The New York Times published a blockbuster report on Saturday that details massive nationwide child labor horrors taking place because of Joe Biden opening the border to unaccompanied children in 2021 after President Trump fought hard to shut down child trafficking.
The children are working to pay off their debts to cartel traffickers and their sponsors here, as well as to send remittances to their families back home. The Times found children working in factories and plants of major American companies and their suppliers across the country.
“Migrant child labor benefits both under-the-table operations and global corporations, the Times found. In Los Angeles, children stitch “Made in America” tags into J. Crew shirts. They bake dinner rolls sold at Walmart and Target, process milk used in Ben & Jerry’s ice cream and help debone chicken sold at Whole Foods. As recently as the fall, middle-schoolers made Fruit of the Loom socks in Alabama. In Michigan, children make auto parts for Ford and General Motors.”
Children stitch “Made in America” tags into shirts for J. Crew. They bake dinner rolls sold at Walmart and Target, process milk used in Ben & Jerry’s ice cream and help debone chicken sold at Whole Foods.
In the U.S., migrant child labor is everywhere. https://t.co/ZQzCpdcVX0 pic.twitter.com/IBswuxXp3C
— The New York Times (@nytimes) February 25, 2023
In the rush, many migrant children end up working some of the most punishing jobs in the country. pic.twitter.com/Hs9wN5NVgk
— The New York Times (@nytimes) February 25, 2023
A March 16, 2021 statement by Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, a Cuban immigrant, laying out Biden’s open border policy basically told the world to send their unaccompanied children to the United States (excerpt):
We are on pace to encounter more individuals on the southwest border than we have in the last 20 years. We are expelling most single adults and families. We are not expelling unaccompanied children.
…We are encountering many unaccompanied children at our southwest border every day. A child who is under the age of 18 and not accompanied by their parent or legal guardian is considered under the law to be an unaccompanied child. We are encountering six- and seven-year-old children, for example, arriving at our border without an adult. They are vulnerable children and we have ended the prior administration’s practice of expelling them.
…I came to this country as an infant, brought by parents who understood the hope and promise of America. Today, young children are arriving at our border with that same hope. We can do this.
The report by Times reporter Hannah Dreier is gut-wrenching. Excerpts via Yahoo:
….These workers are part of a new economy of exploitation: Migrant children, who have been coming into the United States without their parents in record numbers, are ending up in some of the most punishing jobs in the country, a New York Times investigation found. This shadow workforce extends across industries in every state, flouting child labor laws that have been in place for nearly a century. Twelve-year-old roofers in Florida and Tennessee. Underage slaughterhouse workers in Delaware, Mississippi and North Carolina. Children sawing planks of wood on overnight shifts in South Dakota.
Largely from Central America, the children are driven by economic desperation that was worsened by the pandemic. This labor force has been slowly growing for almost a decade, but it has exploded since 2021, while the systems meant to protect children have broken down.
…The number of unaccompanied minors entering the United States climbed to a high of 130,000 last year — three times what it was five years earlier — and this summer is expected to bring another wave.
…While HHS checks on all minors by calling them a month after they begin living with their sponsors, data obtained by the Times showed that over the past two years, the agency could not reach more than 85,000 children. Overall, the agency lost immediate contact with one-third of migrant children.
…Adolescents are twice as likely as adults to be seriously injured at work, yet recently arrived preteens and teenagers are running industrial dough mixers, driving massive earthmovers and burning their hands on hot tar as they lay down roofing shingles, the Times found.
Unaccompanied minors have had their legs torn off in factories and their spines shattered on construction sites, but most of these injuries go uncounted. The Labor Department tracks the deaths of foreign-born child workers but no longer makes them public. Reviewing state and federal safety records and public reports, the Times found a dozen cases of young migrant workers killed since 2017, the last year the Labor Department reported any.
The deaths include a 14-year-old food delivery worker who was hit by a car while on his bike at a New York City intersection; a 16-year-old who was crushed under a 35-ton tractor-scraper outside Atlanta; and a 15-year-old who fell 50 feet from a roof in Alabama where he was laying down shingles.
This is a long, detailed report. Please read the rest of it at Yahoo and pass it on to Biden voters.
Fox News reporter Griff Jenkins reported Saturday that border crossings have exploded in the federal fiscal year that started October 1, 2022:, “BREAKING: CBP Sources tell FOX News…Migrant Encounters have exceeded 1 Million mark Total Encounters FYTD23 – 1,008,217 (67.8% were Single Adults) For comparison, CBP FYTD22 thru 3/1 were 839,819 FYTD23 T42 Expulsions: 328,454 FYTD23 Known Gotaways: 354,522”
BREAKING: CBP Sources tell FOX News…
Migrant Encounters have exceeded 1 Million mark
Total Encounters FYTD23 – 1,008,217(67.8% were Single Adults)
For comparison, CBP FYTD22 thru 3/1 were 839,819
FYTD23 T42 Expulsions: 328,454FYTD23 Known Gotaways: 354,522@FoxNews
— Griff Jenkins (@GriffJenkins) February 25, 2023
Link to Times article with many informative photos:
free link (no paywall): https://t.co/GvmzGAkwkF
— Lisa Letostak (@lisaletostak) February 25, 2023