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If America is ever going to rein in the unchecked power of the administrative state, it’s going to require two things: a Congress willing to reassert its constitutional role, and policy experts willing to map the path forward. On back-to-back days, CPAC Foundation Center for Regulatory Freedom Director Andrew Langer (filling in on WCBM AM680 in Baltimore) featured interviews with two people leading that charge—Clyde Wayne Crews of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and Rep. Harriet Hageman (R-WY), chair of the Republican Study Committee’s Article I Task Force. Together, they laid out a sobering picture of how far the regulatory state has grown—and how we can finally push back. “Congress Gave This Away” Rep. Hageman opened her interview with a clear indictment of Congress: “What they did is turn over lawmaking to the Secretary of the EPA,” she said, referencing the Clean Air Act’s vague delegation of power. That dynamic, repeated across decades and agencies, has hollowed out Congress’s lawmaking authority. Instead of writing specific laws, lawmakers have preferred to hand sweeping powers to bureaucrats—and then blame those same agencies when things go wrong. As Hageman pointed out, this isn’t a new phenomenon, but it has accelerated dramatically in recent years. “Joe Biden is the biggest regulator in U.S. history. Barack Obama was the biggest before him,” she noted. That’s a big reason why the current estimated cost of regulation is in the trillions ($2.1 trillion according to some, approximately $4 trillion according to Langer and others). Worse, the laws being written by federal agencies now carry not just economic consequences, but serious civil and criminal penalties. Hageman recalled a Wyoming irrigation case where the EPA sought over $60 million in fines for alleged Clean Water Act violations. The target? A small landowner who altered an irrigation ditch on his own property. “You don’t even have to know you’re violating the law to be prosecuted,” she warned. The Rise of “Regulatory Dark Matter” Clyde Wayne Crews has been calling out this unchecked regulatory sprawl for decades through his annual 10,000 Commandments  report. But as he explained to Andrew Langer, the worst offenses aren’t even formal rules. They’re guidance memos, policy circulars, FAQs, and enforcement letters—what CEI calls “regulatory dark matter.” “These are not laws,” Crews said. “They don’t go through Congress. They’re not subject to notice-and-comment rulemaking. And yet they have real-world consequences.” A perfect example: in 2019, the USDA issued a two-page guidance document mandating RFID ear tags for all cattle and bison by 2023. Estimated cost? $1.2 to $1.9 billion. Regulatory authority? None. Rep. Hageman confirmed that her task force is actively investigating this issue. “Agencies don’t even go through the APA process anymore,” she said. “They just post something to a website, and suddenly it’s treated as law.” For farmers, ranchers, and small business owners, the consequences can be devastating—and legally irreversible. The Article I Task Force: Reclaiming the Power of the Purse—and the Pen To fight back, Hageman is leading the Article I Task Force under the Republican Study Committee. Its purpose is simple: restore Congress’s lawmaking power, as granted under Article I of the Constitution. That means better legislation—drafted with clear definitions, explicit limits, and no room for “interpretive” rulemaking by agencies. It also means fighting to eliminate administrative law courts, where citizens are often stripped of their right to a jury trial. Hageman has introduced the Seventh Amendment Restoration Act to allow defendants in regulatory cases to move their trials into Article III courts. But the first step, she says, is education. Many members of Congress—and certainly their constituents—don’t fully understand how powerful agencies have become. “We’re starting by laying out how the system works,” Hageman said. “Then we can begin to fix it.” Crews’ Deconstruction Hierarchy: A Blueprint for Reform On the technical side, Wayne Crews is offering a roadmap. He recently briefed Rep. Hageman’s task force with a “regulatory deconstruction hierarchy” that lays out a strategic plan for unwinding the administrative state. It includes: Freezing Pending Rules  – Already underway under President Trump’s latest executive orders. Using the Congressional Review Act  – Crews lamented that, despite hundreds of eligible rules, only two CRA disapprovals had been passed under the current Congress. Targeting Major Rules from the Past Two Decades  – Many still in effect were built on shaky legal grounds under Chevron deference, which the Supreme Court overturned last year in the Loper-Bright decision. Ending Dark Matter  – Agencies must be barred from using guidance in place of formal rules. Cutting Regulatory Strings in Subsidy Programs  – Bills like the CHIPS Act and Inflation Reduction Act are riddled with backdoor mandates hidden in federal funding. Abolishing Whole Agencies  – A long-term goal, but Crews points to the Department of Education and USAID as ripe for elimination. Crews emphasized that while Trump’s DOJ initiative to lead the “deconstruction of the administrative state” is a good start, it must be made permanent through legislation. “DOJ has a short life unless Congress codifies its mission,” he said. Chevron’s Demise: A Chance to Reopen Old Rules Both Hageman and Crews see the end of Chevron deference as a generational opportunity. “We can go back and challenge rules that only stood because of Chevron,” Langer noted during the interview. Agencies can now be petitioned to reconsider those rules, especially when they rely on vague statutory language. This, Hageman argues, raises the stakes for her task force’s mission to help Congress write better laws. No more vague clauses like “the Secretary shall do whatever is necessary.” Instead, bills must be written with clear definitions, narrow scope, and enforceable limits. “The courts are finally saying, ‘Congress, do your job,’” she said. “And now we have to step up.” Final Thoughts: The Fight for Freedom Is Now If there’s a common thread between Hageman and Crews, it’s urgency. The administrative state has been expanding unchecked for decades. It’s taken root.

During the Biden Administration, when federal agencies seemed more concerned with arresting concerned parents at school board meetings than with the crisis at the southern border, the word “lawfare” began to make its way into many a conservative’s vocabulary. After the courts went after Trump, the word became more and more common in the English lexicon. However, according to Congressman James Comer (KY), who serves as Chairman of the House Oversight Committee, lawfare started much earlier than many people realize.  “If you look at what’s been happening - really starting under Barack Obama, when they use the IRS to go after conservatives,” Comer said, “this is not something that just started. It’s been embedded inside the federal government by the left.” Comer joined a discussion with Trump’s lawyer Alina Habba about the topic on the CPAC stage on Thursday, February 20. Katie Pavlich, a conservative commentator and author, moderated the discussion. “They really took (...) a misstep in their calculations when they used courtrooms, AGs, and DAs to try and take down political opponents,” Habba said. “Unfortunately the desperation is something that I thought would end when the American people spoke so loudly on November 5th but they have not. They’ve just become more desperate.”  Watch the full discussion on Rumble @CPAC.

CPAC’s Center for Combating Human Trafficking banded together this week with other key organizations in the fight to end modern-day slavery at the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Congressional Roundtable (ATIP).    For several years, ATIP has been an important opportunity for proposing legislation, criminal justice reform, and non-governmental solutions to human trafficking to pivotal organizations, leaders, and elected officials in the fight against human trafficking.     CPAC joined partners including the Tim Tebow Foundation, Ascend Consulting, National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE), and Rights4Girls to discuss the importance of passing the Trafficking Survivor’s Relief Act at this year’s ATIP Congressional Roundtable.   The Trafficking Survivor’s Relief Act is a bipartisan effort that proposes criminal record relief to victims of human trafficking who were arrested or convicted of a non-violent crime while being trafficked.    Human trafficking victims are often coerced into committing crimes, such as prostitution, fraud, and identity theft, by their traffickers but once in the justice system, receive no recognition of their victim status, only a criminal record that damages their chances of escaping trafficking and the cycle of crime. The Trafficking Survivor’s Act advocates for human trafficking victims by proposing expungement or sentence mitigation only for the crimes committed as a direct result of their trafficking.     CPAC and its partners presented the act to an audience that consisted of 8 members of Congress and over 60 influential organizations. The meeting also featured renewed commitments from Senators Marsha Blackburn (95% CPAC Rating) and Cindy Hyde-Smith (78% CPAC Rating) and Congressman Andy Biggs (97% CPAC Rating).     Our team looks forward to working alongside champions on Capitol Hill to support survivors and hold traffickers accountable in the 119th Congress.

For four years, the media, former President, and Democrats on Capitol Hill choose to look away as the Department of Health and Human Services lost track of over 300,000 unaccompanied minors across our country. Thankfully, just this past week, under President Trump’s direction the Administration of Children and Families (ACF) proposed eliminating a regulation made under the Biden administration in 2024 that prevented sharing the immigration status of potential sponsors of unaccompanied minors with law enforcement. This development presents an opportunity for the Trump administration to be proactive in securing the southern border and protecting children from the cruelty of human trafficking.     In July of 2024, the Biden-Harris administration instituted a provision under the Unaccompanied Children Program Foundational Rule that blocked the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) and law enforcement from sharing immigration status information of potential sponsors for custody of unaccompanied children.     This reckless provision, bent on furthering the Biden-Harris administration’s open border policy, endangered countless children and enabled cartels to take advantage of the system to continue their abhorrent human trafficking schemes. Quite literally it allowed the United States government to play an active role in facilitating the abuse of minors who were brought into our country illegally.   Now, the ACF is seeking to make the Unaccompanied Children Program Foundational Rule consistent with governing legislation by eliminating this provision and opening the door for cooperation between ORR and law enforcement. Eliminating this provision will make strides to support law enforcement in securing our borders and will establish a safeguard against human trafficking of children. Now, the federal government will be ensuring that minors are never placed into the hands of lawbreakers aiming to cause further harm to these often severely victimized children.   CPAC supports this common-sense move, and CPAC’s Center for Combating Human Trafficking will be submitting comments urging the ACF to move forward with removing the Biden-Harris administration’s irresponsible provision.

The Federal Aviation Administration requested this week the renewal and updates to a regulation that could impose more insurance requirements on private space launch companies.   Permit or license applicants are required to submit certain information to the FAA for determining maximum probable loss. The FAA currently requires information such as flight sequence, mission description, staging events, launch vehicle descriptions, payload, and more.   The renewal and expansion of the Financial Responsibility for Licensed Launch Activities regulation could increase the number of factors that determine maximum probable loss, which determines the financial responsibility of a licensee.   Additions to the regulation could significantly raise the costs of space launches for commercial licensees, and appear to be targeting SpaceX, the largest commercial space launch provider in the United States.   Should additions be made to the collection of information the FAA requires of commercial space launch licensees, SpaceX and other private space launch companies could be forced to spend more on insurance premiums, devote more administrative resources to compiling detailed risk assessments, set aside greater financial reserves, and be made more vulnerable to the financial impact of a failure.   CPAC opposes the expansion of this regulation for its detrimental impact on the commercial space launch industry. Expansion of requirements for MPL would increase the financial burden and thereby decrease competition and limit free market operations in the space launch industry.   Given the invaluable services SpaceX has recently provided the country through its Starlink network and bringing astronauts safely home, increasing the financial burden unnecessarily on SpaceX and the entire private space industry would be unwise and a detriment to the country on the whole.   CPAC’s Center for Regulatory Freedom recommends that the FAA not add to these regulations and will be submitting comments in opposition to the increase in regulations on space launch services.

With the October 7 attacks on Israel came a revelation of the deep-seated corruption and bigotry of the American education system. Pro-Hamas protests broke out on college campuses across the United States, many with the blessing of school administrators and faculty, revealing decades of antisemitic propaganda and sentiment in American academia being passed on the next generations.   The reluctancy of the Biden-Harris administration to fully support Israel in their existential war with Hamas and to condemn the pro-Hamas protests happening on college campuses further reinforced the startling reality of antisemitism in America.   CPAC joined a panel at the International Conference on Combating Antisemitism to address how to combat antisemitism in America. With President Trump in the Oval Office, U.S.-Israel relations are sure to strengthen, but it’s not enough to rely on our government leaders to address bigotry.   “We have to stop relying on the government and politicians to solve our problems,” said CPAC Chairman Matt Schlapp.   That’s why CPAC has founded the CPAC Center to Combat Antisemitism with the support of leaders in the Jewish American community, Julie Strauss Levin and Yitz Tendler. It will take private citizens, banding together, to eliminate this bigotry from the land of the free. It will even take reaching across aisles and making new alliances.   “It is repugnant to think the people of the Bible would be treated in such a fashion,” said Matt Schlapp. “We’re going to work on this at CPAC. We’re going to work on combating antisemitism with people who aren’t conservative, with people who don’t share our views on other topics. Fine! If you can agree with us on this topic, let’s go get this done.”  Israel is fighting an existential war, and the hatred that instigated and is fueling that war must be squashed around the world. CPAC’s new Center to Combat Antisemitism is sending the message that bigotry will not tolerated in America.   As Matt and Mercedes Schlapp’s fellow panelist, Pastor Larry Huch urged, “Let’s speak up. Let’s stand up, and together, we’re going to defeat antisemitism.”

By the time most policymakers finish saying “regulation,” innovators have already built the future. That’s the core message from Adam Thierer, senior fellow at the R Street Institute, who joined Andrew Langer on Episode 128 of the Federal Newswire’s Lunch Hour Podcast. In a wide-ranging and engaging conversation, Thierer made the case for why America must stick to a model of permissionless innovation—and reject the risk-averse, bureaucratic mindset that has calcified progress in much of the developed world. Thierer’s philosophy is clear: “Permissionless innovation is about freedom,” he told Langer. It’s about letting entrepreneurs and inventors build without having to ask permission first. It’s a model that has powered American technological dominance—and one that stands in stark contrast to the European precautionary approach, where bureaucrats act as gatekeepers of invention. As Thierer explains, most regulatory policy debates boil down to one question: “Do you believe in letting people try new things until proven harmful, or do you require proof of safety before anything new is allowed?” In Europe, the answer often defaults to the latter. In America—at least historically—the answer has been the former. That difference, Thierer argues, is why the U.S. continues to lead in innovation. “What Could Possibly Go Wrong?” Langer pushed back on a common critique: what about when innovation creates serious risk? What if someone straps a flamethrower to a robot dog? Thierer acknowledged that not every form of permissionless innovation is risk-free. In fact, he builds a framework around when precaution makes sense. If a potential harm is “highly probable, physical in nature, immediate, irreversible, and catastrophic,” he concedes, regulators may have a case for intervening early. “But that should be the exception, not the rule,” he said. In other words, be serious about actual risks—but don’t invent theoretical ones to stop progress. The real issue, Langer noted, is that we’re terrible at comparative risk assessment—we often fail to ask, “What happens if we don’t innovate?” Take the example of ethylene oxide, a chemical used to sterilize medical equipment. The EPA has pushed to ban it over long-term health risks, but without it, countless medical procedures would become far riskier, if not impossible. That kind of regulatory tunnel vision can cost lives. The balance, Thierer insists, is simple: “Regulate when there’s real harm, not hypothetical fear.” The War on Computation Thierer and Langer spent a good chunk of the conversation digging into the hot topic of artificial intelligence. Thierer has been tracking the explosion of AI-related bills—over 820 were introduced in the U.S. in the first 80 days of 2025 alone. “That’s 12 bills a day,” he warned. “In my 34 years of policy work, I’ve never seen anything like it.” Those bills fall into three categories: Existential Risk – Attempting to regulate AI models or computing power itself (what Thierer calls a “war on computation”). Conduct and Fairness Regulation – Focusing on supposed bias, fairness, or discrimination in AI algorithms. Sector-Specific Rules – Governing how AI is used in areas like health care, education, elections, or policing. Each presents its own dangers to innovation, but the first—model-level regulation—is particularly chilling. “The more powerful a system is, the more they want to clamp down,” Thierer noted. But that’s a flawed premise. Power doesn’t equal danger. “If we treat every hypothetical risk as inevitable, then no innovation ever gets off the ground.” The real-world costs of this approach are staggering. Thierer compared it to the overregulation of nuclear power—where excessive precaution wiped out one of the cleanest energy sources available. AI, if bottled up now, risks meeting the same fate. Bottling Up Progress Worse, Thierer warned, much of this regulatory push is being driven by incumbent firms looking to protect themselves from competition. “Old players love regulation—they can afford it, and it locks out new entrants.” It’s regulatory capture dressed up as safety. That same dynamic played out in the early internet era, where old telecom monopolies tried to use policy to stifle emerging digital platforms. Fortunately, the internet was “born free,” as Thierer puts it. Now, he argues, we must ensure AI gets the same treatment. And the stakes are high. “AI is not just another app,” he said. “It’s the most important general-purpose technology of our time.” Curbing it would be like banning electricity or the printing press. Everything New Is Feared… Until It’s Demanded Part of the regulatory hysteria around AI, Thierer believes, stems from cultural conditioning. From The Terminator to Black Mirror, the public has been taught to fear new technologies. “We’ve trained ourselves to see every innovation as dangerous by default,” he said. That mindset is a problem. “Yes, some tech can go wrong. But if we regulate based on worst-case hypotheticals, we lock out all the best-case realities,” Thierer warned. He cited medical breakthroughs, traffic safety improvements, and rapid diagnostics as just a few of AI’s upside potentials. Langer added that this negativity bias even infects how we view the information age itself. In an era where millions have access to near-infinite knowledge at little to no cost, critics still pine for the “good old days” of local news monopolies and gatekeepers. “It’s nostalgia for a world that never really existed,” Thierer said. The Productivity Paradox—and the Value of Remote Work The conversation shifted toward workplace regulation, specifically the remote work revolution. COVID gave employers a real-world experiment in remote productivity—and many found it worked just fine. But something was lost, too. Thierer acknowledged the tradeoffs: less spontaneous collaboration, fewer mentoring moments. “Some of the best ideas I’ve ever worked on came from hallway conversations,” he said. Still, he believes flexible work is here to stay—and for the better. The key, again, is choice and freedom. Don’t mandate remote work, but don’t ban it either. Let people and businesses decide what works best. The Fight for Smarter Regulation Thierer has worked across the free-market intellectual landscape—from Heritage to Cato to Mercatus to R Street. Each has its own style and strengths. At R Street, he focuses on tech policy and the broader philosophy of keeping government out of the way of good ideas. And his personal story is a classic example of serendipity in the policy world. In the early 1990s, no one at Heritage even knew what the internet was. But when Thierer pitched it as a new policy frontier, they let him run with it. “I was in the right place at the right time,” he said. Now, he’s working to make sure the next generation of innovators gets the same freedom to run. Conclusion: A Warning and a Challenge In the end, Thierer’s message is a simple one. Freedom works. Fear doesn’t. Regulation must be grounded in real harms, not imagined ones. And above all, innovation must remain the default—not the exception. As AI, biotech, and other transformative technologies emerge, America must resist the temptation to regulate first and think later. Because what’s at stake isn’t just progress—it’s our ability to solve the problems that matter most. And that, more than anything, is worth defending.

CPAC Chairman Matt Schlapp made history this week when he became the first American to be awarded Gazeta Polska’s ‘Person of the Year’ Award.  Gazeta Polska, a prominent weekly Polish magazine, annually honors an influential person with the prestigious award for their work to fight communism and globalism and stand for conservative principles on the world stage. The honor was presented to Matt Schlapp at an event in Poland with Republika TV where the CPAC Chairman also announced the first CPAC Poland conference to take place later this year.   “I am deeply honored to receive Gazeta Polska’s Person of the Year Award as the first American recipient. This recognition is a testament to the growing international movement dedicated to defending conservative principles and standing against communism and globalism,” said Schlapp. " Poland has long been a beacon of resilience and courage in the fight for freedom, and it is inspiring to see the strength of the conservative movement here. As we continue this important work, it is critical that people recognize the impact we are making across the globe." As Chairman of CPAC since 2014, Matt Schlapp has led the organization through exponential growth, the introduction of international conferences, and has been a leader in growing the worldwide conservative movement against the rise of globalist elites. He has been a foremost thought leader and commentator, drawing from his experience working with and for the White House and U.S. Congress.     Schlapp is leading CPAC in continuing to expand its international reach with CPAC Poland later this year in 2025.

CPAC is expanding its European conferences.   Since 2022, CPAC Hungary has been the only European CPAC conference. Now, we are pleased to partner with the strong conservative movement in the nearby Poland to bring CPAC Poland to Europe.   “There is a long-standing, special relationship between the democracy in Poland and my home country, the United States of America. There’s a very special relationship,” said CPAC Chairman Matt Schlapp on Republika TV on a recent trip to Poland. “When two countries share so much in common as America and Poland do, of course the globalists, in this case the EU and the most dominant player in the EU, Germany, they don’t like that relationship.”  Poland has been the target of globalist bureaucrats in the European Union for their determination to preserve their Christian heritage and national sovereignty, especially on issues of national security and immigration. But because of their passion for freedom, family, and faith, Poland has made a key ally and friend to the United States.   “I would urge the people of Poland to do nothing to break this wonderful bond between the two countries, and I’m confident that America won’t do anything to break the bond between these two countries,” said Schlapp.   CPAC Poland will aim to reinforce that special relationship between the two countries and strengthen the conservative movement at large in Europe against the barrage of globalist elites in the EU.

It comes as no surprise the Trump administration hit the ground running to tackle illegal immigration.     According to Department of Defense reports, illegal border crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border are down 94% since January. FBI Director Kash Patel confirmed in an X post that a leader of MS-13 and one of the ten most wanted fugitives has been captured and will face justice in the United States.     To accomplish this, the Trump administration is firing on all cylinders. President Trump leveraged the Alien Enemies Act to deport dangerous illegal immigrants. The U.S. Navy deployed guided missile destroyer USS Gravely, which recently spent time battling the Houthis in the Red Sea, to the southern border.     The CPAC Center for Combating Human Trafficking applauds these efforts for the impact they are having and will continue to have on ending human trafficking in the United States, but the work must not stop there.     As a result, we are working tirelessly at all levels of government to enforce our laws, hold traffickers accountable, and support victims. In just the last two weeks, CPAC has engaged in positive discussions with several federal and state leaders on tangible efforts and pieces of legislation directed specifically at human trafficking.     The CPAC team met with the Office of Public Liaison and the Office of Cabinet Affairs at the White House where we received a commitment to hold public and private events aimed at identifying criminal organizations, supporting survivors, and educating the public on modern day slavery.     Also at the federal level, the CPAC team worked with Congressional staff to secure plans for the Third Annual International Summit on Human Trafficking to be held on Capitol Hill this summer. For the last two years the International Summit on Human Trafficking has facilitated influential conversations between world leaders on addressing the international humanitarian crisis that is human trafficking. We look forward to holding more pivotal conversations in 2025.     At the state level, CPAC’s Center for Combating Human Trafficking is finding key partners in Arkansas and Georgia.     CPAC’s Center for Combating Human Trafficking is working alongside key partners in Arkansas to support the Child Trafficking Victims Protection and Restoration Act . The act would provide criminal and civil protections for children 18 and under who are victims of trafficking and coerced into committing offenses. The Center also spoke with the Georgia State Legislature and Attorney General Chris Carr to support efforts in the Peach State to provide additional funding and staff to the Attorney General’s Anti-Human Trafficking Prosecution Unit.    We are finally seeing the country wake up to the issue of modern day slavery and government leaders taking serious legislative action in-kind. The Center for Combating Human Trafficking urges continued efforts from the White House, Congress, and more states. We hope to see a nationwide commission to end modern day slavery established, the Trafficking Survivors Relief Act passed, and statewide task forces founded to support local leaders and work with the federal commission.     We look forward to working with elected officials to make these goals a reality and to free victims from their traffickers and offer them the support they need to start a new life. Human trafficking is an epidemic we are confident can be cured and it will take leaders at all levels of government to make this commitment a reality.

Under the disastrous economy and gross government overreach enabled by the Biden administration, many found themselves wondering what to do with their money to keep it out of the hands of the government. For many, the world of cryptocurrency has offered a solution. On Thursday, February 20, founder of Alarm.com and largest single corporate holder of Bitcoin, Michael Saylor took to the CPAC stage to discuss cryptocurrency along with CPAC board member Christos Marafatsos. “Bitcoin represents putting your economic wealth in cyberspace,” Saylor explained. “Bitcoin represents economic armor.”  The popular cryptocurrency has turned into a refuge for economic freedom, empowering the individual, as an investment that does not need to be trusted with banks or municipalities. Bitcoin allows individuals to take custody and control of their own investments in an age of interference from big government, big banks, and big corporations. "Bitcoin offered us a way out because if you recapitalize a company on Bitcoin, you're not slave to the bank. You're not slave to the currency. You're not slave to the local politician that tells you what you can do and how you can use your money," explained Saylor. Economic power is vital to preserving personal freedom, finding personal success, and achieving the American Dream. Bitcoin opens up possibilities for economic power to the individual person. Watch the full discussion on Rumble @CPAC.

Since the start of President Donald Trump’s second term in January, the United States has been on the right track to ending human trafficking. Several states are following the administration’s lead and are taking action to not only end human trafficking but also provide support for victims at the state level.   Arkansas, its state legislature and Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders, is one of the best examples of this progress.     Human trafficking is a multi-faceted issue. The first step to addressing these horrific crimes is ending this modern-day slavery through a secure border that makes trafficking more difficult and enforcing laws that hold traffickers accountable for their crimes.     The next step is just as important – supporting the victims of this egregious crime. Not only are victims often left with trauma, mental struggles, and limited to no resources for restarting their lives, but many are also left with a criminal record. 62% of trafficking victims will be arrested and 80% of those arrests occur while they are under the influence of their trafficker.     Trafficking victims are often cited, arrested, and detained by law enforcement for crimes, such as prostitution, truancy, and curfew violations, that they are coerced into by their traffickers and would not otherwise commit. Victims’ encounters with the justice system that are a direct result of their trafficking often cause distrust of the justice system, throw them into a cycle of crime, and prevent them from receiving the help they need to escape trafficking and embark on a productive and safe life.     Thankfully, Arkansas’ Child Trafficking Victims Protection and Restoration Act aims to remedy this.     Introduced by State Senator Missy Irvin (75% CPAC Lifetime Rating), this conservative-led, but bipartisan effort would provide relief for victims of child trafficking who are coerced into other crimes and face significant financial and physical challenges after years of abuse.  The bill seeks to view those who committed crimes as a direct result of their trafficking as victims and consider their circumstances and trauma when evaluating their cases.     CPAC’s Center for Combating Human Trafficking has been working with the lawmakers, law enforcement leaders, and partner organizations like Human Rights for Kids to get this commonsense policy passed.  The act would make tremendous progress toward helping victims break free from trafficking and the cycle of crime to pursue a meaningful life as a free individual.    Our Center is prioritizing policies that provide support for the survivors of these horrific crimes which have exploded after years of the Biden administration neglecting our border crisis and refusing to prosecute traffickers. Laws like these give legal relief to survivors and provide resources so these incredible young men and women can repair their lives.   CPAC’s Center for Combating Human Trafficking is proud to join victim advocates, law enforcement, and survivors of human traffickers in supporting the Child Trafficking Victims Protection and Restoration Act in the Arkansas state legislature and look forward to advancing similar proposals around conservative states across our country.