Senate Republicans have blasted President Joe Biden for failing “to secure the border” and for the increase in unaccompanied minors traveling to the border, accusing him of creating the “largest child trafficking ring” in the history of the United States.
In a video shared on Twitter, Republican senators such as Ted Cruz (Texas), Josh Hawley (Mo.), John Cornyn (Texas), and Lindsey Graham (S.C.) can be heard expressing their concerns for the number of unaccompanied children who are being trafficked to the southern border and into the U.S., citing the Biden Adminstration’s open border policy.
“President Biden does not care about the fate of 300,000 plus unaccompanied children that have been placed with sponsors in the United States since he became president,” Cornyn said in the opening of the video.
In the video, Senate Republicans point to various reports showing that out of the 300,000 children that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) placed with sponsors or family members in the U.S., more than 85,000 have gone missing.
In September 2021, Axios released a report detailing how 1-in-3 children placed with a sponsor or family member couldn’t be reached. During the first five months of 2021, the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) made 14,600 follow-up calls, of which 4,890 children couldn’t be reached.
Over 85,000.
— Senate Republicans (@SenateGOP) July 11, 2023
That’s how many children are missing under Joe Biden.
He has created the largest child trafficking ring in U.S. history. pic.twitter.com/zkrayHQpYj
“The Biden Administration has utterly failed,” Cruz said in the video. “It has failed to secure the border and it has encouraged parents to send their minor alien children on a dangerous trip to the United States unaccompanied,” adding that the administration has also “failed to protect these children” even after they are in the U.S.
By early 2022, the Biden Administration had lost contact with 40% of 114,000 children who had entered the U.S., roughly more than 45,000 unaccompanied minors, according to Axios.
Multiple reports have shown these unaccompanied minors are found to be working in factories, meat processing plants, or even to be involved in human smuggling operations.
The U.S. Department of Labor released a press release in February regarding more than 100 children being found to have been illegally employed by a sanitation company specializing in meat processing and slaughtering in Kieler, Wisconsin.
A Rhode Island school came under fire after it was revealed through emails that the assistant principal had solicited donations in order to pay a group that had smuggled one of the students into the U.S., according to Fox News.
“It’s a conveyor belt of children being forced through the system,” Hawley said, criticizing the HHS for taking the mindset of prioritizing getting the children “out as fast” as possible. “They go to factories. They go to slave labor.”
In February, The New York Times published a report detailing how many unaccompanied minors are working for factories and companies that produce products such as – Cheetos, Cheerios, and Lucky Charms cereal. Migrant children have also been found stitching “Made in America” tags into shirts belonging to J. Crew, processing milk which goes into Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, among many others, according to the NYT.
Brandon Judd, the president of the Border Patrol Council, wrote in an opinion article with Fox News how since Biden took office, more unaccompanied minors have been apprehended by Border Patrol agents.
Judd points to how the Biden Administration has cut back on the vetting process for the sponsors or guardians of unaccompanied minors in an effort to reduce overcrowding at Border Patrol facilities. In March 2021, the Biden Administration removed FBI fingerprint background checks for sponsors and guardians of unaccompanied minors, while still requiring caregivers to undergo criminal background checks.
“The kids are in danger. The kids are in slavery. The kids are being exploited and it should not happen in the United States of America,” Hawley says in the video.
🚨UNACCEPTABLE🚨
— Oversight Committee (@GOPoversight) April 18, 2023
▪️HHS has lost track of 85,000 migrant children
▪️Children’s sponsors aren’t properly vetted
▪️Whistleblowers were fired@HHSgov couldn’t answer basic questions about these problems in the unaccompanied alien children program.
HHS will be hearing from us soon. pic.twitter.com/2lJm4197w2
In April the subcommittee, National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs, held a hearing in which the Director of ORR Robin Dunn Marcos had been allegedly unable to answer questions regarding 85,000 unaccompanied minors who had gone missing or regarding the vetting process of sponsors.