Lets see, i think it has gone from one extreme to the other. We are going to get started if you can hear me. Okay . All right, on september 14th, ukrainian president Vladimir Zelenskyy walked into a can only be described as on earth it was just days after Ukrainian Forces recaptured the city of is e president elect he wanted to assess the damage personally the once picturesque riverside city was now unrecognizable mass graves were filled with hundreds of unidentified bodies, including children. Bodies with crushed skulls. Victims hands tied behind their backs. Faces mutilated beyond recognition. Many showing signs of torture. It was the same sickening scene we saw in bucha, and other towns that have been, socalled, liberated from Russian Forces. We must not look away. We must face this squarely. We must bear witness to these heinous acts. This is why we have images of these crimes around the hearing room today. I met with ukrainian prosecutor, general andrej costa last week. He told me the ukrainians have documented nearly 35,000 war crimes like the ones you see in these images. Since russias illegal, unprovoked, invasion of ukraine. As russia escalates its war, the free nations of the world cannot sit back. We must uphold our nations legacy from nuremberg, when the United States led the prosecution of not see war criminals, by bringing todays purse of todays war crimes bringing them to justice. I would like to turn to video on that legacy. I am heartbroken to see it happening again. Kids being shot. Homes being blown up. It pains me to see that we have learned so little from the holocaust. I have one word to describe it, it is. Going to recover that bodies. [speaking nonenglish] he tells me how and assess officer nearly killed him in 1941. How he survived a russian onslaught decades later. Human beings buried in unmarked graves, 99 killed by violence. Shalom of the bodies show signs of torture. We met a women who had today witnessed the exhumation of her own son who have been tortured and murdered by russian soldiers. And a room in here where russian occupiers used for torture. Now that mass burial site that we see there. There are more civilians than soldiers. Whenever the russian army steps in, they turn everything into butcher. We hope that seeing the pictures and reading the reports regarding the devastation, the human cost to civilians, men, women, and children. No one here is above the law, but no one is beneath it. Ukraine is, today, a slaughterhouse. The actions we seek to condemn and punish have been so calculated, so malignant and so devastating, that civilization cannot tolerate it being ignored. When the nuremberg trials first convened to 1945, Supreme CourtJustice Robert jackson was the chief prosecutor. He recognized that the best corrective to the brutish lawlessness of the not sees what the rule of law. He dean the trials, quote, one of the most significant tributes the power has ever paid to reason. Those words echo through history last week when president zelenskyy called on the World Leaders to ensure that the perpetrators of atrocities in ukraine can find no safe haven anywhere in the world. We must continue to support ukraines efforts to prosecute war criminals. We must support the International Criminal courts investigation of atrocities in ukraine. It is also up to this body to ensure that our laws, here at home, do not enable this terrible more than a decade ago, i had the honor of chairing the senates first ever subcommittee and human rights in law. Last years chair of the judiciary committee, i was pleased to reconstitute the subcommittee now chaired by senator feinstein. Over the years we had a number of bipartisan accomplishments, including the genocide accountability act, which granted the Justice Department power to prosecute war criminals on american soil who had participated in genocide. The child soldier accountability act, which made illegal under u. S. Law to recruit or use the u. S. Holders. Our work is far from finished. A number of shameful rue polls in americas laws continue to enable war criminals and perpetrators of crimes against humanity to find safe haven in the United States. It sounds unbelievable, doesnt it . But in 2006 mark baskets, a man who participated in the genocide in bosnia was discovered living in massachusetts. Rather than charging him with times against humanity, our government charged baskets with visa fraud. Why . Because our nations still, to this day, does not have a law on the books prohibiting crimes against humanity. Do you want to risk reading a headline ten years from now about a russian who murdered civilians in ukraine enjoying impunity in america . I certainly do not. That is why i have introduced the justice for victims of war crime act with senator grassley as a cosponsor. This bill has been cosponsored as well by senators leahy, graham, cohens and blunt. It will close a loophole in the act so that foreign war criminals, present and our country can be prosecuted even if they discovered years after the crime. I look forward to working with my colleagues to flock the statute as well. Before turning to senator grassley, i might save the general of ukraine last week. Bipartisan groups of senator portman who cochairs the senator graham, jeanne shaheen, and senator asinof are joining in an effort to see the best approach to dealing with these war crimes and crimes against humanity in ukraine. It is an afterthought effort. It involves several meetings and it will continue. I now turn to the Ranking Member grassley for his opening remarks. Thank you chairman for this very important hearing. Thank you for the bipartisan approach on this issue. Since russias clown provoked and unjustified invasion of ukraine, beginning in february as we know, we have all been horrified by the reports of war crimes committed by Russian Forces. We have heard of mass graves, torture, sexual assault, bombing of a mall crowded with civilians, even an attack on a maternity hospital. Ukraine has begun to successfully prosecute war crimes. I hope many more perpetrators will be brought to justice. We know from our experience with not see war criminals that some offenders will escape immediate prosecution. They may assume false names, they may flee to other countries. Some may even, successfully, make it to our country. When these war criminals get into the United States, they cannot be allowed to live freely in our country. We have to have options to exclude, extradite, and punish war criminals. We must enhance our immigration laws and ensure it is as difficult as possible for individuals who engage in human rights violation to enter, and if they enter, remain in the United States. That is why i and senator graham introduced a bill that we entitled, human rights violation act of 2022. We did that earlier this year. But bill would formally authorize human rights violators and war crime center, which has done great work, to ensure that the United States does not become a refuge for those who engage in war crimes and Human Rights Violations. It also updates our immigration laws to include specific grounds of in accessibility and prosecutors and war criminals. To better take account of non state groups that engage in extra judicial killings. Since cases against human rights violators are often built on criminal statutes related only to fraud, perjury, and false statements. It would also increase the statute of limitation. In cases of fraud, perjury, and misrepresentation that involves Human Rights Violations. Finally, it would give the u. S. Csis full access to full criminal records and authorize the department of Homeland Security to assess fees to fund the visa security and National Security programs within that department. I am proud of this bill. I think it is a step in the right direction to ensure that this country is never a safe haven for war criminals and human rights violators. I look forward to working with my colleagues on the committee, and in the senate as a whole, to advance this legislation. We also have to have a prosecution options. We can work with ukraine to send war criminals back to trial where they have committed their crimes. There will be times, perhaps other conflicts, where no other authority will be available to prosecute. With senators turban, graham, law and coons i have introduced the justice for victims of war crimes act. This bipartisan bill narrowly expanse the jurisdiction of the existing war crime statute. It ensures that it has a prosecution option when foreign war criminals are present in our territory. This type of jurisdiction already exists for many statutes, including many terrorism statutes. Understand that the department would like to see this expansion. It fulfills our obligation under the geneva conventions. It ensures that there is no safe haven for any war criminal. I hope we will Work Together to ensure that this fix becomes law, i think all of the witnesses for hearing today, i look forward to our dialogue thanks, senator grassley. We will come to witnesses from the executive branch will testify about gaps in our laws in america for holding perpetrators of war crimes and crimes against humanity, who come to our shores accountable. Our first witness is eli rosenbaum, from the department of justice. Mr. Rosenbaum is the director of human Rights Enforcement strategy and policy with the criminal division, human rights, and special prosecution section. As a point of personal privilege, i was pleased to offer the human Rights Enforcement act of 2009. Bipartisan legislation established the office that mr. Rosenbaum leads. Attorney general garland recently named mr. Rosenbaum to serve as counselor for war crimes accountability. In his capacity, he coordinates of the departments efforts to hold accountable those responsible for war crimes and atrocities in ukraine. Our second witnesses andre watson, the assistant director for Homeland Security investigations, the principle investigative component of the department of Homeland Security. Hsi investigates a wide array of transnational crimes, including Human Rights Violations. We are going to proceed by having the witnesses with a fiveminute opening statement, and then turn to the members who will each have five minutes to ask questions, as well. First, will the witnesses please stand and be sworn in. Raise your right hand. Do you swear the testimony you will get will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you god . Let the record reflect the witnesses answered in the formative. Mr. Rosenbaum, please proceed with your opening statement. Thank you, chairman and Ranking Member for inviting the department of justice to address gaps in federal law that significantly limit our ability to bring war criminals and perpetrators on human rights crimes to justice. Given the shocking crimes being perpetrated by russia during its unprovoked war against ukraine, this hearing could not possibly be held at a more appropriate, urgent, or frankly terrifying time. The Justice Department is committed to holding the perpetrators of such great crimes fully accountable. During a trip to ukraine in june, attorney general garland announced the creation of the departments War Crimes Accountability Team to centralize and strengthen our ukraine accountability efforts, and he asked me to lead it. Unfortunately, whoever, the title 18 war crimes statute does not cover the vast majority of war criminals who have come to the United States, and who are here, or who will eventually come here. Because it confers jurisdiction only when a victim or perpetrator is a u. S. Person, not on the basis that the perpetrator has immigrated to this country or is otherwise on u. S. Soil. The statute also contains other provisions that limit our ability to enforce it. Having prosecuted world war ii not see cases for nearly four decades, i can attest to the deep frustration we experienced because statutory limitations like those made it impossible to criminally prosecute any of the many not see criminals we found here. Instead, we could bring only civil actions against them. Russian and other war criminals who come here should not be able, similarly, to escape criminal justice or even find safe haven here. There is a second major gap. The federal torture statute doesnt confer jurisdiction based on the victims u. S. Nationality. Thus, even if a civilian u. S. Citizen or a u. S. Military Service Member becomes a victim of torture abroad under law, the u. S. Ordinarily has no jurisdiction to prosecute eludes the perpetrator is a u. S. Citizen or subsequently present here. And there is a third major gap. We dont have a statute criminalizing crimes against humanity. Such laws, the first of which the night states famously coprosecuted at the postworld war ii nuremberg trials, allow for the prosecution of certain criminal acts, such as enslavement or mass murder, wind committed as part of a systematic or widespread attack against a civilian population, even if those attacks occur outside the context of an Armed Conflict or genocide. War crimes and genocide statues alone are simply not sufficient to address the full and tragic array of largescale atrocity crimes that continue to be set the world. I would be pleased to provide examples of infamous and horrific crimes that are beyond federal prosecutors reach in the absence of a crimes against humanity statute. The departments of defense, Homeland Security, state, and justice, among other agencies, have agreed on Technical Solutions that would fill all three gaps that ive just mentioned. If those gaps are filled, the Justice Department can play and is eager to play a much fuller role in the crucial effort to make the post holocaust imperative, never again, a reality, not just an endlessly on realized aspiration. Thank you, chairman and Ranking Member, for affording me the opportunity to testify here today, and i would be pleased to respond to questions. Thank, you mr. Rosenbaum. Mr. Watson . Chairman durbin, Ranking Member grassley, and distinguished members of the judiciary committee. I am pleased to have the opportunity to address this committee today on a Critical Role u. S. Immigration and customs enforcement, i. C. E. , Homeland Security investigations, hsi, continues to play in ensuring the United States is not becoming safe haven for human rights violators, and to highlight areas in which legislation would assist us in more effectively pursuing criminal investigations and prosecutions. I am also honored to testify alongside our department of justice, doj partner. Mr. Eli rosenbaum, who has dedicated his lifes mission to seek justice for thousands of individuals who have been persecuted under the unscrupulous hands of perpetrators of war crimes and crimes against humanity. The collaboration between the human rights violators and war crime center, and doj, as well as the departments of state and defense and our other Center Partners is a testament that the United States will not tolerate or condone perpetrators of atrocities against mankind to seek refuge and safe haven from their heinous crimes. One of the primary ways hsi accomplishes and leads this mission is through robust engagement at the center. The center, which ice stab list in 2008, has not been codified. Codification of the center would solidify the night states standing as a leader in identifying and prosecuting human rights violators, and memorialize the u. S. Governments commitment to ensuring that the United States does not become a safe haven for those who commit these heinous atrocities. The center focuses on its mission in two ways. One, by identifying, investigating, prosecuting, and removing war criminals found within the jurisdiction of United States. And to, by preventing entry to the United States of known or suspected human rights violators and war criminals. Our ability to accomplish this mission is directly related to our statutory authorities, despite a lengthy and detailed investigations establishing crimes that have been committed at. Times, the u. S. Government must forego criminal charges because evidence of the offenders actions did not surfaced within the statute of limitations. Other times, there are neither criminal nor administrative statutes which address the heinous actions committed, such as those acts which constitute crimes against humanity. Congress should greatly enhance our ability to pursue these cases by enacting legislation. The center also acts with foreign Law Enforcement and International Partners and tribunals to further global accountability. The Center Brings together special agents, criminal research specialists, attorneys, and historians with expertise and specific regional areas and conflicts. These team members, joined by our Center Partners, are organized into support teams that cover the geographic areas of the americas, europe, the middle east, and asia, and africa. By pursuing accountability for past atrocities. The center contributes to the work of preventing future atrocities. In addition to our global team, the center specialize