal enterprise around the world. host: how do you define it? guest: there was a criminal act

that was reauthorized a few weeks ago that is the criminal definition for the country and fbi. children in commercial sex trade, adults in the sex trade that are thereby coercion or force, and any adults in the labor industry by force or coercion. host: how does an individual end up in this practice? how does a usually happen? guest: we have to realize it is immigrants and u.s. citizens, not just immigrants. that is one of the major misconceptions. there is a huge population of u.s. citizen victims. be a u.s. child, runs away from home, is befriended by coercion,olence, pistol whipping to keep someone in the commercial sex trade.

you have people violence against their domestic worker in home, foreign workers that came here on a commercial work visa, and had a violent boss. there are so many subtypes that the common thread is the abuser is using force or coercion to keep someone working against their will. host: we're going to talk about this topic of human trafficking with our guest. if you want to ask him questions, you are free to call the phone lines, twitter, or facebook. bradley myles, the executive director of the polaris project. the business of stealing freedom for profit is one of the aspects of human trafficking. traffickers resort to fraud or violence. victims are like to, threatened,

and manipulative. what makes it difficult for people in these industries to leave? is the sheer control the trafficker is utilizing. the trafficker builds a web of lies. that is why the national hotline is so key. -3737-888.r is 1-888 there is also shame that is internalized. there is belief that it is your own fault. if the trafficker finds a way to brainwash you into believing it is your own fault, no one cares about you, if we as a society stand up for people who are vulnerable, we are taking the power away from traffickers to say that the people as we become a more caring and inclusive society. host: if someone is found to be a trafficker, what is the

penalty? guest: 20 years or more. these are serious crimes, major crimes prosecuted by the fbi. usually major federal penalties out of federal court. all 50 states have human trafficking loss that have passed over the past decade or so. these crimes are taken incredibly seriously. it is taken seriously and prosecuted strongly by the courts. host: is there a certain target when it comes to these sort of things? guest: we are constantly reminding the country that labor trafficking is bigger. sexonstantly gravitate to trafficking. that is where there is more media attention and law-enforcement attention. that ignores labor trafficking,

which is farmworkers, domestic workers, construction workers, carnival workers, janitors, so many different types of trafficking we hear about on the national hotline. both are issues. those in thefor industry itself, how do they get out of it? do they escape? how do those stories work? we have gotten over 10,000 calls from survivors directly to the national hotline where they signal they need help, and they take agency over the situation. other times it is a community advocate that steps in. sometimes the victim gets arrested as a criminal, and the court through investigation realizes they are a victim. there are multiple cap ways.

sometimes it is a hotel worker, hospital worker, flight attendant. it is a law enforcement arrest, or a person calling the hotline, or a network of survivors finding a way to get someone out in the first place. we have a lot of those modern-day underground railroad efforts happening. there are lots of ways we are seeing victims getting out. far too few get out. only 1% of victims are identified. in thesetill situations. host: bradley myles is the executive director and ceo of the pullers project. texas, independent line, go ahead. aller: i really want to thank mr. myles and c-span for publicizing this. every day, i get so many calls every week for somebody from breast cancer, right to life,

which i support, but never have i gotten a call asking for support for human trafficking in the u.s. it is such a problem. i tried to be in advocate for the people to give talks, but the schools don't want to talk about this. the churches don't want to hear about this. it is such an undercover subject. i realize how many of our children are raped repeatedly every single night. they cannot get out of it. the whole nation paid attention to jewel cross, and she was held for three months. it is wonderful she was found, but they don't pay any attention to all those children held by ed so often.rap find one, we -- don't give the name of the child. i wish it were on the news every night. thank you. guest: thanks.

host: she says it is an uncovered issue. is that your experience? guest: i think things are getting better. she mentioned that schools don't want to hear about it. there are about four or five states where the schools are now creating curriculums to train junior high and high school kids on human trafficking from a victim identification and prevention lens. we are seeing more churches on board. that is getting better. cases thate of the deserve major national attention are not getting as much attention. host: such as what? guest: for example, there is the case, a child from tennessee forced into the sex trade by a pimp. her buyers.one of

she was sentenced to death. the governor just a few weeks ago granted her clemency after she served 16 years of her sentence. there are other cases that are not getting the same national attention. we would like to see certain cases get more national attention when a child has been forced into the sex trade like that. how do we draw a circle wider over the cases we care about? it is not just the sex side. there is also the labor side. there are cases of janitors and homeworkers and carnival workers and construction workers. i think when people really learn about these cases, it will hit them hard. how is that happening a few miles from my house? i have to do something about that. the radical thank you for caring about this -- loretta, thank you for caring about this issue. caller: how are you doing today?

guest: hey, jason. caller: i think the real issue is with congress and the laws. when you make something illegal, you create a black market. to legalize prostitution, and i don't like using that word because it is like the oldest industry in the world, at least 2000 years. geis had it legalized with has. in las vegas, it is legal. where it is legal, you don't have too many issues. books,u have laws on the you take away the power from p imps and people to take advantage of people because you have a market for people to do things legitimate. host: thank you. guest: i think that is a big debate in the trafficking field about what to do about the sex

trade and whether or not to legalize it. with that actually help? -- would that actually help? the people that are trying to legalize it are doing so for the intention of trying to make sure people in the sex trade are not criminalized unnecessarily and coming at it from a good place. what we are worried about is that it actually makes things worse. amsterdam tried to legalize it. talk to the new mayor of amsterdam, and she says this is a debacle. it became overrun with organized crime. if you look at a number of it, thes that legalize number of guys that were looking to buy sex that were held back by the fact that it is illegal, the moment it is legal, you have millions of new buyers swarming into the market, nowhere near enough voluntary sellers in the market. new buyers,lions of the couple thousand sellers,

someone has to fill that void. where are the victims from? more vulnerable countries from eastern europe and places brought into amsterdam. we think it is an important debate. we don't want to criminalize the person being prostituted. that is the person that should get the most sympathy and respect and agency. we want to focus more on the pimps and johns. legalization may backfire and make it worse. that is what the field is still debating. the data is starting to show that it probably does make it worse. there is an interesting model in sweden and norway that just and france, the bifurcated legalization. the person selling sex is person buying pe

sex is criminalized. thank you for taking my call. when i was listening to the description, the demographics of the victim, it seems to me that it might point to the drug cartel, this idea of illegal immigration, people coming in and being herded. how do sanctuary cities and that effortssue hinder your to try to address the situation and help the victims? it seems to me that this is another argument for the boundary, the wall, whatever you

want to call it, increased vigilance on a legal immigration. guest: thank you for the question. i think there are lots of people debating how to deal with this. one of the things i don't think is in the debate enough is how often victims from other countries come to the u.s. on legitimate the so -- visas. let's say we have a legitimate workers, they fly into the u.s., and up at one of the major airports, start visa,g on that the -- then they are held in debt bondage. there are structural challenges with those visas. you are not allowed a lawyer. if you focus exclusively on the foot traffic coming across the

border, a wall would block that foot traffic for example, you are not addressing the majority of the ways the victims get into the u.s., which is flying in on these legitimate visas. i think the conversation is more complex than just looking at the southern border and what is coming over on foot. that does not take into account all the u.s. citizen victims who are victims of trafficking who are not immigrants. u.s. citizen case who grew up in abusive homes, are in foster care, get abused out of foster care. we have to talk about u.s. citizen victims and immigrants. when we only focus on immigrants, we have to make sure we talk about the foot traffic piece and flying in. the wall would not address the majority of the traffic that comes in, which is coming in on airplanes. i think people are trying to figure out how to deal with this

because it is a complex issue. host: how are states dealing with the? guest: the states are laboratories. there are some governors that take this issue seriously. the texas governor for example. we have attorney general's taking this seriously. we have seen innovative new state legislation. i think the states are this patchwork of laboratories. we are seeing amazing things. california passed this law that all teachers need to be trained on human trafficking in high school. that is an innovative new law. trafficking is a complex, dynamic thing. traffickers are not staying still and doing the same thing every day. every day, they wake up and figure out a new way to do the crime differently. we have to be dynamic and thinking. we have to figure out a way that this is a very elusive crime. the old ways we used to fight it are not going to cut it. from michigan.ra

independent line. caller: i think this is, not a fascinating subject, but one that needs attention. i believe that donald trump wants a wall to prevent this more than the drugs coming across the border. it is children. it is the people that are kidnapped and brought here under --ce in this expression under force, and this expression sex trafficking drives me crazy. it is another way washington uses words to soften what is going on. g?y don't they call it pimpin kidnapping? why do they find pulling names to call people? there have been movies made about this. called trade, where

they take them, how they get them. host: thank you. caller: this crime is called lots of different things. onmany ways it is pimping the sex side. sometimes it is called forced labor on the labor side. i think one of the most extreme ways to call it is rape for profit when you talk about the sex side. what is striking to me after working on this issue for 15 years is how much the country cares about this. high school kids care about this. churches care about this. there are so many champions in congress, presidents bush, obama, trump care about this. ast is why you see january human trafficking prevention month. when you go out in the community, there is a palpable passion on this issue in the u.s.

we have a huge potential to leverage all of that passion and channel it into community awareness to look for more for theto volunteer nonprofits that work on this issue, donors network on this issue. people can call congress and say we need to do more on this. you could even talk to corporations when you are about to buy a product. where does this come from? do you know where these were farmed? were there any slaves involved in this? i think supply chains and consumer action is key. i think businesses are stepping up. we have seen businesses engaged in this more than you have ever seen. there is a lot of attention in the field. on the polaris website, there is a map. what are we looking at? guest: on the polaris website, there is a map. what are we looking at? a heat map of all

the cases of human trafficking we have learned about from the national hotline. we learn about 30 new cases per day on the national hotline. what it shows is -- not to mistake, that is not saying this is the total problems of trafficking. that is only where we have learned about it from hotline calls. if we're not getting enough calls for montana or colorado, it might be underreporting. that is 11,000 cases in one year. this is the tip of the iceberg. there's not a single community that is not affected. host: there is a concentration in the northeast and the south. also: i think that is showing problems. this is in all 50 states, much

more common than we think. we need to shift our mindset from thinking this as novelty. of course it is happening like poverty andault and homelessness. this is baked into the fabric of so many communities. when you see that, you see it everywhere. i just got my neostem. what was that? what was that? there is an awareness that as a dailyappen tha citizen. host: arizona, democrats line, robbie. go ahead. robbie from arizona. go ahead. caller: thank you for taking my call. i just want to tell the young man that i live in a small community. it happens all over. we recently had a chinese lady

that had seven businesses in the city. they put her in jail. the judge let her out so she re of her kids in california. this segues on the judicial system. we cannot be taking these people and then letting them go back and forth. this does not work. it does not show the right thing to the american public. host: thanks, caller. one thing i appreciate you highlighted is the rural community aspect of this. i think we miss a big part of the issue if we only focus on the big cities. certainly, it is happening in new york, l.a., houston, chicago. there is traffic happening in rural cities across the country, whether it is people in very localized sex trade, where there begins recruiting

in rural areas and uses the allure of the big city as a recruitment pitch. we hear victims say we want to get out of the small town for a couple weeks, and they don't realize they are going with a trafficker. we are saying this and rural america much more. there are thousands of survivors speaking out on this issue who are now survivors and advocates. survivors will say don't overlook the rural communities because that is a big mistake to not realize how much this is happening in rural communities. host: how did you get involved in the issue? caller: i got involved -- guest: i got involved fresh out of college. it was 2002, 16 years ago. i was initially drawn to work on the sex traffic side of it. it is.zed how huge

it is truly violence against women turned into profit. i began working on it and researched the issue for a couple of years. polaris started in 2002. i joined them a couple years in. it is amazing to see how this issue has grown and how much momentum there is. host: republican line, gina, good morning. hello. i want to know what this man is going to do about this as the casualty of businesses that have had business stolen from them. they employed an illegal using fraudulent documents. the people they employed were taken out of jobs. why all this nurturing of somebody that comes to this country, sprays teargas on our border patrol? pmen in mexico or wherever raise god and homeland security

cursed, making an asylum set up. the lady from pennsylvania is making a way for them to seek asylum. the mothers down in these countries are sending their children on birth control pills. just because they don't get pregnant doesn't mean they don't get a sexual transmitted disease. host: thank you. guest: i believe, i think one thing i would highlight that you said is that there are parts of the department of homeland security that are prioritizing this. we know that the federal government is coming up with a government wide national strategy to combat human trafficking. each of the departments are working on. you have ambassador john richmond, the trafficking investor for the u.s. the state department is coming up with a strategy. the department of homeland security is coming up with a strategy with secretary nielsen and others. you will see a strategy coming

out of the federal government that we have not had before that is hopefully conference of, looks at all forms of the issue, is very victim centered, and works through the complexity. approaches current need to evolve to realize that really up a wall or even cracking down on certain types of immigration are not actually going to completely solve this problem. it is still going to be here. it is going to be on legitimate s were on u.s. citizen victims. the department of homeland work on this.ing there are agents across the country dedicated to investigating these cases. on the national hotline, we have seen lots of cases get handed

over to law enforcement that have come to an amazing result. there is some really good work being done, but there is also fieldisconceptions in the that are impeding us from getting to the next level. host: give us the hotline. 8-3737-888. the text line is be free. the national hotline that we operate national hotline we opee takes text, phone calls, email and we even have an online chat function. i think text and calls are the most ways that people reach the hotline. calls are confidential and can be anonymous and the calls can be about all different types of trafficking. we encourage people to calls of we get a flood of information we can find more victims that way. and try to do good with it. host: the executive

♪ announcer: c-span's washington journal. live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. coming up this morning, the role of housing policy on the great recession of 2008-2009. also, a democratic congressman from pennsylvania and member of the foreign affairs and ways and means committees on the ongoing shutdown and the ongoing shutdown and recent terror attacks in afghanistan and syria. writer supreme court correspondent on the supreme court actions on the military ban of trans-genders, gun restrictions and daca. sure to watch live at 7 a.m. eastern this morning. joined the discussion. . at our livelook coverage wednesday as of the partial government shutdown enters its 33rd day.

the house is packed for legislative business at noon to consider a bill to reopen the government through september 30. members also vote on another bill debated last week to fund government agencies through february 28. on c-span2, british prime takeser theresa may questions from members in the house of commons, followed by the u.s. conference of mayors holding a news conference ahead of their winter meeting in washington. at 11 a.m. eastern, the senate returns to debate on whether to include president trump's -- borderproposal in wall proposal in it legislation government.e on c-span3, a review of the selective service system which maintains of the information of people eligible to serve in the military. after that come with the u.s. conference of mayors has its winter meeting with house speaker pelosi among the participants. and later in the day, a discussion on the trump

administration's plan to withdraw u.s. troops from syria and afghanistan. >> live february 3, super bowl sunday at noon eastern, author and sports writer digs iran is our guest at book tv's in-depth. books, a people's history of sports in the united states, came over, how politics has turned the sports world upside down, and his most brown: last man standing." sports.ed to reclaim we need to know our history, that is our greatest ammunition fight. we need to know our history of the athletes, the sports writers, and the fans who stood up to the machine. if for no other reason than knowing this history allows us to look at the world and see that struggle can affect every aspect of life in this system.

>> join our live three-hour ,onversation with dave zirin with your calls, emails, february 3 on c-span2. >> coming up next, c-span's road to the white house 2020 coverage includes a stop in a new hampshire. after that, npr legal affairs correspondent, nina totenberg, talks about her experience covering the supreme court with political commentator bill press. later, more road to the white house coverage with new york senator kristen gillibrand in iowa. >> washington governor jay inslee told a group of college students tuesday he was seriously considering a run for president in 2020. he made the comment while talking about climate change and