Sen. Josh Hawley raised concerns about child exploitation and the Department of Homeland Security’s ability to respond, citing data and questioning whether current resources are sufficient to address the threat.

During the exchange, Hawley pointed to figures from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

“Let’s talk about the dangers to children,” Hawley said.

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He added, “The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children estimates that there are 20 point 5 million reports of suspected online and child exploitation.”

He detailed the breakdown of those reports, stating, “That includes almost 20 million reports of child pornography, 546,300 reports of online enticement of children for sexual acts and 27,000 reports of child sex trafficking.”

Hawley then asked, “Is it a good time for DHS to be shut down?”

Sen. Markwayne Mullin responded, “No, sir.”

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Hawley then referenced a visual representation of online activity related to child exploitation.

“Let me ask you if you’ve seen this post that I’m about to put behind me,” Hawley said.

He asked Mullin directly, “Have you ever seen this before, Senator?”

Mullin replied, “I don’t believe so.”

Hawley explained the origin of the material, stating, “I was introduced to this material by Tim Tebow, the Heisman Trophy winner who now spends a lot of his time trying to help work with child victims of sex abuse.”

He described what the image represented, saying, “This poster reflects every individual IP address in the United States in about a one month period that was sharing, distributing, posting or trading child sex abuse material or child pornography of some form.”

He then asked Mullin, “You want to guess how many points there are on that map?”

Mullin responded, “It makes me sick. I have no idea.”

Hawley provided the figure, stating, “338,000. That’s just a one month period.”

He then pointed to the difference between reported activity and active investigations.

“The blue dots are the number of investigations that are open,” Hawley said.

He added, “Look at the red dots, 338,000 look at the blue dots. You can hardly see them.”

Hawley argued that limited resources were a factor.

“Because in the best of times, the Department of Homeland Security has only 10 HSI agents who are fully dedicated to doing this,” he said.

He added, “That’s all Congress has given you 10 right now. None of those are funded.”

Hawley again asked, “Is this a good time for the Department of Homeland Security to be shut down?”

Mullin responded, “I think any parent can look at that and it makes you sick, especially with teenage daughters like myself.”

He added, “That’s scary. We have to focus on this.”

Hawley continued by referencing border-related concerns tied to child trafficking.

“The Biden administration and your predecessor in this role, Alejandro Mayorkas, lost track of 450,000 children who were trafficked across our border over a four year period,” Hawley said.

He added, “450,000 children.”

He stated that efforts have been made to locate some of those children.

“The President has been doing a tremendous job,” Hawley said.

He continued, “They found in the last year over 145,000 of them that that leaves almost 300,000 who are still missing.”

Hawley concluded by reiterating his question about DHS resources.

“Let me just ask you again, does it seem like a good time for that?” he said.

Mullin answered, “No sir.”

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