Per reports, including two reports in the New York Times, one in February and one this week, there’s been a massive increase in forced child labor of migrant children since 2021.

It’s not as if DHS, HHS, nor the Department of Labor haven’t been informed about this. They have. Repeatedly. 

Ms. Brandmiller’s job was to help vet sponsors, and she had been trained to look for possible trafficking. In her first week, two cases jumped out: One man told her he was sponsoring three boys to employ them at his construction company. Another, who lived in Florida, was trying to sponsor two children who would have to work off the cost of bringing them north.

She immediately contacted supervisors working with the Department of Health and Human Services, the federal agency responsible for these children. “This is urgent,” she wrote in an email reviewed by The New York Times.

But within days, she noticed that one of the children was set to be released to the man in Florida. She wrote another email, this time asking for a supervisor’s “immediate attention” and adding that the government had already sent a 14-year-old boy to the same sponsor.

What was the response of the HHS? They revoked her building access and essentially fired her. Yep. Rather than address the very real issue, they swept it under the rug. That’s not the only instance either. 

Instead, what did the agencies do? Blame everyone ELSE, and accept zero responsibility for their roles in this mess.

H.H.S. officials said the department vetted sponsors sufficiently but could not control what happened to children after they were released. Monitoring workplaces, they said, was the job of the Department of Labor.

Officials at the Labor Department said inspectors had increased their focus on child labor and shared details about workers with H.H.S., but said it was not a welfare agency.

And White House officials said that while the two departments had passed along information about migrant child labor, the reports were not flagged as urgent and did not make clear the scope of the problem. Robyn M. Patterson, a White House spokeswoman, said in a statement that the administration was now increasing scrutiny of employers and reviewing its vetting of sponsors.

Children are being forced into labor to pay off their debts, which in some cases includes the cost of living with their sponsor! Which is egregious enough, but children are being put in danger and the Biden Administration has been ignoring this issue for nearly three years now. 

Senator Josh Hawley came loaded for bear yesterday during a hearing that put DHS Secretary Mayorkas on the hot seat once again. 

Josh Hawley put Mayorkas through the ringer today:

"You have at every stage facilitated this modern-day indentured servitude of minor children. Why should you not be impeached for this?"pic.twitter.com/zM8ts22E08

— Citizen Free Press (@CitizenFreePres) April 18, 2023

Over 300 THOUSAND children here in the U.S. with many fending for themselves, working to pay “debt” they shouldn’t have to and the only thing the Biden Administration can do is sputter “it’s not OUR fault!” and attempt to blame Donald Trump. 

Which they shouldn’t be doing considering it is policies that Mayorkas with Biden’s approval put into place that are endangering these children. Policies such as, don’t do mass workplace arrests, so we don’t scare the illegal immigrants away! 

• Cease mass worksite operations. The deployment of mass worksite operations, sometimes resulting in the simultaneous arrest of hundreds of workers, was not focused on the most pernicious aspect ofour country’s unauthorized employment challenge: exploitative employers. These highly visible operations misallocated enforcement resources while chilling, and even serving as a tool of retaliation for, worker cooperation in workplace standards investigations. Moreover, such operations are inconsistent with the Department’s September 30, 2021 Guidelines for the Enforcement of Civil Immigration Law and the individualized assessment they require. Given these concerns, please ensure we no longer conduct mass worksite operations and instead refocus our workplace enforcement efforts to better accomplish the goals outlined above.

That’s a policy developed in the fall of 2021 by the BIDEN Administration. Can’t blame Trump for that now can you? 

Then again, border security is not and never will be a priority for the Biden Administration. Illegal border crossings and the fentynal issue are of major concern, and all that Mayorkas will do is claim it is a “seasonal” thing. 

Oh sure, House Republicans have introduced legislation to try and deal with the rampant illegal immigration, and it has some well thought out reforms. Such as:

The bill spells out specific penalties and requirements, including bringing back some of the previous administration’s policies. The limit on asylum eligibility for illegal immigrants traveling to the border is one Trump-era program. Eligibility of illegal immigrants restricts them from entering the United States if they travel through another country to come to the U.S. but didn’t seek asylum in that country.

Plus the legislation includes anti-trafficking measures and stronger penalties for those who exploit children as sponsors or as child labor. 

Except that, unless we magically get a Republican majority in the Senate, this legislation will go nowhere. Meanwhile, children will suffer while the Biden Administration shoves their head in the sand and insists none of this is their fault.

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Feature Photo Credit: head in sand by francescoch via iStock, cropped and modified