First Lady Melania Trump is joining the House Ways and Means Committee on Wednesday afternoon for a roundtable discussion to advance legislation to protect children in foster care.
The roundtable on Capitol Hill will focus on the second aspect of the first lady’s legislative agenda after the “Take It Down Act” was signed into law last year.
The bipartisan legislation focuses on ways to “modernize the John H. Chafee Foster Care Program for Successful Transition to Adulthood (“Chafee”) to improve outcomes for youth aging out of foster care by creating stronger connections to housing, education and training programs, and other critical supports,” the Ways and Means Committee notes.
“I look forward to working with Congress tomorrow to advance new legislation designed to protect and empower individuals from the foster care community,” the first lady said in a statement Wednesday.
The first lady has been leaving her mark on domestic and global affairs throughout her husband’s second presidential term. Trump signed the Take it Down Act, which the first lady championed, making it a criminal offense to post an artificially generated or real sexually explicit image of someone without his or her consent, last May.
In November, Trump signed the Fostering the Future for American Children and Families executive order, which promotes partnerships between the public and private sectors to benefit those in foster care as they enter adulthood. The first lady signed both the Take It Down Act and the executive order along with her husband, and though her signature does not bear weight on the enactment of either, it signifies her influence in bringing both to fruition.
The first lady has facilitated four rounds of family reunifications of those displaced in the Russia-Ukraine war. Breitbart News was the first to report on the fourth round of reunifications earlier this month.