The Biden administration is overseeing an “alarming” rise in exploitative child labor nationwide — a trend spurred by the ongoing migrant crisis at the southern border, according to Sen. Bill Cassidy.
In a pair of letters to officials at the Departments of Labor and Health and Human Services (HHS), Cassidy (R-La.) pointed to reports of an 88% uptick in illegal child labor since 2019, including in “dangerous jobs” sucꦐh as meat processing.
Federal watchdogs have also disclosed that the Biden administration “weakened” officials’ “ability to vet sponsors” who receive migran🐟t children in the US and “protect” those childrenꦅ “from risks such as trafficking,” he noted.
Now the lawmaker is demanding answers from🔴 the Labor Department’s Wage and Hour Division and HHS’ Office of Refugee Resettlement about how the agencies plan 🍃to protect unaccompanied children from exploitation.
“This years-long increase in unac🌱companied migrant children crossing the southern border under the Biden administration, and the negative incentive for these children to expose themselves to dangerous working conditions is an intolerable tragedy for which we must find an immediate and lasting solution,” Cassidy wrote to Wage and Hour Division administrator Jessica Looman.
“It is clear that the enforcement actions taken s𓂃o far against violators have not slowed this upward trend in exploitಞative child labor.”
Nearly 400,000 unaccompanied children have crossed the southern border into the US since 2021, according to HHS data , and almost all were referred by the Department of Homeland Security to the Office🦄 of Refugee Resettlement (ORR).
Reports have indicated that migrants as young as 12 years old are “working in daಞngerous jobs at all hours of the day and night,” Cassidy added, including as roofers, slaughterhouse workers and sawmill employees.
One 16-year-old Guatemalan national was killed when he was 🍌pulled into a deboning machine at a chicken plant in Mississippi last July — but Congress didn’t learn of the tragic incident until January.
The Wage and Hour Division found that were𒈔 working in the US as of last year in violation of federal labor laws — a 50% increa🎐se from 2022.
Despite havinဣg launched an Interagency Task Force to Combat Child Exploitation in February 2023, “the results do not appear to show much progress in deterring violations,” 𝔍Cassidy said.
The Labor Department’s Office of Inspector General later that year launched an investigation into the Wage and Hour Division o꧑ver the issue.
The inspec🍎tor general of HHS released in 2022 that also panned ORR for doing “the absolute minimum vetting of sponsors” to speed up the process of releasing children from immigration authorities into the US.
“As a result, there are safety issues that are likely being𝕴 overlooked,” the report states, quoting from a July 2021 letter that a supervisor sent to the office’s leadership.
That disclosure had no effect on sponsor vetting, however, as ORR in January, C༒assidy also said.
A from the HHS OIG also revealed that the office had not even been complying with its own standards, having failed to conduct background 📖checks on sponsors of children in 16% of cases.
“ORR is responsible for protecting children from ‘“’smugglers, traffickers, or others who might seek to victimize or otherwise engage the child in criminal, harmful or exploitative activity,’ which includes working dangerous jobs in exploitative conditions,” Cassidy wrote to ORR director Robin Dunn Marcos.
“These recent reports, however, expose the Biden administration’s failure to reform ORR’s sponsor vetting and child placement procedures and its inabilitജy to coordinate with other federal agencies to protect unaccompanied children.”
Reps for the L♈abor Department’s Wage and Hour Dꦗivision and the Office of Refugee Resettlement did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
