8 U.S.C. § 1777 — Establishment of Human Smuggling and Trafficking Center

(a) Establishment. The Human Smuggling and Trafficking Center (the "Center") is established.

(b) Operation. The Secretary of State, the Secretary of Homeland Security, and the Attorney General must operate the Center under the memorandum of understanding called "Human Smuggling and Trafficking Center (HSTC), Charter."

(c) Functions. Besides responsibilities the President^* assigns, the Center must: (1) be the focal point for Federal-agency efforts to combine and distribute intelligence and information about terrorist travel; (2) act as a clearinghouse for relevant information from all Federal agencies supporting the United States strategy against the separate but related problems of secret terrorist travel and facilitating migrant smuggling and trafficking in persons; (3) ensure cooperation among relevant Federal policy, law-enforcement, diplomatic, and intelligence agencies so they work more effectively and turn all available information about those activities into tactical, operational, and strategic intelligence usable to fight them; and (4) prepare and send Congress each year a strategic assessment of weaknesses in United States and foreign travel systems that international terrorists, human smugglers and traffickers, and their facilitators might exploit.

(d) Director. The Homeland Security Secretary must nominate a United States Government official to be Center Director, following the HSTC Charter memorandum's requirements.

(e) Staffing. (1) Working with relevant agency and department heads, the Homeland Security Secretary must ensure that the Center has at least 40 full-time-equivalent positions. As appropriate, detailees may come from: (A) Homeland Security agencies and offices, including (i) the Office of Intelligence and Analysis, (ii) the Transportation Security Administration, (iii) United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, (iv) United States Customs and Border Protection, (v) the United States Coast Guard, and (vi) United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement; and (B) other departments, agencies, or entities, including (i) the Central Intelligence Agency, (ii) the Department of Defense, (iii) the Department of the Treasury, (iv) the National Counterterrorism Center, (v) the National Security Agency, (vi) the Department of Justice, (vii) the Department of State, and (viii) any other relevant agency or department. (2) Working with each agency, department, or entity head, the Secretary must ensure that the detailees include enough people who are (A) intelligence analysts or special agents with demonstrated experience in human smuggling, trafficking in persons, or terrorist travel; and (B) personnel experienced in (i) consular affairs, (ii) counterterrorism, (iii) criminal law enforcement, (iv) intelligence analysis, (v) preventing and detecting document fraud, (vi) border inspection, (vii) immigration enforcement, or (viii) human trafficking and combating severe forms of trafficking in persons. (3)(A)(i) The Homeland Security Secretary and heads of other relevant agencies must issue regulations or personnel policies giving incentives for Center service, especially terms lasting at least 2 years. (ii) Incentives may include money, bonuses, and other awards or incentives those officials consider appropriate. (B) Despite other law, those officials must ensure that assigned or detailed Center personnel are considered for promotion at rates at least equivalent to those of similarly situated personnel who are not assigned or detailed. This does not apply to personnel covered by the Foreign Service Act of 1980 [22 U.S.C. 3901 et seq.].

(f) Support and funding. The Homeland Security Secretary must provide the administrative support and funding needed to maintain the Center, including personnel, office space, supplies, equipment, technology, training, and necessary travel.

(g) Reports. (1) Within 180 days after December 17, 2004, the President must send Congress a report on implementation, including the Center's staffing and resource needs. (2) Within 180 days after August 3, 2007, the President must send a follow-up report on Center operations and activities. It must describe (A) each participating agency's or department's roles and duties; (B) information-sharing mechanisms; (C) personnel each provides; (D) the types of information and reports the Center distributes; (E) efforts to create a centralized Federal database about unlawful travel by foreign nationals, including any database and how its information would be collected, stored, and shared; (F) how agencies and departments will use resources so intelligence focuses and drives the Center's work; (G) efforts to combine the Center's networked systems; (H) how the Center shares homeland-security information with the Office of Intelligence and Analysis, including consistency with section 485(b) of title 6; (I) participating personnel's ability to access necessary databases and share information about human smuggling, trafficking in persons, and terrorist travel; (J) how Center assignments fit those personnel's civil-service career paths; and (K) cooperation and coordination, including memorandums of understanding, among participating agencies and departments on those issues.

(h) NCTC relationship. As part of its mission against terrorist travel, the Center must work to support the National Counterterrorism Center.

(i) Coordination. The Office of Intelligence and Analysis, working with the Center, must periodically send relevant State, local, and tribal law-enforcement agencies reports about terrorist threats connected with human smuggling, human trafficking, and terrorist travel.