The ‘Sound of Freedom’ stuns Hollywood

OPINION:

In news that is shocking Hollywood and the mainstream media elite world, Angel Studios’ movie “Sound of Freedom” beat out the latest long-promoted Indiana Jones sequel on July 4th, despite having a tiny fraction of the budget and media attention.

The Sound of Freedom, starring Jim Caviezel and Eduardo Verástegui, is based on a true story of a former special agent, Tim Ballard, and his mission to rescue hundreds of children from sex traffickers.

CPAC hosted a special screening for “Sound of Freedom” at the Museum of the Bible in Washington, DC, a couple of weeks ago to bring awareness to the crisis and announce the unveiling of CPAC’s new Center for Combating Trafficking.  The Center’s goal is to improve cross-collaboration between domestic and international entities dedicated to ending human trafficking, supporting victims in reintegrating into society. 

We must address head-on where we are today in this global fight. 

Early on in his Presidency, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, AMLO, decried a new strategy for Mexico in dealing with the criminal cartels, “hugs, not bullets.” AMLO’s posturing toward the criminal cartels has failed as murders remain high, drugs continue to flow, and children are sold into indescribable horror. Now as AMLO’s MORENA political party has entered into “narco-pacts” with the deadly Sinaloa Cartel, it is time for leaders of the Western hemisphere to unite against the criminal cartels and stop the scourge of human trafficking. 

In the United States, President Joe Biden has all but given the criminal cartels a gift through his administration’s catastrophic handling of the southern border. Contrary to the Biden Administrations’ persistent gaslighting, the border is by no means “secure, humane, and well-managed.” President Joe Biden has rolled back Trump-era enforcement policies and placed the ineffectual Alejandro Mayorkas in charge of the Department of Homeland Security.  The result of this has been unimpeded ingress through the southern border, prompting the entry of deadly fentanyl, at least sixteen individuals on the FBI’s terrorist watchlist, and over 85,000 missing migrant children.

Under Alejandro Mayorkas’s direction, the human smuggling business is booming.  What was a $500 million trade in 2018 has now become a $13 billion industry, where Mexico has become the number one supplier of human trafficking victims to the United States, half of which are minors.

Under Mr. Biden and AMLO, the cartels get rich, and our nations become weak. Open borders, empowered drug cartels, and the growth of the human trafficking industry has fostered chaos in Latin America, creating the perfect conditions for the rise of socialist leaders who further exacerbate the human rights crisis in the region.

With our elected leaders failing to secure basic human rights and empowering narco-states in Latin America, we few dedicated to preserving human life have been left to pick up the pieces and hold our inadequate leaders accountable.

At CPAC Mexico last November, conservative world leaders were brought together to offer a counter strategy. As part of the CPAC delegation from the United States, Congressman Mark Green (CPAC Conservative 92% lifetime rating) heard the stories of AMLO’s corruption and its intersection with the drugs, death, and destruction being enabled by feeble leadership. Now as Chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, he is disclosing his investigation into Mayorkas’ dereliction of duty and will, once and for all, document how Biden and AMLO’s failures have empowered criminal cartels.

The uneven path forward, with so-called leaders abandoning responsibility, is why we feel it is crucial to step up.  This is precisely why CPAC launched The Center for Combating Trafficking.

This approach allows us to act in a multi-faceted way to support the end goal of rooting out traffickers and lifting up victims. We hope that by uniting opinion leadership, CPAC’s boots-on-the-ground advocacy, and robust grassroots activism, we can bring an effective results-oriented approach.

There is no greater fight than that to protect human life.  We will continue to combat human trafficking even when our leaders refuse, and we hope that you will support us and our efforts to pursue justice.

We hope all Americans, no matter their party or policy leanings, will join us in this fight.  To learn more about CPAC’s Center for Combating Human Trafficking, visit here.

• Mercedes Viana Schlapp is a prominent Latina national leader and a political media commentator. She is currently a Senior Fellow at the CPAC Foundation and regularly hosts the online show America UnCanceled on CPAC NOW.