H.R. 2 would prevent unaccompanied child crises.

The Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing this week on the ongoing unaccompanied minor crisis. Yes, ongoing. While border encounters have dropped to historic lows, nearly 500,000 migrant minors were released into the country during the border crisis. The consequences are still coming into focus.

• Most of them have become child laborers working in dangerous and illegal situations.
• The Biden Administration placed 11,000 unaccompanied children with unvetted sponsors; and failed to conduct home studies for 80,000 children under 12 years of age.
• 16% of unaccompanied children were given to sponsors w/o a background check; another 19% were placed before the check was finished.
• Internal reviews found evidence of fraud in over 70% of the case files.
• A government hotline for unaccompanied minors left 65,000 calls unanswered.

The solution, if Congress will accept it

The previous Congress had an opportunity to stop the crisis in its tracks and prevent it from happening again. They missed their shot. This Congress must not make the same mistake.

• Biden’s Border Crisis created a forced child labor crisis.
• H.R. 2 will keep that from happening again.
• Why hasn’t Congress passed H.R. 2?

Break the “chain of willful ignorance”

Hannah Dreier described the widespread indifference to the plight of these migrant children, during the height of the crisis, in her 2023 investigative series for the New York Times:

“The growth of migrant child labor in the United States over the past several years is a result of a chain of willful ignorance. Companies ignore the young faces in their back rooms and on their factory floors. Schools often decline to report apparent labor violations, believing it will hurt children more than help. And H.H.S. behaves as if the migrant children who melt unseen into the country are doing just fine.

“’As the government, we’ve turned a blind eye to their trafficking,’ said Doug Gilmer, the head of the Birmingham, Ala., office of Homeland Security Investigations, a federal agency that often becomes involved with immigration cases.

“Mr. Gilmer teared up as he recalled finding 13-year-olds working in meat plants; 12-year-olds working at suppliers for Hyundai and Kia, as documented last year by a Reuters investigation; and children who should have been in middle school working at commercial bakeries.”

Remember: Instead of passing H.R. 2 to STOP the border crisis, the last Senate abandoned exploited children and tried to make the policies that created the crisis permanent. This time, let’s pass H.R. 2 to secure the border forever.

“This is only the tip of the iceberg”

Chris T. Clem has been a central figure in the effort to break the “chain of willful ignorance” inside Health and Human Services (HHS). As Senior Advisor at HHS, the retired Chief Patrol Agent of the US Border Patrol stood up an internal task force inside the Office of Refugee Resettlement. He also created a “War Room” to bring multiple agencies together to find missing minors and their fraudulent sponsors. Clem testified at the Judiciary hearing this week that “over 22,000 kids have been found and over 400 sponsors have had charges filed against them.”

“This is only the tip of the iceberg,” Clem testified, “as more UACs will be found, and more criminal charges will be filed.”

Clem’s testimony included harrowing stories about a 17-year old who was molested and killed after being placed in a situation despite a “Do Not Place” recommendation after a site visit, and a 14-year old who was raped multiple times by a 30 year old man who claimed to be her brother. The Department of Justice at the time refused to prosecute.

It is not enough to secure the border now. Congress should pass H.R. 2 to secure the border forever.

Close the loopholes

Smugglers and cartels exploit a loophole in our law that prohibits the government from quickly returning unaccompanied alien children (UAC) to their homes if they are from “non-contiguous” countries (i.e. anywhere in the world except Canada and Mexico). Clem addressed this specific loophole in an exchange with Sen. Katie Britt of Alabama.

H.R. 2 would close those loopholes that Britt and Clem discuss in the clip above. The House of Representatives passed the bill last year, but the Senate refused to take it up. It would be a tragic case of indifference should Congress refuse the opportunity to revive and pass into law H.R. 2. Anything less would be a brazen display of willful ignorance.