Republican Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri is calling on the FBI Director Christopher Wray to prioritize ending and investigating the mass trafficking of unaccompanied minors into the US. Reports of “explosive growth” of child exploitation in recent years have prompted Hawley to urge the FBI to take action, stating that the agency must make locating missing children and bringing criminals to justice their top priority.
The senator’s letter to Wray came in response to recent reports by the New York Times, which claimed that Biden administration officials ignored signs of an increase in forced child labor amid a rise in unaccompanied minors coming across the US border, Fox News reports.
The FBI needs to track down every child the Biden Admin has turned over to smugglers and child labor criminals – and then the FBI needs to investigate HHS and Homeland Security for what they’ve done pic.twitter.com/2erOSjbwJc
— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) April 27, 2023
Customs and Border Protection statistics show that the number of unaccompanied alien children arriving at the border has increased from 33,239 in fiscal year 2020 to over 146,000 in fiscal year 2021 and 152,000 in fiscal year 2022. So far in fiscal year 2023, over 70,000 encounters of UACs have been reported.
When child migrants are found at the border, they are placed in the custody of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and reunited with a sponsor, typically a parent or family member already in the US.
However, whistleblowers and media outlets have detailed how sponsors are exploiting the system to move children into the workforce and have them pay back their debts to smugglers. The New York Times reported that HHS was unable to contact around 85,000 minors who had been reunited with their sponsors.
Tara Lee Rodas, a whistleblower from HHS, has accused the US government of becoming a middleman in a large-scale, multi-billion-dollar child trafficking operation. She stated that bad actors seeking to profit off the lives of children are running this operation, whether intentionally or not.
🚨WATCH🚨@HawleyMO Obliterates Sec. Mayorkas on unaccompanied minors
HAWLEY: "You have at every stage facilitated this modern-day indentured servitude of minor children. Why should you not be impeached for this?"
MAYORKAS: "You are misstating the facts so terribly."
HAWLEY:… pic.twitter.com/Haf5SnkSxN
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) April 18, 2023
Republicans have linked the rise in exploitation to the policies of the Biden administration, which they say have fueled the crisis and incentivized smuggling. Hawley wrote that “the Biden administration is morally responsible for their fate” and accused HHS of loosening vetting processes for sponsors, retaliating against whistleblowers, and allowing thousands of children to be handed over to modern-day slave traders.
In addition to locating the missing minors, Hawley has called on the FBI to investigate HHS and the Department of Homeland Security for their role in facilitating the exploitation of children, in violation of the law.
The senator has requested a full report on the location of missing minors and related prosecutions by May 25.
Last month, HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra dismissed reports that the agency was unable to contact 85,000 minors, stating that the agency’s authorities are limited by Congress.
