Registered sex offenders nationwide now must report plans to travel overseas as part of a global crackdown on sex trafficking and sex tourism, the Justice Department announced Monday.
Under the new rule, offenders will have to report their itinerary and other travel-related information to the authorities.
There is no law preventing sex offenders from traveling to other countries, although those nations have the authority to deny their entry. Registered offenders must notify local authorities, but Monday’s action codifies the requirement on the federal level.
U.S. authorities last year alerted 125 countries about 3,500 registered sex offenders traveling to their nations.
The Justice Department adopted the guidelines as part of its clarification of the rules governing sex offender registration.
A 2006 law, the Sex Offender Registration Notification Act (SORNA), requires sex offenders to register in the states in which they live, work or attend school.
The Justice Department also clarified that sex offenders must provide authorities with their Social Security number, birth date, professional licenses and information about travel, including vehicles and license plates.
The regulations were proposed as part of an effort to establish a comprehensive national system for sex offender registration.
“The proposed regulations will further Congress’s and the department’s shared goal of ensuring that convicted sex offenders are accounted for under the law,” Assistant Attorney General for Legal Policy Beth A. Williams said in a statement.
“These regulations will enhance the enforcement of registration and notification across the country and ensure that information about sex offenders in the community is available to law enforcement and the public,” she said.
In passing SORNA, Congress left it up to the attorney general to decide how the law would be applied to registered sex offenders convicted before 2006.
The Supreme Court in 2019 upheld the attorney general’s authority to decide the requirements, including adding people convicted before 2006, putting another 500,000 people on the registry.
Child sex exploitation is a crime on the rise in the U.S. as the internet and social media make images more accessible.
Federal authorities last year investigated 4,224 child-exploitation cases, resulting in 3,771 arrests, 2,220 indictments and 1,715 convictions, according to the Department of Homeland Security. The number of arrests is an 18% increase from 2018.
• Jeff Mordock can be reached at jmordock@washingtontimes.com.
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