Hiding In Plain Sight: Inside America’s Child-Trafficking Crisis

Summary

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Morning Wire Podcast Summary

Episode: Hiding In Plain Sight: Inside America’s Child-Trafficking Crisis

Date: November 1, 2025
Hosts: John Bickley & Georgia Howe
Guest: Derek Benner (CEO, Our Rescue)

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Overview

This episode centers on the hidden epidemic of child trafficking in the United States, inspired by the new documentary "Hiding in Plain Sight: America's Child Trafficking Epidemic." Hosts John Bickley and Georgia Howe interview Derek Benner, CEO of the nonprofit Our Rescue, which is combating child trafficking and produced the film. The conversation exposes the scale and realities of child exploitation, the evolving tactics used by predators (especially online), shortcomings in resources for law enforcement, and the urgent need for public awareness and action.

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Key Discussion Points

1. Changing Definitions and Hidden Reality of Trafficking

• Modern Trafficking: The definition has shifted beyond kidnapping or forced captivity. Most trafficking now involves online grooming, fraud, and coercion rather than explicit force.
• Public Awareness Gap: While trafficking is often perceived as a foreign or distant issue, the reality is it happens at a staggering scale within American communities.
  • Quote: "It's a very tough conversation. But at Our Rescue, we feel like we need to help fill that gap and...start understanding how big of a crisis this is and how we can all pitch in to join the fight." — Derek Benner [03:54]

2. Scope and Scale of the Crisis

• Staggering Numbers:
  • In 2024, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children received over 20 million suspected child exploitation tips.
  • Contained within these tips were 64 million suspected images of child sex abuse material. [05:29]
  • Online enticement reports saw a 200% increase in 2023, nearing 600,000 incidents in a single year, across platforms like social media, chat rooms, and online gaming. [07:16]
• Not a Political Issue:
  • The discussion stresses that trafficking is not partisan or limited to any one socioeconomic group—it affects all communities.
  • Quote: "This is not a Democrat or Republican issue…This is an all of us issue." — Derek Benner [04:39]

3. How Victims Are Ensnared

• Grooming Over Force:
  • Most victims are lured through methodical online grooming rather than abduction.
  • Criminal organizations exploit the internet to target and manipulate children.
  • Emerging Threat: Generative AI is being used to create synthetic child sexual abuse material, compounding the challenge—a 1,300% increase in reports of such material was noted. [06:11]
  • Quote: "We've seen a 1,300% increase in reports of generative AI child sexual material. That's the new frontier." — Derek Benner [06:42]

4. Digital Tactics Used by Predators

• Every Online Platform is Vulnerable:
  • Predators use mainstream social apps, messaging, encrypted forums, and especially online games to contact children.
  • Online enticement often escalates to the exchange of explicit material and sometimes in-person meetings. [07:16]
  • Quote: "Even online gaming has become a massive target for predators to try to engage children..." — Derek Benner [07:22]

5. Enforcement Challenges and Resource Shortfalls

• Severe Resource Constraints:
  • The federal government spent $48 billion on the war on drugs in 2024, but less than $32 million to support Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) task forces, equating to only $500,000 per task force. [08:28]
  • Law enforcement faces backlogs and emotional tolls due to the overwhelming volume of cases and disturbing content.
  • Quote: "The backlogs that they face are staggering…It's crazy that here we are as a nonprofit providing this equipment, the expensive forensics tools, the expensive software licenses that it takes to bring these pred[ators] justice." — Derek Benner [08:46]

6. The Role of Our Rescue and Technology

• Operational Support:
  • Our Rescue steps in to fund and equip law enforcement with advanced cyber forensics tools, including technology for examining digital evidence and canine units trained to detect hidden storage devices. [11:10]
  • Quote: "We're engaging with police departments...to assess their technology gaps. And we are actually providing grant funding directly...to purchase the expensive cyber forensics tools they need." — Derek Benner [11:12]
• Double-edged Sword of Technology:
  • While AI and technology aid law enforcement in processing evidence, offenders use the same tools (encryption, dark web) to evade detection and collaborate.
  • Quote: "In a lot of cases, the violators...are leveraging technology at a scale equal to or better than law enforcement. They don't have to follow the rules..." — Derek Benner [13:27]

7. Policy Progress and What’s Needed Next

• Some Advances, Not Enough:
  • Legislative action (such as the Report Act) and increased awareness following cultural moments like "Sound of Freedom" have helped, but systemic underfunding and slow progress persist.
  • State Leadership: Texas and New Jersey cited for passing effective anti-trafficking laws and supporting local task forces. [14:09]
  • Quote: "The biggest gap...is the resource gap...Typically, a high priority item equals a high budget appropriation. And I think we need to look at how we adjust that." — Derek Benner [15:39]
• Call to Action:
  • Public engagement and understanding are essential; all sectors of society need to contribute to closing the resource and awareness gaps.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Parental Challenges & Online Risk
  "Even the best parents can't compete with what they're allowing their children to view on the Internet. It's coming at your kids whether you like it or not." — John Bickley, Georgia Howe, Derek Benner [00:14–00:26]

• The Psychological Toll on Investigators "It's one of the worst jobs in law enforcement in terms of the material that they have to deal with every day." — Derek Benner [08:34]

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Key Timestamps

• Main Discussion Begins: [02:06]
• Changing Definitions & Realities: [02:21–03:54]
• Scope of Child Exploitation (Statistics): [05:29]
• Victim Pipeline & Grooming: [06:06]
• Digital Predator Tactics: [07:16]
• Law Enforcement Resource Shortfall: [08:28]
• Prevalence and Data Challenges: [09:39]
• Our Rescue’s Mission & Technology Gaps: [11:10]
• Technology: AI, Encryption, and Law Enforcement: [12:07, 12:20]
• Policy & Legislative Movement: [14:09]
• Host Closing & Call to Action: [15:50–16:06]

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Final Notes

This episode of Morning Wire delivers an urgent, eye-opening discussion on the scope and horror of child trafficking in the US, debunking many misconceptions and highlighting both the alarming growth of online exploitation and the heroic but under-resourced efforts to stop it. The conversation is deeply informative, and Derek Benner consistently emphasizes the need for greater societal involvement, resource allocation, and awareness, making a compelling case for supporting the fight against this hidden crisis.

Transcript

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These predators have a community.

[Derek Benner]

They find the children where the children are.

[John Bickley]

These people are trying to talk to my daughter, asking for nudes.

[Georgia Howe]

It was really scary to think that that happens here at home. The worst thing you can do is.

[Derek Benner]

Hide from this issue.

[John Bickley]

There's too little focus on this now in our society, and there needs to be much more. Even the best parents can't compete with what they're allowing their children to view on the Internet.

[Georgia Howe]

It's coming at your kids whether you.

[Derek Benner]

Like it or not.

[Georgia Howe]

That was a clip from the trailer of the new film Hiding in Plain America's Child Trafficking Epidemic, which is streaming now live on Daily Wire. The film exposes the hidden reality of child trafficking within the United States, offering an unflinching look at how exploitation thrives and how everyday people are fighting back.

[John Bickley]

In this episode, we sit down with Derek Binner, the CEO of Our Rescue. That's the nonprofit behind the film that's working to end child trafficking in America. I'm Daily Wire Executive editor John Bickley with Georgia Howe. This is a weekend edition of MORNING wire.

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[John Bickley]

Now to discuss the new film Hiding in Plain America's child trafficking epidemic is the CEO of Our Rescue, the nonprofit which produced the film, Derek Benner. Derek, thanks so much for coming on.

[Derek Benner]

Oh, thank you very much for having us. We're excited to be here.

[John Bickley]

So when people hear the word trafficking, they may not realize how the definition has really changed in today's modern world, but that's what this film is all about. Tell us a little bit about the film and some of the dark things it shines a light on.

[Derek Benner]

Yeah, it's really a realistic look into the state of affairs around sex trafficking and child exploitation here in our country, in the United States. And I think the stark figure here is the contrast of the issue itself and the lack of knowledge across our country and our communities that it's actually happening here at scale, at a staggering scale.

[John Bickley]

What is the goal ultimately of the film and what kinds of things should viewers expect to see here?

[Derek Benner]

Yeah, so viewers are going to see a real life reality picture of the crisis in America relative to sex trafficking and child exploitation. They're going to hear real stories from survivors. They're going to hear real stories from parents and loved ones about some of the challenges that they've faced regarding technology and online enticement. You're going to hear from our rescue professionals that are out there working with law enforcement every day, providing the technology, the training, also our electronic storage device canines are out there to help the police find the small digital cartridges that contain evidence that perpetrators hide. And they're going to hear from law enforcement, they're going to hear from law enforcement about the challenges in the communities in which they serve and how difficult this job is. It's a very tough conversation. But at our rescue, we feel like we need to help fill that gap and almost a call to action so that we can start understanding how big of a crisis this is and how we can all pitch in to join the fight. Right.

[John Bickley]

I think a lot of people hear about the trafficking conversation really coming from the right more than the left. I think many people think this is a political issue or there's some sort of conspiracy angle to it. But what are the realities of the numbers? How big of an issue is this?

[Derek Benner]

So the reality is I come at you and this job after 29 years in federal law enforcement, 16 years of that time at the border, U.S. mexico border, where I've seen all types of human crime and crimes of exploitation to include trafficking and smuggling. The reality is that this is not a Democrat or Republican issue. This is not a socioeconomic issue. This is an all of us Issue. All of our communities across the country are experiencing tremendous amounts of, of child exploitation and sex trafficking. And I've, I've got some interesting numbers to explain kind of the scope of the problem that we're facing.

[John Bickley]

Yeah, I'd love to hear that. How widespread a problem is this?

[Derek Benner]

So I'll give you an example. In 2024, the National center for Missing and Exploited children received over 20 million suspected child exploitation tips. So that's one year contained. Within that 20 million were 64 million suspected images of child sex abuse material to include videos, photos, and other files. That's a staggering amount of tips and leads that need to go out to law enforcement to be acted upon.

[Georgia Howe]

So how do victims get ensnared in this? What does the pipeline look like?

[Derek Benner]

So in a lot of cases.

[John Bickley]

Let'S.

[Derek Benner]

Take sex trafficking, for example, the legal statute calls for force fraud and coercion. And we tend to think that people are kidnapped and held in prisons or held in captivity, when in reality, most people are lured into a sex trafficking situation by criminal organizations that groom them over the intern. It's a very slow, methodical process, typically involving more fraud and coercion than force. On the child exploitation side, we've seen a 1,300% increase in reports of generative AI child sexual material. That's the new frontier that we're still confronting and exploring and has yet to be determined how big of a problem this will actually be.

[John Bickley]

What are the most common digital tactics predators use to initiate contact with children?

[Derek Benner]

On the more mainstream apps, it's primarily over just about any social platform, messaging boards, even online gaming has become a massive target for predators to try to engage children in a way to get them to send sexually explicit material or actually, even worse, further acts of exploitation by actually meeting in person. I'll give you an example. So online enticement is the category of this 200% increase since 2023. Almost 600,000 incidents reported last year of online enticement across any platform you can imagine. So think social media, think encrypted chat rooms, think messaging forums and online gaming.

[John Bickley]

The numbers you're giving are really staggering. It immediately strikes me that there's really no way we have the manpower to look into all of these claims. How is the government, the federal government, local governments, how are they actually handling this amount, this, this flood of complaints?

[Derek Benner]

The tip of the spear in child exploitation are the Internet Crimes against Children task forces located in 61 locations across the country. The job that the men and women of these organizations do is nothing Less than heroic. It's one of the worst jobs in law enforcement in terms of the material that they have to deal with every day. The backlogs that they face are staggering. And I'll give you an example. So in 2024, the federal government spent almost 48 billion with a B in the war on drugs. The budget to fund the Internet crimes against children task forces is roughly 32 million with an M. That's $500,000 per task force. And it's crazy that here we are as a nonprofit providing this equipment, the expensive forensics tools, the expensive software licenses that it takes to bring these pred justice. And that's what it's going to take all of us working together until things change to help fill that gap.

[Georgia Howe]

So do we have any sense of how many children are involved in this in the United States currently?

[Derek Benner]

There's some estimates. The difficulty around the prevalence is, you know, law enforcement needs to identify and rescue victims from these images. And of course, there's duplicates in many cases, images that have been out there being traded over and over again by pedophiles. Every time that image gets traded, that child is victimized again. And so we obviously need to pull those down in a global way. I'd also say that the report act, which came into effect in 2024, has really help the platforms to be more engaged in this and actually report more of the online enticement to the national center for Missing and Exploited Children. So we're getting more information that way. The problem is the backlog and the resourcing. And our feeling is this information gap between these numbers and this issue and what the general public understands about this very difficult topic to talk about is something that we need to fill. And that's why we believe this film is so important for people to see and understand that these are the real stories.

[John Bickley]

You mentioned a little bit about what your organization does. I'd love you to unpack that a little bit more for us. So you're providing tools, technology to the federal government, to these task force to really help them track down more of these predators.

[Derek Benner]

Yeah, so our rescue is a very, what I would say, operational nonprofit where we're engaging with police departments and the Internet crimes against children task forces to assess their technology gaps. And we are actually providing grant funding directly to these agencies to purchase the expensive cyber forensics tools that they need to do their job. I'll give you an example. When you're dealing with potential child victims at a search warrant and you have mountains of digital evidence on the scene. These investigators need to be able to analyze that evidence in the moment to make sure that there's no children at risk in the immediate time frame. And so much of that technology is several hundred thousand dollars a year. And so we're providing that technology to these departments and these Internet Crimes Against Children task Force through a program that we call ICAT Connect.

[John Bickley]

You talked about generative AI actually making things worse in terms of creating images. But is AI also helping in terms of some of the technologies you're talking about identifying problems? How is that actually playing out?

[Derek Benner]

Yeah, so this is the double edged sword of technology. Right. So law enforcement is leveraging technology at scale to do things faster and better. Certainly AI can help process some of the difficult evidence that's hard to look at and can actually make that process go faster. But at the same time, predators and offenders are leveraging the same technology to do more of their work faster. And I'll give you an example. So encryption. So tackling that issue where offenders hide evidence, where they store CSAM can be very difficult to locate. Dark web chat rooms where predators and offenders almost get together and share information about their crimes. They research what law enforcement tactics are being used and they share this information that's publicly available, almost like a collaboration center for the devil's workbench. So in my estimation, based on the funding constraints, I think in a lot of cases the violators and the predators are leveraging technology at a scale equal to or better than law enforcement. They don't have to follow the rules and they're very focused on trying to reach as many potential children as possible.

[Georgia Howe]

Now, just a few years ago, we were hardly hearing about this at all. And I think Sound of Freedom was probably instrumental in bringing this to the forefront. Are we seeing any concrete movement at the law enforcement level or at the congressional level to address this?

[Derek Benner]

Yeah, I do. I think there's the. There has been some, some movement. So I, I served as the director of HSI under the first Trump administration. They brought a lot of awareness around the trafficking and child exploitation issue. We were able to open the Department of Homeland Security center to counter human trafficking, which was huge. We were able, Congress provided extra funding to place victim assistance coordinators in all of our law enforcement offices across the. Specifically help survivors on their journey from the time of a law enforcement action and moving forward to the path of healing. There's a lot of good pending legislation, both at the federal level and at the state level. It's not moving fast enough, though. I think, you know, the speed needs to be a little more a faster pace. Several states like Texas and New Jersey come to mind in terms of passing some really good trafficking and child protection laws and actually pitching in a little bit to help fund the Internet crimes against children. But generally speaking, the biggest gap that I see is the resource gap when it comes to, you know, how do we tell what our priorities are as a country? Typically, a high priority item equals a high budget appropriation. And I think we need to look at how we adjust that. Until then, we welcome people to come support our rescue because we're going to fill that gap.

[John Bickley]

Well, we appreciate so much the work you're doing and we're excited about this film. There's a reason that we want it on our platform. We want to get this message out and hopefully we do see more momentum and more dollars direction toward this effort. That's such a big priority. Thank you so much for joining us.

[Derek Benner]

Thank you very much.

[John Bickley]

That was Derek Benner, CEO of our Rescue, talking about the documentary Hiding in Plain America's Trafficking Epidemic, streaming live now on Daily Wire. Plus, this has been a weekend edition of MORNING Wire.