Biden-Harris Failed Children Arriving Alone at US Border Senate Minority Report Says
500,000+ children crossed the southern border alone illegally under the Biden-Harris administration
Republicans on the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) just issued a disturbing (minority) report about the large numbers of unaccompanied children who have illegally crossed the U.S. Border during the Biden-Harris Administration.
The title "THE BIDEN-HARRIS ADMINISTRATION’S FAILURE TO PROTECT UNACCOMPANIED CHILDREN FROM ABUSE AND EXPLOITATION" summarizes the Republican Senators' conclusions, but the report outlines many disturbing findings. Among them:
"Under President Biden and Vice President Harris, the number of Unaccompanied Children (UCs) crossing the southern border illegally reached and remains at historic highs. More than 500,000 UCs have crossed the southern border illegally under the Biden-Harris administration alone."
"This UC influx overwhelmed The Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) - the agency that houses and cares for UCs before they are released to a sponsor to await their immigration proceedings."
"In response, ORR rapidly opened 14 emergency intake sites ... that were not state licensed, had poor living conditions, and provided little to no educational or mental health services or outdoor recreation activity ... (and) hired employees without conducting required criminal background and sex offender registry checks (leading to) allegations of sexual misconduct by staff towards minors. In order to release UCs from government custody as rapidly as possible, ORR weakened the sponsor vetting process ... placing some UCs with human traffickers who exploited these children and forced them to work illegally."
This resulted in tragedies like that this year of "a 16-year-old migrant child from Guatemala (who) was killed while cleaning machinery at a Mississippi chicken plant after being pulled into a deboning machine."
"In 2023, 5,792 minors (were found to be) working in violation of federal labor laws—an 88 percent increase since 2019 and a 50 percent increase since 2022"
Key conclusions of the GOP Senators' report:
The Administration Pushed an Early Focus on Speed Over Safety
ORR Reversed Trump-Era Policies that Protected Unaccompanied Children
The Biden-Harris Administration is Obstructing Congressional and State Investigations into the Exploitation and Trafficking of Unaccompanied Children
"While the Biden-Harris administration has wasted time evading congressional oversight, children have been trafficked, abused, maimed, and killed. While HHS was obstructing state law enforcement and treating children as goods on an assembly line, cartels got rich on child labor, exploitation, and sex and drug trafficking. This administration must be held to account for not only its failures, but also its refusal to work toward a solution for fear it would result in political retribution or embarrassment. Vulnerable children deserve more than another political shell game, and the Biden-Harris administration deserves our contempt for forcing that upon them." November 2024 Minority Report Findings of the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP)
Meanwhile, NewsNation’s Ali Bradley reports the “Border Patrol has encountered 3,260 unaccompanied children already this month—226 unaccompanied children (Monday, November 18, 2024) alone.”
What are your reactions to the findings in this report?
Share your opinion in the comments on this article!
Abrazos,
Jack Beavers
