By USCIRF Commissioner James W. Carr and Congressman French Hill In July 2018, Abdo Adel, a Christian resident of the village of Minbal in Egypt's Minya governorate--described by his friends as a "simple man" who loved baking qurban (sacramental bread) for the local Coptic Orthodox church--posted on Facebook a vague comparison of Jesus Christ and the Prophet Muhammad. Word of this comparison spread among Minbal's Muslim residents, who filed a complaint with local police that Abdo had insulted Islam. Religious zealots in the community whipped up a mob that attacked Coptic properties, forcing Abdo and his family to flee and a local priest to issue a desperate apology for the social media post in hopes of quelling the violence. After regional security forces restored order, a "customary reconciliation council" absolved the mob participants of responsibility for their bigoted rampage, while Abdo was arrested and then convicted in December 2018 for "contempt of religion." He remains in a New Valley prison, separated from his family by hundreds of miles. Prison officials have refused his release--scheduled to occur more than a year ago--due to security forces' claim that his return to Minbal would lead to more violence. Abdo Adel's story epitomizes the ongoing challenges that Coptic Christians continue to face in Egypt. He is a victim of Egypt's blasphemy law, Article 98(f) of the Penal Code, which broadly criminalizes "insulting heavenly religions" but is used almost exclusively against those whom the authorities perceive as showing anything less than complete deference to the officially sanctioned interpretation of Sunni Islam. He and his community are also victims of sectarian violence--one of many anti-Christian mob attacks that have occurred in Minya and elsewhere in Upper Egypt--as well as of a willful failure on the part of Egypt's system of justice to punish or deter such violence. Finally, Abdo is also the victim of an opaque and dehumanizing prison system, along with hundreds of prisoners caught up in Egypt's crackdown on human rights and religious freedom advocates. They include Ramy Kamel, a Coptic activist and researcher who has languished in pre-trial detention for ludicrous terrorism charges since November 2019, and Patrick George Zaki, a graduate student and researcher for the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights who has been held in similar pre-trial conditions since February of last year. These issues make Egypt especially confounding, as this key U.S. ally in the Middle East has in recent years made symbolic overtures as well as some practical strides toward improving religious freedom conditions. Coptic Christians can now apply to register their previously informal churches; the Grand Imam of al-Azhar, Egypt's most senior Muslim authority, has delegitimized legal concepts once used to relegate non-Muslims to second-class status; and the Ministry of Education is slowly introducing greater religious inclusivity, tolerance, and citizenship to public school curriculum. Of course, we welcome these steps, but these measures are overshadowed by ongoing discrimination against Copts, broader human rights concerns, and a sense of resignation among Christians that "this is the best we're ever going to get." These circumstances are not the best that the people of Egypt should have to expect. We call on the Biden administration, particularly in light of its foreign policy emphasis on human rights under Secretary of State Antony Blinken, to make it clear to our Egyptian counterparts that they must take decisive actions to match the country's positive shift in religious freedom discourse. These steps should include launching judicial and security reforms that end the culture of impunity for sectarian mob violence; more quickly processing church registration approvals under the 2016 Church Building Law while revisiting efforts to create a unified law to equally apply to all Muslim and non-Muslim houses of worship; and releasing all prisoners caught up in blasphemy-related prosecutions or targeted for peaceful human rights activism. We also encourage members of Congress from both parties to raise the religious freedom considerations laid out in H. Res. 117 -- "Supporting Coptic Christians in Egypt," which highlights the Copts' persistent religious freedom challenges and calls on the Egyptian government to more directly address them. This legislation has been introduced once more in the 117th Congress. Previously, this bill had the support of various advocacy groups and broad bipartisan support from the House Foreign Affairs Committee, who has jurisdiction over proposals of this type. The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom understands that the United States should lead the way in protecting those of faith and should urge other nations to take this stance as well. Indeed, any country that seeks to project strength, stability, and confidence cannot tolerate or perpetuate such longstanding problems. Egypt must instead embrace true, systematic reforms that directly confronts these issues--especially in rural parts of the country where change may incur risk and cost but whose people are crying out for change. Such measures may yet restore Abdo Adel's life interrupted and, if fully embraced and implemented, they may yet make cases of injustice like his a fading memory. French Hill is a Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Arkansas, and James W. Carr is a Commissioner with the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom and former Harding University professor who resides in Searcy, Arkansas.

By Rep. French Hill This month, I visited the southwest border for the seventh time in six years, and the conditions I saw in the Rio Grande Valley were the worst I have seen in any of my previous visits. Despite what the Biden administration says, the administration's policies, words, and actions have created the current public health, humanitarian, and security crisis at the border, and its refusal to take the crisis seriously is having a negative impact on our country. Since President Joe Biden took office, he has rolled back the Trump-era border policies and replaced them with absolutely nothing. During my recent trip, I received a detailed briefing at the Donna Processing Center in McAllen, Texas, a facility overwhelmed with families and unaccompanied children. On average, 2,200 apprehensions occur per day in the Rio Grande Valley sector, and typically 500 of those processed are unaccompanied children. In my previous visit to the same facility in April 2019, I was told that 1,000 apprehensions per day was considered a disaster. Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the facility should only hold 716 migrants. Yet, it is actively holding 3,500, and only migrants exhibiting symptoms are tested for COVID-19. I saw firsthand why these border numbers are out of control. During a night patrol with Customs and Border Protection officials, I watched migrants, families, and minors being trafficked across the border into our country and then turning themselves in to Border Patrol. I even joined a river patrol with the Texas state troopers along the Rio Grande River and witnessed their patrol procedures unique to that terrain and region. The White House, avoiding reality, continues to refer to this expanding crisis as a "challenge" and downplays its severity at every opportunity. On the border, national reporters were prohibited from seeing what we saw, making it impossible for all the facts to be revealed to the public. It has been nearly a month since Biden named Vice President Kamala Harris "border czar," and she has yet to visit the border, come up with a plan, or even hold a press conference. Instead, the vice president has chosen to visit a bakery in Illinois, a water facility in California, and a yarn factory in Virginia. Biden's own White House border coordinator has announced plans to resign, and, shockingly, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says that "we're on a good path at the border under the leadership of President Joe Biden." While the Biden administration refuses to address the crisis, let alone admit that there is one, House Republicans have been gathering a firsthand account of conditions at the border and urging the administration to address this crisis. Former President Donald Trump took action at the border, and any efforts to address the crisis should include restoring some of the Trump-era border protection measures such as congressionally authorized border wall construction, the "remain in Mexico" policy for asylum-seekers, and the Northern Triangle agreements. The Rio Grande sector is one of the busiest, most troubled sectors along the southern border, and Biden is willfully turning a blind eye while thousands of people are pouring across the border. Biden halted wall construction, jeopardizing security, increasing human trafficking, disrupting agricultural irrigation inside the levee, and allowing the flow of illegal drugs and weapons into our country. This had made it possible for cartels to rake in $14 million per day in February 2021 alone, as I learned from Border Patrol estimates. Congress appropriated money for more than 100 miles of border wall along the Rio Grande Valley, and only 21 miles were completed. Even Biden's own Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has floated the idea of restarting wall construction to "fill in the gaps." One of the first things Biden should do is resume construction of the border wall. Restoring the "remain in Mexico" policy should also be at the top of Biden's list. The policy provided a more orderly assessment of those crossing the border and allowed U.S. border officers to return non-Mexican asylum-seekers to locations in Mexico as their claims were adjudicated in the U.S. immigration courts. Finally, the Biden administration suspended the asylum cooperative agreements the Trump administration worked with El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras to enact. At a high level, U.S. foreign aid was contingent on cooperation, and under these agreements, certain migrants arriving in the United States would be removed and sent back to these countries to seek protection instead while the courts adjudicated the cases. The Biden administration ended these agreements and now wants to send billions of dollars to the governments of these countries ostensibly to stem the flow of illegal migration, essentially taking the welfare of the migrants out of the equation. Instead of throwing money at the problem, Biden should explore mutually beneficial agreements to require cooperation on immigration policies from these countries before providing aid. President Harry Truman famously had a sign on his desk with the phrase "The Buck Stops Here," meaning he would ultimately accept blame for a decision or something that happened under his leadership. You cannot lead from afar, and ignoring a problem will only make it worse. I encourage Biden and Harris to keep in mind Truman's advice and act. They could start by visiting the border and seeing for themselves that this is not a so-called "challenge," but indeed a crisis -- and one that is happening on their watch.

By French Hill There are millions of jobs in the United States that remain unfilled because employers struggle to find applicants with the skills required for certain positions. Apprenticeships and other forms of work-based learning are tailored to help shrink the jobs gap in the U.S. because they offer American workers the opportunity to succeed without being tied to large sums of student debt. As a former community banker and former chairman of the Little Rock Regional Chamber of Commerce, I understand that business owners and entrepreneurs know best what skills their employees need to excel in the workplace. Five years ago, I started the bipartisan Congressional Skilled American Workforce Caucus with Rep. Brenda Lawrence of Detroit to promote increased skilled workforce training. Rather than modernizing the apprenticeship system, House Democrats rejected an offer from Republicans that would embrace employer-led innovation and new models for apprenticeship programs. As written, the National Apprenticeship Act closes pathways for students and job seekers by making the existing apprenticeship system, which was created during the Great Depression, the only option. In Fiscal Year 2019, 252,000 individuals entered apprenticeships, and only 81,000 graduated from the registered system. Clearly, there is room to improve the existing system, make space for employer-led innovation, and get more Americans back to work. During committee consideration of this bill, Republicans proposed a substitute amendment that would empower job creators through flexibility. Using the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act framework, Republicans have embraced new models that would promote employer-driven innovation and new, dynamic apprenticeship programs, rather than perpetuating the flaws and rigidity of the current system. By choosing to reject extending federal funding to Industry Recognized-Apprenticeship Programs, House Democrats have curbed the momentum of bipartisan reform efforts. In doing so, liberal and progressive lawmakers have impeded the ability of the Department of Labor to provide more Americans access to quality apprenticeship opportunities. In its present form, the National Apprenticeship Act burdens job creators with overly prescriptive requirements and time-consuming paperwork. The restrictive nature of the Democrats' bill discourages new and small businesses from participating in the registered apprenticeship program and in general, puts job-generating programs in jeopardy. Congress should encourage innovation in the apprenticeship space instead of doubling down on a flawed approach for businesses and job seekers. COVID-19 has presented significant challenges for employers and left millions of Americans still without employment. We must seek solutions that get Americans back to work and revitalize our struggling industries. To accomplish this, we must cut, not add, the bureaucratic red tape that currently inhibits both sides of the employment process. We cannot allow partisan differences to limit job creation opportunities for our employers and workers -- especially during this health and economic crisis. Republicans object to the bill under consideration, but we agree on the underlying need to provide jobs for our citizens. Speaker Nancy Pelosi had the opportunity to create a modernized, bipartisan piece of legislation that reworks an important program to meet the needs of current and future Americans, but instead, the bill that we will consider today is more of the same. As members of Congress, our duty is to help hardworking families across our nation, and we must not lose sight of that focus. While the registered apprenticeship system has traditionally played a major role in our national workforce development system, it remains inadequate. Instead of trying to reform the system, we must reimagine the apprenticeship model with a focus on innovation and flexibility. This will get more Americans back to work and provide our people with promising employment opportunities for years to come. My Republican colleagues and I will continue to work towards this goal and renew the American dream.