Dear Friends,

At the Center for a Humane Economy, we are focusing on dismantling the most vicious and organized forms of animal cruelty in America and seeing that people who engage in savage acts are imprisoned and fined for their grotesque offenses.

From underground dogfighting rings to open-air cockfighting operations to the sadistic production of animal crush videos, there are far too many cases of malicious cruelty in our nation. These crimes are barbaric. They are illegal under federal law. But these laws are poorly enforced.

That’s why we're proud to launch a bold, three-pronged federal legislative agenda to treat these crimes as an urgent and ongoing threat to the safety of our communities. These are not one-off or isolated problems and incidents, but they are often parts of larger networks of illegal operators engaged in a conspiracy to violate our laws. These large-scale problems and criminal networks require a federal response.

Our Plan: A Three-Pronged Federal Assault on Animal Cruelty

1. The FIGHT Act. This bipartisan bill, led by Sens. John Kennedy, R-La., and Cory Booker, D-N.J., and Reps. Don Bacon, R-Neb., and Andrea Salinas, D-Ore., strengthens the tools law enforcement needs to investigate and prosecute dogfighters and cockfighters, including a ban on shipping roosters through the U.S. mail and the establishment of a private right of action for citizens to win court orders to disassemble dogfighting and cockfighting syndicates. Animal fighting is an organized racket tied to narcotics trafficking, money laundering, illegal gambling, and acts of human violence. It is bound up with the handiwork of cartels and gangs.
2. The Animal Cruelty Enforcement (ACE) Act. Introduced by Reps. David Joyce, R-Ohio, and Joe Neguse, D-Colo., the ACE Act would create a dedicated team of prosecutors at the Department of Justice to go after perpetrators of federal animal cruelty crimes. These crimes are already on the books — now we need federal prosecutors to pursue them with vigor.
3. The FBI Animal Cruelty Taskforce (FBI ACT) Act. Just introduced with our leadership by Reps. Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., and Nicole Malliotakis, R-N.Y., this landmark bill would establish a dedicated unit of FBI agents focused exclusively on investigating animal cruelty. These agents would pursue traffickers of animal crush videos, leaders of dogfighting networks, horse sorers, and other serial abusers disrespecting the rule of law.

The Stakes Are High for Animals and People

Without dedicated investigators and prosecutors, these laws are hardly a serious deterrent to the criminals who profit from pain and relish in the bloodletting of animals.

There are up to 20 million fighting birds and 150,000 cockfighting operators in the United States. Dogfighting persists in cities and rural areas alike. Crush video makers exploit defenseless animals for clicks and cash, selling thousands of these videos to appeal to people with animal-cruelty fetishes. Can you imagine anything more sickening and morally perverted than a person conducting savage acts of cruelty for the sole purpose of selling such productions to other people who take pleasure in watching this kind of malicious mistreatment of God’s creatures?

Let me assure you of one underlying truth: When we fight cruelty, we fight crime. These acts of abuse are almost always linked to narcotics trafficking, domestic violence, illegal firearms, and even human trafficking. FBI Director Kash Patel recently put it bluntly: “Animal cruelty investigations are a precursor to larger, organized crime efforts.”

We agree. And we are acting with a strategic game plan. But now we need you to help us get these measures over the finish line.

Our Investigations at Work

Last week, we unmasked two cockfighters posing as “chicken farmers” who were systematically lobbying under the guise of a group they named the United States Gamefowl Commission to block the FIGHT Act and other federal and state laws against animal fighting. With our video in hand, and these men caught red-handed at a cockfighting derby, prosecutors should bring felony-level charges against them.

And lawmakers who took tens of thousands of dollars from these miscreants must understand who was financing their campaigns. Do they really want to be on the side of people seeking to block the FIGHT Act, the ACE Act, and the FBI ACT Act and to defend the horrors that these people deliver to animals?

Cockfighters, dogfighters, and their ilk are the only people who genuinely don’t want these laws to pass. They are the only ones with something to lose.

Click here to urge your U.S. Senators and your U.S. Representative to support the FBI ACT Act, the ACE Act, and the FIGHT Act today.

We need your continued support to see this through to the finish line and for so many of our other life-saving campaigns.

Together, these bills will give us the enforcement capacity to finally dismantle cruelty-based crime networks in America. This is our moment to protect animals, with new capacity to take on these crimes with the seriousness they deserve.

For the animals,

Wayne Pacelle President Center for a Humane Economy