House Foreign Affairs subcommittees hear warnings that Burma’s planned vote is a sham as scam centers, aid cuts deepen crisis
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Summary
A joint House Foreign Affairs subcommittee hearing on Burma heard witnesses and Rohingya advocates warn that the junta’s December 2025 elections are engineered for legitimacy, that scam centers and transnational crime are financing the regime, and that cuts to humanitarian aid have worsened conditions for refugees in Cox’s Bazar.
The House Foreign Affairs Committee’s subcommittees on East Asia and the Pacific and on South and Central Asia held a joint hearing focused on Burma’s military rule, the Rohingya humanitarian catastrophe and the growth of transnational scam operations that witnesses said finance the junta. Chairwoman Kim opened the session by calling the December 2025 vote a “sham election” and urging Congress to act on human rights abuses and criminal networks.
Experts and a Rohingya witness told lawmakers that the military regime’s planned elections cannot be free and fair while political prisoners are detained, opposition parties are excluded and parts of the country remain outside junta control. Ambassador Kelly Curry, introduced as a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Indo-Pacific Security Initiative, said the United States and partners should refuse to recognize the vote and expand targeted sanctions. "They will be uncategorical — there’s no way they could represent a genuine expression of the will of the Burmese people," Curry said in response to the chair’s question.
The hearing linked the political crisis to organized crime. Steve Ross, a senior fellow at the Stimson Center, said the regime benefits from a sprawling criminal economy that includes scam compounds, drugs and trafficking. Ross and Curry gave overlapping estimates of the scale of illicit activity: Ross cited Americans losing about $10,000,000,000 last year to scams, while Curry described a broader scam-and-laundering ecosystem she estimated at roughly $35,000,000,000 annually. Both witnesses called for stepped-up enforcement and coordination on sanctions.
Witnesses also highlighted the humanitarian emergency facing Rohingya refugees. Lucky Karim, an executive director and Rohingya community member, said she lived for years in Cox’s Bazar and described camps holding "more than 1,300,000" people. She and lawmakers said cuts to US-funded assistance — including reductions to monthly aid cards and the loss of programs such as places at the Asian University for Women — have closed clinics and learning centers and increased trafficking and insecurity for camp residents.
Lawmakers pressed witnesses on concrete options: expanding sanctions enforcement (including on banks like the Myanmar Economic Bank), using frozen Burmese assets in managed accounts to fund assistance, appointing a senior special envoy to coordinate policy across agencies and with ASEAN, and working with Thailand to rescue and assist scam victims. Witnesses repeatedly warned that junta crackdowns on scam centers can be performative when leadership and evidence escape prior to raids.
The committee took no vote at the hearing but asked witnesses for follow-up written materials and invited members to submit questions for the record. The session adjourned after members signaled interest in crafting measures that combine sanctions, enforcement, humanitarian support and diplomatic coordination.
