͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌[link removed] [[link removed]]
Dear friend,
Animal cruelty is a red flag. A telltale sign of lawlessness. A piercing siren that people who commit malicious cruelty don’t limit their violent outbursts to helpless animals.
When we allow animal fighting and other violent acts against animals to go unpunished, we ignore blaring warnings for the safety of society writ large. We know that malicious cruelty is tied to other crimes, including narcotics trafficking, money laundering, cartel and gang crimes, and even school shootings and serial killings. Too often, the first strike of violence is aimed at animals, and if there’s no interdiction, the conduct spirals into a larger crime wave.
That’s why we’re calling on Congress and the Department of Justice (DOJ) to build capacity to take on animal cruelty. Our primary vehicle is H.R. 1477, the Animal Cruelty Enforcement (ACE) Act, to create a dedicated Animal Cruelty Crimes section at the DOJ.
We’ve already made important headway. Just this month, the House Appropriations Committee recommended $2 million for the DOJ to finally create this long-overdue section.
Right now, the DOJ is doing very little on this front, with just a single prosecutor focused on these crimes. The department has made a number of dogfighting busts, but there’s no criminal enforcement action to enforce anti-cockfighting laws, the national anti-cruelty law (Preventing Animal Cruelty and Torture Act), the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act, or the Horse Protection Act.
There are so few federal enforcement actions on animal cruelty in the past few years that you can count them on your two hands. There’s been almost nothing new from the DOJ on cockfighting for three years even though we’ve submitted case files and dossiers on cockfighting criminals by the hundreds to the agency. Our teams have bravely gone undercover to document these crimes and we’ve received almost no action in response.
Since Congress outlawed animal fighting in all U.S. jurisdictions—including Puerto Rico, Guam, and Oklahoma—the DOJ has brought zero prosecutions in these regions.
We’ve been forced to rely on local law enforcement for justice because the one federal prosecutor handling this immense portfolio has no capacity to address the cascade of animal cruelty crimes in the nation.
Cockfighting hubs are hotbeds of drug trafficking, weapons smuggling, child exploitation, illegal immigration, and organized violence. In the last two years alone, three mass shootings have occurred at cockfights—including one just months ago. The sale of animal crush videos featuring prurient acts is known as a marker of child abuse and child sexual exploitation.
Cockfights are frequently organized by cartels and gangs, and the whole operation is a frothing brew of violence and criminality. U.S.-based cockfighters may be shipping as many as a million fighting birds a year to Mexico and are associated with the most hardened criminals in the New World.
We cannot leave this unchecked. Animal fighting is connected to the worst crimes there are.
Back in 2019, the House passed a bipartisan amendment—with 380 votes—calling for a prosecutorial unit to handle these cases. Now six years later, we must finish the job by passing H.R. 1477 and ensuring that funding becomes real enforcement.
Ask your U.S. Representative to cosponsor H.R. 1477 and urge the DOJ to act now. And reach your Senators and ask them to take action and support the House Appropriations Committee language. [[link removed]]

TAKE ACTION [[link removed]]

We’ve investigated the crimes. We’ve delivered the evidence. Now we need personnel to move cases through the justice system.
Congress passed federal anti-cruelty laws for a reason. Now let’s see that they are enforced.
For all animals and the communities that suffer when animal cruelty is ignored,

Wayne Pacelle [[link removed]] Wayne Pacelle
President
Center for a Humane Economy
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