Marco Rubio Wants Answers on Why State Department Ignores Cuba's Human Trafficking Problem

U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., the chairman of the Senate Western Hemisphere Subcommittee, wrote U.S. Sec. of State John Kerry, urging him to lower Cuba’s ranking in the  State Department’s 2015 Trafficking in Persons (TIP) report. Rubio also asked for Kerry to turn over to the Senate records to see how the administration made that decision. 

“The politically driven manipulation of the State Department’s 2015 Trafficking In Persons (TIP) Report is an embarrassment for the Obama administration that threatens to set back U.S. efforts against human trafficking around the world,” Rubio wrote Kerry in the letter sent on Thursday. “For over 15 years, the report has helped encourage foreign governments to tackle human trafficking, if for no other reason than to avoid being named and shamed by the U.S. Now, according to whistleblowers within the State Department, the administration has announced to the world that it will allow political considerations to trump real reform.
 
“It is important that the TIP report remain a true reflection of the trafficking situation on the ground and that a country’s rating never be determined by political considerations but by the country’s true record on this issue,” Rubio continued. “The decision to upgrade Cuba without substantial evidence of improvement is the worst form of politicization of an important anti-trafficking tool. Cuba is a human slave state.”