34 U.S.C. § 21503 — Angel Watch Center

(a) Establishment: Within 90 days after February 8, 2016, the Secretary of Homeland Security must create the "Angel Watch Center^*" inside the Child Exploitation Investigations Unit of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), to carry out the activities in subsection (e).

(b) Incoming notification: (1) In general: The Center may receive notifications about people trying to enter the U.S. who have committed sex offenses. (2) Notification: When the Center gets such a notification, it must immediately share the information with the Department of Justice, and share relevant information with other appropriate federal, state, and local agencies. (3) Collaboration: The Secretary of Homeland Security must work with the Attorney General to set up a process for receiving, sharing, and categorizing this kind of information.

(c) Leadership: The Assistant Secretary of ICE heads the Center, working with the Commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, and consulting the Attorney General and Secretary of State.

(d) Members: The Center includes: (1) the Assistant Secretary of ICE; (2) the Commissioner of Customs and Border Protection; (3) analysts designated within ICE or Customs and Border Protection; and (4) program managers designated within ICE or Customs and Border Protection.

(e) Activities: (1) In general: Using all relevant databases and information sources, no later than 48 hours before a scheduled departure (or as soon as practical before then), the Center must: (A) check whether people traveling abroad are on the National Sex Offender Registry^*; (B) review the U.S. Marshals Service's case management system, or another system with advance international travel notices, to find anyone who meets that (A) criteria but isn't already caught by that review; and (C) send a list of those people to the Marshals Service's National Sex Offender Targeting Center, to check compliance with the Adam Walsh Act. (2) Provision of information to Center: 24 hours before the trip -- or, at the latest, within 72 hours after it -- the Marshals Service's Targeting Center must give the Angel Watch Center information about any sex offender identified under (1)(C). (3) Advance notice to destination country^*: (A) In general: The Center may send relevant information to the destination country about a sex offender if that person was identified under (1)(B) as having given advance notice of travel, or if the Center gets information about them under (2) after finishing the (1) review. (B) Exceptions: The Center may send the information immediately if it learns a sex offender is traveling within 24 hours and it does the (1) review at the same time, or if it hasn't received a (2) transmission but it's still within 24 hours of the trip. (C) Corrections: If the Center learns a notification it sent was wrong, it must immediately send a correction to the destination country, fix its collected data under (6), and -- if relevant -- tell the Secretary of State for passport review purposes. (D) Form: The Center can send the notification by whatever method it decides fits, including through ICE attaches abroad. (4) Memorandum of Agreement: Within 6 months of February 8, 2016, the Secretary of Homeland Security must sign a Memorandum of Agreement with the Attorney General. This agreement covers exchanging information, sharing staff, giving access to databases as described in (1)(B), and setting up a process to share notifications from other countries as described in (b)(1). (5) Passport application review: (A) In general: The Center must give the State Department a written finding on whether someone is a "covered sex offender^*," when appropriate. (B) Effective date: This rule (A) starts once the Secretary of State, Secretary of Homeland Security, and Attorney General certify that the process required under section 21507 has been put in place successfully. (6) Collection of data: The Center must collect data, including: a record of every notification sent under (3); the destination country's response, when available; any decision not to send a notification abroad; how many notifications were sent under each part of (3), and to which countries; whether the notice reached the destination country before the sex offender's travel began; and anything else the Secretary of Homeland Security thinks is needed. (7) Complaint review: (A) In general: The Center must set up a way to receive complaints from people affected by wrong notifications, make sure complaints are reviewed promptly, and -- if a complaint is about a notification another federal agency sent -- tell the person how to contact that agency and forward the complaint. (B) Response to complaints: As needed, the Center must tell the person in writing that they were wrongly notified about internationally, take steps to stop that error from happening again, and explain in writing why the error happened and what the Center is doing to fix it. (C) Public awareness: The Center must publish information on how to file a complaint. (D) Reporting requirement: The Secretary of Homeland Security must send Congress an annual report on how many wrong notifications were sent, and what's being done to prevent more errors. (8) Annual review process: The Center, working with the Attorney General, Secretary of State, and INTERPOL^*, must run an annual review to make sure everyone is coordinating well and following consistent procedures. (9) Information required: The Center must give the Marshals Service's Targeting Center timely information on sex offenders' travel.

(f) Definition: In this section, "sex offender" means a covered sex offender, or anyone required to register under any jurisdiction's sex offender program, or included on the National Sex Offender Registry, because of an offense against a minor^*.