Unaccompanied minors Archives

Tag Archive for: Unaccompanied minors

The Government Has Become the ‘FedEx of Children from the Border to Traffickers’: Expert

October 22, 2024/in Child Sex, Child Sex Trafficking, Communism, Criminal Illegal Aliens, Drug Abuse, Featured, Hot Topics, Immigration, Marxism, National Security, News, Policy, Politics, Regulation, Social Issues, Socialism, Terrorism, Waste, Fraud and Abuse/by Family Research Council

Experts are sounding the alarm on the fact that the sex trafficking of minors has more than tripled under the Biden-Harris administration. “Biden’s border policies have led to an explosion in the forced prostitution of migrants in the U.S.,” wrote The Free Press’s investigative reporter Madeleine Rowley. In fact, added an informant from the nonprofit Shepherd’s Watch, “Nearly all … sex-trafficking rings now are migrant girls,” with a notable explosion of online sex-trafficking ads of women “within the first three months of the border being open.”

During “Washington Watch with Tony Perkins” last week, Rowley explained how there’s no doubt the rise in sex trafficking “is directly tied to Biden opening the border.” Criminals are smuggling women and girls “across the border promising them a better life, promising them jobs, only to trick them and force them into prostitution after they have crossed the border.” As Family Research Council President Tony Perkins highlighted, unaccompanied “minors … are entrapped in this” by being handed off by the federal government directly “into the custody of people who are going to abuse them and exploit them.”

According to Rowley’s research, there were roughly 137,000 unaccompanied minors that crossed the border in 2023 alone. “[T]he government is tasked with vetting the sponsors that these children are released to,” she said. While “a lot of the times they’re released to … people that they know,” they’re often “released to what they call ‘category ‘three sponsors’ or ‘unrelated sponsors,’” many of whom are unvetted or the ones doing the trafficking.

It’s “just absolutely shocking and heartbreaking that our government is facilitating the exploitation of women and children,” Perkins sighed. But as guest host Jody Hice explained on Friday’s episode of “Washington Watch,” “This story certainly has been going on for years,” which only makes it that much more shocking as “new details continue to emerge that paint an absolutely heartbreaking picture of the abuse that is taking place.”

“Within the last week,” Breitbart reported, “158 unaccompanied migrant children have been sent across the Rio Grande into the small town of Eagle Pass.” These children range between the ages of five and 17 years old. According to Tara Rodas, a whistleblower who formerly worked for the Department of Health and Human Services, this crisis is not merely being allowed by the government but is being fueled by the government. “[W]hat we now know,” said Rodas, is that this “is government sponsored, taxpayer-funded child trafficking.”

“I can assure you,” she stated, “I never thought I’d be saying that.” Hice agreed, “It’s just absolutely unthinkable.” He went on to note how if it were not for whistleblowers, such as Rodas, exposing these realities, “[W]e would not even be aware of what’s been going on.” Providing further details, Rodas explained how “at the beginning of 2021, the Biden-Harris administration made a call to all federal employees,” asking them to help with the crisis of unaccompanied minors crossing the border. Rodas volunteered to offer a hand.

“I thought I was going to be coloring and doing puzzles with children,” she said. “I’m a Spanish speaker, and I thought I could be that person who would be there to greet the children and, … find out what are their plans about coming to America and living the American dream.” However, “it didn’t take very long for those illusions to evaporate,” Rodas explained, because the “children began to tell us the truth.” What those kids revealed is that many of them did not know who they were being sent to. It became clear, as Rodas described, that they were “lured here under the promise that they’re going to” get rich, only to get thrown into “modern day slavery.”

Through her first-hand experience with these children, Rodas detailed how they had “reported being sexually abused [and] being pimped out by their sponsors” — some of which “are actually gang members” from “violent criminal organizations.” It’s nothing short of “horrific,” she sighed, especially considering that taxpayer dollars are going into “vulnerable children … being shipped to known bad actors.” It’s as if we’ve become “the FedEx of children from the border to traffickers,” she lamented.

“[I]t’s a shocking story,” Rodas contended, and “people need to know about” it. “This is not humanitarian. This isn’t helping the children. They’re in slavery.” And this is why it’s appropriate to call it “government sponsored, taxpayer funded child trafficking,” Hice added, arguing how it explains how “such a horrifying thing has now become a partisan issue.” Rodas agreed, noting that “everybody should want to protect and defend children.”

Ultimately, Rodas argued, “[I]f you’re not in the box of protect and defend children … that puts you outside of all political realms.” This crisis is not a matter of red and blue, she insisted, but “we’re talking about good versus evil.” The problem is that “failed policies and policy makers” are at the heart of this “crisis because they rolled back the ability for people to come across the border,” she described. “They made it simple so that vetting is not being done. And then they opened the floodgates for these children to come across” and be taken to criminals.

It’s “unbelievable,” Hice groaned. In order to stop this crisis from getting worse, Rodas urged, “We need people who are going to put sane policies in place. We need to rescue children, and we need to seriously prosecute criminals.” And we also need people, Hice concluded, who are willing to continue putting a “spotlight on this and … deal with it courageously.”

AUTHOR

Sarah Holliday

Sarah Holliday is a reporter at The Washington Stand.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Democrats Join GOP in Alarm at Treatment of Unaccompanied Minors by Becerra’s HHS

July 27, 2023/in Culture War, Elections, Healthcare, Hot Topics, Immigration, Must Read, National Security, News, Policy, Politics, Social Issues, Waste, Fraud and Abuse/by Family Research Council

As the number of unaccompanied minors crossing the U.S. border reaches unprecedented highs, concerns are growing that the ongoing border crisis is fueling a rise in the abuse of minors through sex trafficking, forced labor, and other forms of exploitation. On Wednesday, during a House Oversight Committee hearing to address the issue, both Republicans and Democrats expressed alarm at the job performance of Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra and his agency in handling unaccompanied minors and how sponsors for the minors are vetted.

In February, a New York Times investigation revealed that 250,000 unaccompanied minors had entered the U.S. in the last two years alone, at a rate that was three times higher than it was five years ago. It has fallen to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to provide a “sponsor” to these children who are supposed to provide for and protect them from exploitation. But as a result of the massive influx, the Times noted that “the Biden White House has ramped up demands on staffers to move the children quickly out of shelters and release them to adults.” This has led to caseworkers “rush[ing] through vetting sponsors.”

Alarmingly, the Times went on to report that “over the last two years, the agency could not reach more than 85,000 children” after it attempted to contact them a month after they were placed with their sponsor. “Overall, the agency lost immediate contact with a third of migrant children.”

The Times report further detailed how many children were forced to work low-paying, hard-labor jobs by their sponsors as repayment for taking them in. Still, Becerra pressured staffers to quickly discharge children to sponsors. “If Henry Ford had seen this in his plants, he would have never become famous and rich. This is not the way you do an assembly line,” he said during a staff meeting in 2022. In March, Becerra threatened to find someone to replace Cindy Huang, the director of HHS’s Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), unless she could increase the number of discharges. She resigned a month later.

During Wednesday’s hearing, Rep. Debbie Lesko (R-Ariz.) asked Becerra if his agency inspected the homes of 100% of the prospective sponsors before granting them the sponsorship of a minor. He replied, “We will often do home studies of sponsors” instead of answering the question directly. “I guess that’s a ‘no,’” Lesko observed. She went on to point out that a family in Austin, Texas “had more than 100 children sent to it by ORR. Another Texas address had 44 children, a third had 25. … I do not think you are doing an adequate job.”

Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) further pressed Becerra on if his agency allowed 17-year-old unaccompanied males who identify as female into the private facilities of unaccompanied girls, based on HHS’s stated policy of affirming the chosen identities of transgender youth. “We make sure that we provide all the children in our care with the human rights protections and freedom from discrimination and abuse that they’re entitled to,” Becerra responded. “It should not work that way,” Crenshaw firmly replied. “It puts girls in danger, and I bet a lot of the girls are younger in age.”

Later, after Becerra refused to directly answer what his definition of a “thorough” background check was of adults who come across the border with small children claiming that they are in fact their children, Rep. Kat Cammack (R-Fla.) pointed out that HHS only uses a DNA test to verify that the child is theirs in 9% of the cases and only employs a background check in 23% of the cases.

Even Democrats expressed alarm at Becerra’s job performance. Rep. Ann Eshoo (D-Calif.) was visibly disturbed after Becerra appeared to wash his hands of minors who were vetted for placement through his agency and ended up illegally working overnight shifts at construction sites, slaughterhouses, and factories, according to a New York Times report.

“This is so unsettling, this is so unsettling,” Eshoo lamented. “These are … the innocents of the world. This is really terrible. … Reports of trafficking and abuse of immigrant children has more than doubled from 2021 to 2022. At the end of the day, as HHS secretary, the buck stops with you. So, I can hope, I can pray, I can press. … This is something that needs to be totally removed from taking place in our country. Really, I think that God’s going to hold all of us responsible if this is not addressed, and addressed the way it should be.”

AUTHOR

Dan Hart

Dan Hart is senior editor at The Washington Stand.

Obama’s Illegal Aliens Disguised as Refugees

May 2, 2016/in Featured, Immigration, Policy, Politics, Taxes/by Ann Corcoran

Below is the press release from the Center for Immigration Studies this morning. In fact this effort to expand the definition of who is a refugee is going on world wide as so-called ‘Unaccompanied Alien Children’ (largely teenage boys) are also flooding into Europe. It is not a coincidence!

Unaccompanied Alien Children arrive at U.S. border in 2014.

For nearly 9 years I’ve watched the definition of the word ‘refugee’ be stretched like a rubber band until now most in the media think that anyone on the move for any reason is a refugee!

But, that is exactly what the No-Borders gang is pushing for. When you read this remember that a legitimate refugee must prove that he/she has been persecuted for one of several reasons (such as race, religion, political persuasion).

Someone running from crime and wanting a better life does NOT a refugee make!

WASHINGTON, DC (May 2, 2016) — The Center for Immigration Studies has released a new report, “Welcoming Unaccompanied Alien Children to the United States”, analyzing the Obama administration’s persistent efforts to relocate the children of Central American illegal aliens to the United States. The report is online at http://cis.org/Welcoming-Unaccompanied-Alien-Children-to-the-United-States.

When the illegal flow of mostly teen-age boys from Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador across the border reached record levels in 2014, the administration at first tried to arrange for them to stay by presenting them as victims of trafficking. But for the immigration benefits of being trafficked to apply, there must be coercion and exploitation; this was not the case.

Next, the administration established the Central American Minors Refugee/Parole Program, to fly the young people directly to the United States. But this program requires that the family members to whom the children are delivered have some form of legal status in the U.S. Because the majority of the minors’ family members in the U.S. are illegal immigrants, the program has not been widely used.

Thus the latest initiative: a new “family reunification program” specifically designed for illegal aliens and their children. In collaboration with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the administration is planning to enable illegal aliens to have their children brought to them in the U.S., with the minors labelled as “refugees.” However, by the UN’s own admission most of these children do not qualify as refugees.

The cost to American taxpayers of reuniting illegal aliens with the children they left behind is substantial. The FY 2017 budget request for the Unaccompanied Children (UC) program totals $1.321 billion, making the cost for one UAC likely to be more than $17,000. This is more than double the cost per UAC in 2010.

Nayla Rush, a senior researcher at the Center and author of the report, writes: “We can empathize with children wishing to reunite with family members who make it to the United States before them. … We can also, however, question this administration’s policies and motives and wonder if it is in the best interest of the American people to welcome these children here. … We might even call this program what it really is: a family reunification program specially crafted for illegal aliens and their children under the cover of refugee resettlement.”

(Emphasis mine)

Go here for our very extensive archive on the problem (originally archived as Unaccompanied minors).

RELATED ARTICLES:

Trump Versus a Bi-Partisan Liberal Establishment: The Trade-Immigration Connection

NAFTA Raises Its Ugly Head: Mexico Set to Dump Toxic Oil Field Waste into Texas

Launching from Libya! When weather breaks expect “hundreds of thousands” of migrants to make their move

Too funny! Mayor of Rutland, VT says we got our heroin epidemic under control, so now let’s take some Syrian refugees

Syrians in Greece picky about where they will go, reject Ireland

Tiny Nebraska town says no to chicken plant (migrant labor one important objection)

Killers came in as ‘unaccompanied alien children’

February 12, 2016/in Culture War, Immigration, National Security, Policy, Politics/by Ann Corcoran

Killers, gangbangers and other assorted criminals came across the US Southern border in recent years and are beginning to ‘show’ themselves such as in this dreadful case reported by Leo Hohmann writing at World Net Daily:

Two Central American teens charged in the recent execution-style killing of a Massachusetts man came to the U.S. as unaccompanied alien children or UACs under President Obama’s “open-border free-for-all,” according to a Judicial Watch report.

This is a 2014 photo of some of the apprehended “children.” Obama and the religious refugee contractors want them to be legitimate asylum seekers. Lawyers ready and willing to make them Americans!

The two 17-year-old boys also have ties to the notorious MS-13 gang, according to the Boston Herald.

Upward of 130,000 women and children from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras have poured across the U.S.-Mexico border since the summer of 2014 and the administration has distributed them into communities nationwide with the help of the Catholic, Lutheran, Baptist and various evangelical churches.

WND reported Wednesday that a new study by a Catholic organization found that nearly 80 percent of those coming from Honduras were not fleeing violence but merely seeking economic opportunities.

Lawmakers want answers from the Office of Refugee Resettlement (the lead agency responsible for the whereabouts and the care of the “children” most of whom are teenage boys!)

This week two federal lawmakers – a senator and a congressman – sent a letter to the administration demanding answers on exactly how and when the teens entered the U.S. The lawmakers, Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., chair of the House Judiciary Committee, also want to know if the administration had knowledge about the suspects’ gang connections.

“Please provide a complete copy of the alien file for Jose Vasquez Ardon and Cristian Nunez-Flores,” the lawmakers state in a letter to the Department of Homeland Security and Health and Human Services, the agency that’s mostly handled the barrage of UACs and the relocation process.

There is much more, continue reading here.

We have an extensive archive on so-called ‘unaccompanied alien children’ here. Thousands of these teenage boys have been secretively distributed throughout the US. Many more are on the way in 2016!

Be sure to see this post about the squabbling resettlement agencies trying to get their cut of the federal boodle for the “children.”

RELATED ARTICLES:

Pittsburgh: Jewish agency and Islamic Center working together to bring more Syrians to the city

Angry Turkish Prez: We will open our gates and let them go through to Europe

Greenwich, CT not getting refugees anytime soon (so they think!)

DNI Clapper on Hill today: ISIS will attack US;refugee flow infiltrated

Lutheran refugee contractor convinces SD legislator to withdraw bill