Mayorkas Refuses to Explain Why Child Exploitation Has Exploded Under His Watch; Denies DHS Lost Track of 85,000 Migrant Children

During a Senate hearing Tuesday, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas refused to explain why an exponential surge in child smuggling and exploitation has happened under his watch and denied that the Department had lost track of 85,000 of these children.

Since the beginning of Fiscal Year 2021, 345,807 unaccompanied minors  have been allowed to enter the United States through the southwest land border, U.S. Customs and Border Protection statistics show.

As American Greatness has previously reported, the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) habitually releases migrant children to unvetted “sponsors” who force them to take on grueling jobs, or be sexually exploited. In some cases, dozens of unaccompanied alien children (UAC) have been sent to the same residence of an unvetted sponsor.

Thousands of these minors “have ended up in punishing jobs across the country—working overnight in slaughterhouses, replacing roofs, operating machinery in factories—all in violation of child labor laws,” the New York Times reported in February.

In Florida, the State Grand Jury recently released a report accusing the Biden administration of facilitating “forced migration, sale, and abuse of foreign children” through its criminally negligent immigration policies.

“Criminal history, lack of citizen status and even total refusal to submit to a background check does not disqualify sponsors from receiving a UAC,” Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody pointed out in a statement following the release of the Grand Jury’s findings. “One sponsor was given custody despite having been to Florida prison before for battery on a child,” Moody added.

Monthly calls to Health and Human Services (HHS) to report trafficking, neglect or abuse of minors placed with sponsors have exploded since the spring of 2021.

“The Biden administration “ignored or missed” this explosive growth of child labor, the NYT reported on Monday.

In March of 2021, when  images of  men, women, and children packed like sardines into “pods” and sleeping under foil blankets in overflow centers dominated the news, Susan Rice, the White House’s head of domestic policy,  “told staff members she was frustrated with the situation, according to the Times. 

Not long after that, the Department of Health and Human Services reportedly “began loosening its vetting restrictions and urging case managers to speed the process along.”

Mayorkas told Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) during the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing Tuesday that he was unaware of the number of unaccompanied children who have illegally crossed the border, but insisted that the department is “incredibly dedicated to the safety and security of those children.”

“Do you know what’s happening to these children? Have you seen this report from the New York Times: Alone and Exploited, Migrant Children Work Brutal Jobs Across the U.S.?” Hawley demanded.

Mayorkis said that he hadn’t.

Hawley displayed the chart showing the “explosive growth” of child labor since Biden came into office.

“I can’t believe this happens in the United States of America in this day and age,” Hawley chided. Citing the NYT’s report, he said, “far from home, many of these children feel intense pressure to earn money. They have to send cash back home to their families while often being in debt to their sponsors for smuggling fees, rent, and living expenses.

You taking children from other countries and putting them into indentured servitude — all facilitated by your policies. Are you proud of this record?

“Senator, horrific exploitation of children is something we do not condone,” Mayorkis replied. “You are incorrectly attributing it to out policies.

Look at the chart!” Hawley shot back. “This massive surge began when you came to office. In your first year in office there was a 342 percent surge of unaccompanied children across the border!”

Citing a CBS report, Hawley noted that the Biden administration’s policy changes had led smugglers to tell migrant youth that they had a better chance of being allowed into the country than they had under Trump.

“Meanwhile, you’ve lost track of tens of thousands of them,” he said. “The Times reviewed data that showed the government couldn’t reach more than 85,000 of these children! Who you just turned over into the hands of smugglers and these are modern day slave traders! And you’re just giving these children to them. What is going on. Why are you doing this?”

Again, Mayorkis claimed there were “a number of factual inaccuracies” in the reports Hawley cited, and began to explain what the department was doing to mitigate the crisis.

Hawley interrupted him to insist on an answer to his question.

“Why is it that you enabled 345,000 children to be smuggled across this border and then sent into the hands of modern day slave traders?” he demanded.

Hawley noted that in 2021, the Biden regime exempted minors arriving at the border without their parents from being subject to Title 42, allowing them “to come into the United States and then to be sent into the interior of the country.”

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