[Senate Hearing 118-41]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


                                                           S. Hrg. 118-41

                   ENSURING THE SAFETY AND WELL-BEING
                       OF UNACCOMPANIED CHILDREN

=======================================================================

                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

                       COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
                          UNITED STATES SENATE

                    ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS

                             FIRST SESSION

                               __________

                             JUNE 14, 2023

                               __________

                          Serial No. J-118-22

                               __________

         Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary
         
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                   U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE                    
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                       COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY

                   RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois, Chair
DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California         LINDSEY O. GRAHAM, South Carolina, 
SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island             Ranking Member
AMY KLOBUCHAR, Minnesota             CHARLES E. GRASSLEY, Iowa
CHRISTOPHER A. COONS, Delaware       JOHN CORNYN, Texas
RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, Connecticut      MICHAEL S. LEE, Utah
MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii              TED CRUZ, Texas
CORY A. BOOKER, New Jersey           JOSH HAWLEY, Missouri
ALEX PADILLA, California             TOM COTTON, Arkansas
JON OSSOFF, Georgia                  JOHN KENNEDY, Louisiana
PETER WELCH, Vermont                 THOM TILLIS, North Carolina
                                     MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee
             Joseph Zogby, Chief Counsel and Staff Director
      Katherine Nikas, Republican Chief Counsel and Staff Director
                            
                            
                            C O N T E N T S

                              ----------                              

                       JUNE 14, 2023, 10:03 A.M.

                    STATEMENTS OF COMMITTEE MEMBERS

                                                                   Page

Durbin, Hon. Richard J., a U.S. Senator from the State of 
  Illinois.......................................................     1
Graham, Hon. Lindsey O., a U.S. Senator from the State of South 
  Carolina.......................................................     3
Padilla, Alex, a U.S. Senator from the State of California.......     4
Cornyn, John, a U.S. Senator from the State of Texas.............     6

                               WITNESSES

Witness List.....................................................    39
Basham, Anne, founder and chair, Interparliamentary Taskforce on 
  Human Trafficking, Fairfax Station, Virginia...................    15
    prepared statement...........................................    40
Bradley, Venus, foster parent, Durham, North Carolina............    10
    prepared statement...........................................    44
Davidson, Lorie, LCSW-C, vice president, Children and Family 
  Services, Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, Baltimore, 
  Maryland.......................................................    13
    prepared statement...........................................    48
Gerstein, Terri, director, State and Local Enforcement Project, 
  Center for Labor and a Just Economy, Harvard Law School, 
  Brooklyn, New York.............................................    17
    prepared statement...........................................    58
Ries, Lora, director, Border Security and Immigration Center, 
  Heritage Foundation, Washington, DC............................    11
    prepared statement...........................................    81

                MISCELLANEOUS SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD

Submitted by Chair Durbin:

    AFL-CIO, statement, June 14, 2023............................    87
    Child Labor Coalition, statement, June 14, 2023..............    95
    Church World Service, statement..............................    98
    Kids in Need of Defense, statement, June 14, 2023............    99
    Lutheran Social Services of the National Capital Area, 
      statement, June 14, 2023...................................   104
    Young Center for Immigrant Children's Rights, statement, June 
      14, 2023...................................................   123


 
                   ENSURING THE SAFETY AND WELL-BEING
                       OF UNACCOMPANIED CHILDREN

                              ----------                              


                        WEDNESDAY, JUNE 14, 2023

                              United States Senate,
                                Committee on the Judiciary,
                                                    Washington, DC.
    The Committee met, pursuant to notice at 10:03 a.m., in 
Room 106, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Richard J. 
Durbin, Chair of the Committee, presiding.
    Present: Senators Durbin [presiding], Whitehouse, 
Blumenthal, Booker, Padilla, Ossoff, Graham, Cornyn, Cruz, 
Hawley, Cotton, Kennedy, Tillis, and Blackburn.

          OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. RICHARD J. DURBIN,
           A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF ILLINOIS

    Chair Durbin. This hearing of the Senate Judiciary 
Committee will come to order. I want to start with a little 
history. Back in 2002, over 20 years ago, this Committee held a 
hearing on bipartisan legislation entitled the Unaccompanied 
Alien Children Protection Act. It was introduced by our 
colleague, Senator Dianne Feinstein, along with Republican 
Senator from Kansas Sam Brownback. The bill was a response to a 
bipartisan concern that unaccompanied children seeking safe 
haven in the United States were being deported back to 
countries where they were not safe and where they might be 
persecuted.
    Six years of debate followed on this issue and in 2008, 
listen carefully, the Senate unanimously passed the Trafficking 
Victims Protection Reauthorization Act, TVPRA. That bill 
included the Unaccompanied Alien Child Protection Act. It was 
signed into law, listen again, by President George W. Bush. 
Sadly, since then, the immigration debate has devolved into a 
much more partisan issue, and often then vulnerable children 
are the victims of that political battle. During the Obama 
administration, some Republicans falsely claimed that the DACA 
program, which the President initiated at my urging to protect 
Dreamers for deportation was the reason that unaccompanied 
children were fleeing to our border.
    I've heard that argument made by one Senator on the floor 
repeatedly. When the Trump administration began and 
unaccompanied children were still coming, some Republicans 
claimed the TVPRA of 2008 was really to blame. They're ignoring 
the obvious. The world was and still is in the midst of the 
worst refugee crisis in modern history. And we used to believe 
a bipartisan approach to this would have a moral and legal 
responsibility created to protect vulnerable children who are 
fleeing persecution. We've received about 10,000 or 12,000 
migrant children in the City of Chicago sent to us from the 
Governor of Texas and other Republican leaders in States. I've 
made a point of trying to meet some of these people and 
understand what led them to this desperate situation.
    It's heartbreaking. It was less than 2 weeks ago that I was 
at a Piotrowski Park shelter in the City of Chicago and met 
with 50 or 60 of these mothers and their kids. The kids are 
little kids who have made this death-defying journey to the 
United States. And you think to yourself, ``Who in their right 
mind--what parent in their right mind would subject their kids 
to the danger of that journey? How desperate they would be to 
have that happen.'' You see it over and over again. They felt 
that they couldn't feed their children, or the children 
couldn't exist in a safe way in their countries any longer, and 
they were prepared to risk their lives and the lives of their 
children to make the journey.
    This is an issue that should transcend politics. So I tried 
to be consistent in my oversight efforts, whether the President 
was Republican or Democrat. I vigorously opposed President 
Trump's inhumane family separation policy, and I immediately 
raised concerns following recent reports that unaccompanied 
children were being exploited. Ranking Member Graham and 
Immigration Subcommittee Ranking Member Cornyn, along with 
other Republican Members of the Committee, sent a letter asking 
me to hold this hearing. As I told them in response, I would 
accommodate this request because I was already working with 
Immigration Subcommittee Chair Padilla on today's hearing.
    I also asked Senators Padilla, Graham, and Cornyn to join 
me in a document request to the Department of Health and Human 
Services to learn more about what went wrong and how to fix it. 
What we must not do is weaken the TVPRA and make it easier to 
deport unaccompanied children back into harm's way. Our laws 
require that these children are screened for human trafficking, 
housed in child-appropriate settings, reunified with any family 
in the United States while they await their immigration 
proceedings. But the tragedy is that these children are still 
at risk. Migrant children have been forced to work long hours 
in extremely dangerous conditions, from meatpacking plants and 
slaughterhouses, for example.
    Well, many, many years ago when I was in college, I worked 
my way through college four straight summers in a 
slaughterhouse in East St. Louis, Illinois. I can tell you from 
my personal observation it is no place for a child. They could 
easily lose a limb or their life in this dangerous environment. 
Since 2018, our Nation has seen a nearly 70 percent increase in 
illegally employed children. Earlier this year, I demanded the 
Departments of Labor and Health and Human Services do more to 
protect these kids. Both have made some progress, but not 
enough. And let's not forget our responsibility on this side of 
the table. It's no secret that employers throughout our country 
are struggling to find workers.
    Some States like Arkansas, actually loosen child labor laws 
in the hopes of addressing workforce needs. Let's consider 
another approach. Let's reform our immigration laws and allow 
adults to meet workforce needs instead of exploiting children 
fleeing abuse. I hope today's hearing will be an opportunity to 
revive the bipartisan spirit of many years ago and discuss how 
to protect unaccompanied children who are frightened and 
traumatized.
    With that, I hand off to the Ranking Member, Senator 
Graham.

          OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. LINDSEY O. GRAHAM,
        A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF SOUTH CAROLINA

    Senator Graham. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate you 
having the hearing. I think this hearing will illustrate the 
differences between our side and yours about a problem we have 
in common. Nobody wants unaccompanied children to be abused, to 
be put in labor environments that are unhealthy. Bottom line 
is, the policies of this administration, Mr. Chairman, are not 
working. In FY 2020, there were 33,239 unaccompanied minor 
encounters at our border. In FY 2022, 2 years later, it's 
152,057. There's been a 357 percent increase regarding 
unaccompanied minors at our border.
    Have you ever asked, ``What happened?'' You should. We all 
want children to be well taken care of. But have you ever asked 
the question, ``What is it in the last 2 years that's driven 
the numbers up 357 percent?'' It's policy. The Biden 
administration has a policy that if you're an unaccompanied 
child not from Canada or Mexico, you will not be sent back to 
the country of origin. In FY 2022, the average age of an 
unaccompanied minor was around 14, 64 percent were boys.
    The countries of origin: 47 percent from Honduras, 29 
percent from El Salvador, and others 11 percent. Honduras, 
Guatemala--excuse me: Guatemala, 47 percent; Honduras, 29; El 
Salvador, 13. These three countries make up the bulk of 
unaccompanied minor encounters at the border.
    Now, why is that? If you're an unaccompanied minor from 
that country, you're not sent back, and people know it. You're 
located in the United States at taxpayer expense. You're 
enticing more, not less. Here's a solution. Have a consistent 
policy. Send children back to their home country even if 
they're not from Mexico or Canada. This will stop overnight. 
The journey to get here is hell on earth. Only God knows what 
happens to young girls in particular.
    So the reason we wanted this hearing is to highlight the 
problem and ask the Biden administration to consider changing 
policy. They have changed policy regarding post-Title 42. We're 
down to 3,500 a day, and we're celebrating that. But that's 
better than 10,000 a day. So, Mr. Chairman, the answer to why 
there's been a 357 percent increase in unaccompanied minors is 
policy. I'd love to work with you, but there's nothing we can 
do until you change your policy.
    The three countries I just named have figured out that if 
you can get an unaccompanied minor here in the United States 
they never leave. Bottom line is, the Flores decision has also 
incentivized the use of children. If you come as a family unit, 
we can't detain a child. Then, the family most likely is 
released in the United States. We've created a demand for human 
smugglers to get children involved in the smuggling process. 
Because if you can get a child, whether it's a family member or 
not, you claim it to be a family, then the chance of you being 
deported has gone way down.
    So we have incentivized the use of children in illegal 
immigration, and nothing will change until we change our 
policy. This idea of a family unit, it's obvious to me that 
more and more people in the human trafficking business, 
smuggling, have figured out that if you can get a minor child, 
not an unaccompanied adult male in the mix, the chance of the 
unit staying in the United States goes exponentially up. So, as 
we talk about the abuse, we all agree is bad, we'd like it to 
stop in terms of hiring children illegally. Count me in in 
stopping that.
    But the reason we wanted this hearing is to try to persuade 
our friends on the other side that the policy choices of the 
Biden administration are creating an unending flow of children 
to this country. The idea of having a child in a family unit, 
whether they're family or not, the incentives for the smugglers 
to use children is through the roof. And we're now seeing 
children be recycled that came here, released in the United 
States, sent back to the country of origin, and the smugglers 
use them yet again. You're never going to break this cycle 
until you change policy. And there'll never be an immigration 
deal that codifies this strategy.
    So a good-faith step in fixing our immigration problems is 
to change policy regarding unaccompanied minors. It's in the 
minor child's interest and it's in our national security 
interest and it's in our interests as a nation. This needs to 
change and stop. And a 357 percent increase in the last 2 years 
is going to continue in perpetuity until we change policy.
    Chair Durbin. Senator Graham, as you often say, ``Count me 
in,'' I hope you understand I mean it. You and I have worked on 
this issue for how long? I don't know, more than 10 years. And 
we've tried to find bipartisan solutions, sometimes angering 
people on our own parties in the process. I met last week with 
Congresswoman Veronica Escobar from El Paso, who is working on 
a bipartisan approach in the House. I hope we can talk to her 
and talk about policy changes on a bipartisan basis. Happy to 
introduce now Senator Padilla, Chairman of the Immigration 
Subcommittee.

            OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. ALEX PADILLA,
          A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

    Senator Padilla. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, 
Ranking Member Grassley and Mr. Chairman, also for the 
opportunity to co-chair this hearing focused on not just 
protecting unaccompanied children, but also taking up the 
mantle in the fight against child labor exploitation, one of 
the dark sides of our Nation's history that, sadly, we continue 
to fight today. Now, every day in America--colleagues, every 
day in our United States of America, school-aged children wake 
up and get ready for their day. But instead of putting on their 
tennis shoes and their backpacks in cities and towns across the 
country, too many of them are putting on steel-toe boots and 
work belts.
    And they're preparing to climb roofs, operate hazardous 
machinery, brave scalding hot kitchens in conditions that most 
Americans thought were outlawed long ago. These children wake 
up before the sun comes up to find day labor jobs or work in 
hazardous conditions overnight in slaughterhouses. These are no 
exaggerations. I think most Americans would be right to think 
that Congress has already acted to prevent kids from working 
dangerous jobs for a long number of hours.
    But, because of the dire financial needs of their families 
back home, coupled with the disastrous immigration policies of 
the prior administration, and a repeated willingness of 
corporations to turn a blind eye, more and more unaccompanied 
immigrant children are slipping through the cracks. Since 2018, 
just the last 5 years--since 2018, the Labor Department has 
seen an increase of 69 percent in children found to be employed 
illegally. In some instances, that's meant kids as young as 12 
having to fight tired eyes during their school day only to go 
from there to work a night shift in a job.
    For others it's meant missing school entirely, whether it's 
to put in more hours to send more money back home to their 
families or just to pay their expenses and survive here in 
America. As we will hear today from our witnesses, there are a 
few contributing factors that enable this fundamental moral 
failure to play out. While there have been some failures along 
the way to properly vet sponsors, most if not all children 
placed with sponsors could benefit from post-release services, 
especially for vulnerable minors after they are released.
    But we can't ignore the root of this problem. The reality 
is that this problem is another direct result of our broken 
immigration system. During the Trump administration, our 
immigration system became so restrictive that families could 
not come to our border to apply for asylum together. This 
forced parents to send their kids alone so at least they could 
escape to find safety. And because of that policy, the kids who 
made it here are being put in heartbreaking positions. 
Positions that they likely wouldn't be in had their parents 
been able to lawfully seek asylum with them as our laws allow.
    And so, yes, there is a larger context to consider here. 
And too often I hear my Republican colleagues complain about 
border security but refuse to take up or vote for meaningful 
reforms to our immigration laws that enjoy bipartisan support. 
And somehow, they're shocked when they learn of migrant 
children working long hours overnight in hazardous conditions? 
Or they limit the labor shortage without working to tap into 
the enormous pool of labor available to us, that's historically 
been available to us through existing visa programs and other 
areas of our immigration system.
    Now, privately I hear a lot of support for modernizing our 
immigration laws and how it would be great for business, how 
it'd be great for their local economy, their State's economy, 
our national economy, but they withhold their support for 
expanding legal pathways for migrants to come here and help 
boost our economy. So we have to acknowledge the totality of 
this problem if we are to work together to update our outdated 
immigration system. And Mr. Chair, count me in as well. But, on 
top of that, as we've learned from multiple exposes over just 
the last several months, there is a pattern of willful 
ignorance that exists in America.
    It would be misleading to say that this exploitation was 
happening entirely in the shadows. The major corporations who 
benefit from this exploitation seem more than happy to turn the 
lights off, close the door, and count their profits. And often, 
when we learn of child labor violations we hear excuses by 
ownership passing the buck to subsidiaries and contractors. We 
hear corporate value statements reiterating zero tolerance 
policies, but those policies have become hard to take seriously 
when they're repeatedly issued for damage control.
    They fall flat when the dust settles. In April of this 
year, Senator Hickenlooper and I wrote to 27 CEOs of major U.S. 
companies asking about their compliance with child labor laws. 
And here's what we heard back, well-written, carefully worded 
responses, but not much accountability. So that's not enough 
for me, because if the very companies who are employing these 
children dozens of hours each week aren't willing to take 
ownership of their shortcomings then nothing will change.
    Yes, we have the laws on the books already, but now we need 
to support the Department of Labor and the Department of 
Justice in doing their work to enforce the law and hold 
employers accountable. So I'm looking to hearing more from our 
witnesses on just how dire conditions are for these children in 
reality today in the United States of America and what they see 
as a path forward to protect them, protecting children who 
should have never been in those circumstances to begin with. 
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Chair Durbin. Thanks, Senator Padilla. And I want to 
recognize the senior Senator from Texas, Senator Cornyn, who is 
the Ranking Member of the Immigration Subcommittee. Senator 
Cornyn.

             OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN CORNYN,
             A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF TEXAS

    Senator Cornyn. Thank you, Chairman Durbin, for calling 
this hearing today in response to the letter we wrote on April 
the 27th. We mentioned in the letter that the first major 
indication of a problem with regard to what's happening to 
these children appeared in a Bloomberg story in 2021, which 
reported a Federal law enforcement investigation in which the 
Health and Human Services had released dozens of these children 
to the same sponsor--dozens to the same sponsor who exploited 
them for labor in upholstery processing and similar industries.
    And then, next year, Reuters reported that dozens of 
children had simply disappeared in the Houston area and that 
the Houston Police Department was struggling to try to locate 
them. And then, earlier this year The New York Times dropped 
two major investigative bombshell stories exposing widespread 
exploitation of unaccompanied children. We're talking about 13-
, 14-, 15-year-old kids forced to work in meatpacking plants 
and food manufacturing facilities.
    Worse, The New York Times illustrated that senior Biden 
administration officials, like Secretary of Health and Human 
Services Xavier Becerra, knew--knew about the continued--about 
this and continued to move children out of Health and Human 
Services as fast as possible by loosening vetting requirements 
for sponsors. Two former officials were also aware of this 
scandal and that these children were being exploited on a major 
scale, that includes Labor Secretary Marty Walsh and White 
House Domestic Policy Advisor Susan Rice. To get to the bottom 
of this, my colleagues and I on this side requested the 
Chairman to bring these high-level Government officials in to 
get their explanation for what happened.
    And I'm disappointed that they could not be troubled to 
appear here today. The truth is they don't care. 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. President Biden 
and his administration can't tell you where these children are. 
His administration can't tell you what they are doing, what is 
being done to them. Whether they're being exploited for labor, 
whether they're being sex trafficked, whether they're being 
abused or neglected. They simply don't care. Because if they 
did care, they would do something different.
    So, while I appreciate the appearance of every witness here 
today, the truth is that nobody here today can shed light on 
the administration's policies and why they just simply decided 
to loosen vetting requirements. This is particularly relevant 
since last week the Office of Refugee Resettlement and Health 
and Human Services published the results of its self-audit, 
grading its own papers, and guess what? They gave themselves an 
A. They said, ``No problem. Everything's all right.'' And that 
they had adhered to their own loosened vetting requirements and 
placement processes for sponsors. But this claim is laughable.
    It would be laughable if it wasn't so sad, if it didn't 
make you angry, especially given the report in The New York 
Times which based on HHS's own data shows a massive increase in 
reports of abuse and neglect just months after President Biden 
came into office.
    [Poster is displayed.]
    Senator Cornyn. This chart, which I believe appeared in the 
New York Times story, shows that in 2018, the number of calls, 
reports of trafficking and abuse of migrant children. And you 
can see for yourself what happened since the time President 
Biden came into office.
    Those numbers are skyrocketing. But the truth is these are 
just the ones that people called in about or complained about. 
Where are the other 300,000 children? They can't tell you, and 
they don't care. Well, taking a step back, the UAC, 
unaccompanied alien children crisis, is a symptom of a larger 
problem, basically, that the Biden administration has through 
its policies fomented a crisis on the border by creating pull 
factors. They let you know ahead of time if you make it to the 
border under certain circumstances, you are going to be 
welcomed into the interior of the United States, never to be 
heard from again.
    Because only 12 percent of the people who actually show up 
for an asylum hearing actually qualify. But the transnational 
criminal organizations, the coyotes, the criminals who profit 
from this, they know that as long as they can continue to move 
people across the border into the United States that the Biden 
administration will not care, will not take steps to stop it. 
And we don't know what kind of human misery is being 
experienced. It ought to make everybody here angry. But it 
makes me angry that 108,000 Americans died last year of drug 
overdoses, including 71,000 from synthetic opioids from 
precursors shipped from China to Mexico and that come across 
the border.
    And the cartels know if you flood the border with children, 
with asylum seekers, and others, that Border Patrol will be 
overwhelmed. And so here comes the drugs, 108,000. And the 
Chairman mentioned DACA, the Deferred Action on Childhood 
Arrivals. These are young people who came as children who are 
now adults. And here we are 10 years later, there's not been 
one single bill marked up here in the Judiciary Committee or 
moved across the floor that would provide them some stability. 
And they've been tied up in litigation and are currently in 
litigation in the Southern District of Texas.
    So, while some people pay lip service to the need to do 
reforms to fix the problem, nothing is being done. Our friends 
on the Democratic side happen to control the Committees, then 
the agenda. Senator Schumer decides what bills are introduced 
in the Senate as a whole and marked up and voted on, on the 
floor. We need to do better than this. We must do better than 
this. We must show that we care about the fate of these 
children by doing our jobs. And we're not doing it so far.
    Chair Durbin. Thank you, Senator Cornyn. I'd like to make a 
couple points, if I may. The hearing today is an effort to 
learn more from experts in the field on what we're facing, but 
it is not the last hearing by any means. I have invited Senator 
Cornyn and Senator Graham to join Senator Padilla and myself 
and to send letters to the agencies which Senator Cornyn has 
mentioned for specific documentary evidence as to what has 
happened particularly in the area of sponsorship and 
responsibility for these children.
    I would say that the Biden administration recently faced 
the end of Title 42, which many people thought would lead to a 
dramatic increase in people at the border. The opposite is the 
case. And when it comes to children, over the last 30 days 
since the lifting of Title 42 the average encounters of 
unaccompanied children have dropped by more than 50 percent. 
That's good news. It's not sufficient, but it's a good move in 
the right direction. The solution for this problem facing 
America and many other countries is not to export these 
children, but it's rather to find a process that is orderly, 
that reduces the number who appear at the border on an 
unaccompanied basis, and reflects our values.
    So I think that's the ultimate goal we all should share, 
and I hope we can move toward that goal. I'm now going to 
introduce the----
    Senator Cornyn. Mr. Chairman, may I just ask a question?
    Chair Durbin. Sure.
    Senator Cornyn. Am I to understand that--and I appreciate 
it that you've called this hearing, but that you expect to have 
other hearings where we'll have the Government officials 
responsible for administering these programs as witnesses?
    Chair Durbin. That's my intention, Senator Cornyn.
    Senator Cornyn. Thank you for doing that.
    Chair Durbin. I think bringing these folks in to speak to 
us followed by the documentary evidence which we're asking for 
from the administration is the proper way to approach this. And 
I'd be glad to work with you in that regard. We continue to 
have annual oversight by this Committee of the relevant 
agencies that are under our jurisdiction. But, when it comes to 
ORR and HHS that is ordinarily outside our jurisdiction, but I 
think under the rubric of immigration law that we certainly can 
pursue that.
    Senator Cornyn. Mr. Chairman, if I could just--forgive me 
for responding, but I just--you know, it feels like we're 
trying to leverage the welfare of these unaccompanied children 
for a larger immigration bill that you and I have been talking 
about for decades and have been unsuccessful in getting 
accomplished. I just think it's unfair to these children to 
leverage their fate on some unrelated immigration legislation, 
just as I feel like it's unfair to the DACA recipients who are 
awaiting some congressional action while they have been 
languishing in court for the last 10 years.
    So that's what it feels like because we're saying we can't 
do anything in this area until we deal with unrelated 
immigration issues. Am I misconstruing what you're saying?
    Chair Durbin. Yes, you are. I haven't said that, and I 
don't intend that at all. We want to move on this problem 
because of the urgency involving vulnerable and unaccompanied 
children, period. Do I believe that the solution to this 
problem is comprehensive immigration reform? Yes. You know that 
it passed in the Senate years ago because of a bipartisan 
effort, and I hope we can return to that spirit. But no, I will 
not pin the fates of these children or DACA on some 
comprehensive package.
    I'm prepared to deal with any and all of them on an 
immediate basis if we have some understanding as to what can 
pass this Committee and ultimately be successful on the floor 
of the Senate.
    Senator Cornyn. Well, you know, Mr. Chairman, you and I 
have been talking about this for, my count, 20 years.
    Chair Durbin. And?
    Senator Cornyn. And nothing has happened.
    Chair Durbin. Well, you've got to start voting for an 
immigration bill if you believe in them.
    Senator Cornyn. Well, congratulations. They got it through 
the Senate, but it didn't pass the House.
    Chair Durbin. Well----
    Senator Cornyn. It wasn't signed into law. So what have we 
accomplished?
    Chair Durbin. Well, I wish you would have supported it. It 
would have been helpful. It was a bipartisan effort, and it 
passed the United States Senate. I'm looking for a bill that 
will win at least 60 votes on the floor. I hope we have that 
same ambition and goal. At this point, I want to introduce the 
panel of witnesses. I'll welcome the Democratic witnesses and 
then turn to Senator Cornyn for the Republican witnesses.
    Our first witness is Venus Bradley. She has a personal 
story to tell us. She's fostered five unaccompanied, non-
citizen children and is adopting two sisters who came to the 
U.S. from Central America. Then, we have Lorie Davidson serving 
as vice president for Children and Family Services at Lutheran 
Immigration and Refugee Service. Our final majority witness is 
Terri Gerstein, director of the State and Local Law Enforcement 
Project at the Harvard Law School Center for Labor and a Just 
Economy, a senior fellow at the Economic Policy Institute. 
Senator Cornyn.
    Senator Cornyn. Lora Ries is the director of the Border 
Security and Immigration Center at the Heritage Foundation. She 
has over 26 years' experience in the immigration and homeland 
security arena and has worked for the Department of Homeland 
Security, the Department of Justice, and the House Judiciary 
Subcommittee on Immigration and Claims. She received her JD, as 
well as her BA, from Valparaiso University in Indiana.
    Anne Basham is the founder and chair of the 
Interparliamentary Task Force on Human Trafficking and the CEO 
of Ascend Consulting, a human rights advocacy firm. She 
previously served as a senior advisor for the Department of 
Justice, Office of Victims of Crime, where she helped develop 
strategies for more than $2 billion in Federal funding to 
address human trafficking, terrorism, sexual assault, and child 
abuse. She earned her master's degree from the University of 
Virginia. Thank you.
    Chair Durbin. Thank you, Senator Cornyn. After the 
witnesses take the oath, they'll each have 5 minutes to speak 
and then 5 minutes questioning from each Senator in the 
Committee. I'd ask the witnesses to please rise. Please raise 
your right hand.
    [Witnesses are sworn in.]
    Chair Durbin. Let the record reflect that the witnesses 
answered in the affirmative. Ms. Bradley, you're first.

           STATEMENT OF VENUS BRADLEY, FOSTER PARENT,
                     DURHAM, NORTH CAROLINA

    Ms. Bradley. Thank you. My name is Venus Bradley. My 
husband and I have been foster parents in Durham, North 
Carolina, for the past 7 years. In that time, we have taken in 
25 children ranging in age from 2 to 17. Five of them have been 
immigrant children. In March 2020, we were placed with two 
sisters who were 15 and 17 at the time. I would like to share a 
little bit about their story and with their permission, of 
course. When they were 11 and 13, it was decided that they were 
going to be sent to America to come live with their father.
    Their mother was a palm oil plantation worker. She worked 
long days, and she had her first baby at 14 years old. She knew 
the life that her children were going to have, and she was 
worried about their future. Their uncle was in the military, 
and he was beheaded. They knew who did it, and they were told 
that if they went to the police they would be killed, too. So 
their mom made the difficult decision to have a trusted 
relative take them on the long journey to the Mexican border. 
There they were taken into custody.
    They were first taken to a detention center. They were 
immediately separated because one was a teenager, so she was 
put in a different room. And the younger one describes how she 
just cried for hours, along with a lot of other kids who cried 
long into the night. She says it was really cold. They were 
just given these little aluminum blankets and not much 
information. They didn't know what was going on, and they were 
there for 2 weeks. Eventually, they were moved to a children's 
home which was a little better. There were other kids there. 
There was school. They got to watch movies.
    But there were also a lot of rumors. And the girls met kids 
who had been there for 2 or 3 years. And so they were very 
concerned about what was going to happen. They were very 
scared, and they also were still separated. They weren't 
allowed to, you know, sleep in the same room or anything like 
that. So there was still a lot of fears there. After 6 weeks, 
which was a short time, they were eventually moved to their 
father. And that relationship was fine for a while, but 
eventually turned sour and they reported abuse, and they were 
taken into foster care.
    And when no safe relatives could be found, they were moved 
to us in foster care. When they came to us, they were very 
traumatized. They didn't trust adults. They had a lot of fear. 
The youngest had nightmares nightly. She had to take sleep aids 
to go to sleep. The oldest was very parentified, which means 
that she tried to be a mom to her little sister but didn't have 
any of the emotional skills to do it. And they really struggled 
in the beginning. And we tried to help them as much as we could 
with therapy, but it took a while before they were willing to 
trust and start dreaming of a future for themselves.
    We're going to fast forward now. My oldest is 20. She just 
graduated with a cosmetology degree. She's passed her State 
boards. She's already got two job offers. My youngest just 
graduated high school on Monday. She's been accepted into a 4-
year college. She's going to major in business, and she wants 
to go into real estate, I think. And before you think that 
that's a happy ending, my girls still have a lot of obstacles 
that are in their way besides the employment authorization 
documents that we have struggled to get and maintain. And we 
also have a huge visa backlog.
    I was told it would take 3 to 8 years for my girls to get 
their green cards and that's after they've applied, which they 
did a year and a half ago. And so we are waiting, and they are 
eligible for nothing. They are not eligible for FAFSA. They're 
not eligible for student loans, scholarships, or even foster 
care finances. And that's been a real struggle for us trying to 
find them services and ways for them to grow and for them to 
actually be, you know, proud members of society, to be able to 
work, and eventually they hope to have their citizenships. They 
want to be American citizens.
    They are lucky they have us, but there's a lot of kids in 
the system who just--they don't get anything. And then, they 
have people who aren't supporting them and they're not getting 
any services to help provide for them and they're struggling. 
So my takeaway is that these are kids. They're just kids. They 
have dreams and hopes for the future, and like my daughters 
they deserve and need support and care in order to achieve 
their dreams. Thank you.
    [The prepared statement of Ms. Bradley appears as a 
submission for the record.]
    Chair Durbin. Thank you, Ms. Bradley. Ms. Ries.

     STATEMENT OF LORA RIES, DIRECTOR, BORDER SECURITY AND 
    IMMIGRATION CENTER, HERITAGE FOUNDATION, WASHINGTON, DC

    Ms. Ries. Chairman Durbin, Ranking Member Cornyn, 
Senators----
    Chair Durbin. Sorry, we can't hear you.
    Ms. Ries [continuing]. Thank you for inviting me to testify 
today on how we can ensure the safety and well-being of 
unaccompanied children. The historic border crisis our country 
is currently facing isn't only harming American communities and 
the integrity of our system, but migrants themselves, 
especially children many of whom arrive unaccompanied. Let's 
face it, this is a crisis within a crisis, and it began in 2008 
with passage of the Trafficking Victims Protection 
Reauthorization Act or TVPRA, a law that hasn't lived up to its 
name.
    If we really want to ensure the safety and well-being of 
these vulnerable children, we must be honest about what caused 
the crisis and how to end it. What started in the mid-1980s as 
the Flores class action lawsuit about immigration detention 
conditions for alien minors and to whom such minors may be 
released has turned into a multibillion-dollar legal regime 
that encourages unaccompanied minors to come on a treacherous 
journey to the U.S., requires the Federal Government to release 
them into the custody of sponsors who too often end up abusing 
or trafficking them, and according to DHS's Enforcement 
Lifecycle Report, results in 94 percent of them remaining in 
the U.S.
    Alejandro Mayorkas said repeatedly at the beginning and 
throughout his tenure as Secretary of Homeland Security that he 
would not send back unaccompanied minors. What did that tell 
parents, teenagers, and smugglers seeking to line their 
pockets? That this administration was opening the door wide 
open for unaccompanied minors to enter and stay in the U.S. And 
the parents, teens, and smugglers around the world heard it 
loud and clear. A historic 366,000 unaccompanied minors have 
been encountered just on the southwest border so far under the 
Biden administration.
    For those who closely follow border security, border data 
is tracked month by month. Yet after 28 months of record entry 
of unaccompanied minors, the Biden administration has not 
changed its policies to prevent such minors from coming here. 
Instead, the administration's response has been, ``Get them in 
faster.'' HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra was quoted by The New 
York Times complaining to staff about delays in releasing 
unaccompanied minors into the country, saying, quote, ``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,'' unquote.
    Secretary Mayorkas has likewise pushed for speedier 
processing of illegal aliens, including minors, into the U.S. 
In his joint proposed rule, Circumvention of Lawful Pathways, 
Secretary Mayorkas admits that the objective of the CBP One 
mobile application appointment scheme is for CBP, quote, ``to 
process more individuals than would otherwise be possible,'' 
unquote. Like the border crisis itself, this administration's 
handling of unaccompanied minors is intentional. And beyond the 
historically high numbers, the results have been disastrous for 
the children involved and for Americans.
    Unaccompanied children are regularly raped and exploited on 
their journey to the U.S. and their lives, sadly, do not 
improve once they enter the U.S. They are turned over to 
questionable, if not dangerous, sponsors, forced to work in 
unsafe conditions that violate child labor laws, go missing by 
HHS, and are sex trafficked. Furthermore, MS-13 and other gang 
members, who are often teenagers, easily enter the U.S. as 
unaccompanied minors. Too many Americans and migrants have 
needlessly died at the hands of vicious gang members who were 
released into our communities.
    The Biden administration has also recently made the 
nonsensical decision to stop using DNA testing of suspected 
fake families at the border. The results are very predictable, 
a return to more child smuggling, child recycling, and 
trafficking. Say you're a family and we'll take your word for 
it. Both the title and intent of Section 235 of TVPRA is, 
quote, ``enhancing efforts to combat the trafficking of 
children,'' unquote.
    And yet, from the historic volume of unaccompanied minors 
enticed by the law, the careless release of these minors to 
inadequately vetted sponsors, and the multibillion-dollar 
windfall in profits this administration's open border policies 
have given the cartels, it is clear this administration is only 
creating more abuse, exploitation, and human trafficking. 
Section 235 of the TVPRA and the Flores court interpretation 
are abject failures. Instead of exploring ways to accommodate 
the current flow of unaccompanied children, Congress should 
accept that laws and judicial orders have resulted in terrible 
consequences, and it should replace them with a rational and 
effective system to prevent the unlawful and dangerous flow of 
unaccompanied minors into the U.S. Thank you.
    [The prepared statement of Ms. Ries appears as a submission 
for the record.]
    Chair Durbin. Ms. Davidson.

 STATEMENT OF LORIE DAVIDSON, LCSW-C, VICE PRESIDENT, CHILDREN 
AND FAMILY SERVICES, LUTHERAN IMMIGRATION AND REFUGEE SERVICE, 
                      BALTIMORE, MARYLAND

    Ms. Davidson. Thank you, Chairman Durbin and Ranking Member 
Graham and Members of the Committee for the opportunity to 
appear----
    Chair Durbin. If you----
    Ms. Davidson [continuing]. Before you today.
    Chair Durbin [continuing]. Pull the microphone just a 
little bit closer. Appreciate it.
    Ms. Davidson. My name is Lorie Davidson, and I'm a licensed 
clinical social worker and the vice president for Children and 
Family Services at Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service. 
LIRS is a faith-based organization that has been serving 
refugees and immigrants for over 80 years, including 
unaccompanied children from all over the world.
    Chair Durbin. I'm sorry. You've got to use the microphone 
directly in front of you there.
    Ms. Davidson. Okay. Sorry about that. Is that better?
    Chair Durbin. Yes.
    Ms. Davidson. There we go. Okay.
    Chair Durbin. There we go.
    Ms. Davidson. Excellent. Children separated from their 
parents are among the most vulnerable populations. And when 
they arrive in the U.S., they frequently have limited support 
and significant difficulty accessing services in their 
communities. This is a result of language and cultural barriers 
and unfamiliarity with U.S. laws designed to protect children, 
such as labor laws and mandatory schooling. While considerable 
progress to safeguard UC has been made through legislation such 
as TVPRA, it is imperative that we provide additional safety 
measures both prior to and following the release of 
unaccompanied children to a sponsor.
    The custody of unaccompanied children falls within the 
purview of the Office of Refugee Resettlement which is a part 
of Health and Human Services. ORR is required to care for 
unaccompanied children until they are reunified with the 
sponsor. Prior to the release of unaccompanied children, ORR 
requires that potential sponsors complete a family 
reunification process which includes various types of 
background checks depending on the relationship of the minor 
and the proposed sponsor.
    Over the last decade, ORR has frequently changed the 
requirements for complying with background checks. Following 
the influx of 2014, where images of children under Mylar 
blankets flooded the news, ORR rolled back policies around 
background checks. The following year, Senators Portman and 
McCaskill held a hearing very similar to the one we are here 
today. By 2017, ORR stated that all required--ORR started 
requiring all categories of sponsors and household members to 
undergo extensive background checks.
    But, when the census became too high and children were 
being held in military bases, ORR began rolling back background 
check protections; 2021 brought additional changes in ORR's 
policies related to background checks. With the intention of 
releasing children to sponsors quickly, ORR adopted Field 
Guidance, which expedited releases and removed some background 
checks for certain categories of sponsors. During this period, 
cases of child labor exploitation were exposed in meatpacking 
plants. The recent cases of child labor highlighted by The New 
York Times echo the 2014 Ohio egg farm case.
    We must learn from our past mistakes. Rolling back 
background checks in times of influx cannot continue to be the 
solution to move children out of influx care facilities. ORR 
must consistently and appropriately vet sponsors based on their 
relationship to the child 100 percent of the time. LIRS 
recognizes that even when sponsors are thoroughly vetted, 
children may still find themselves in unsafe and exploitative 
situations. To mitigate these concerns, all children must be 
provided with access to in-person post-release services 
immediately following their unification with a sponsor.
    LIRS applauds ORR's efforts to expand the home study in 
post-release program. Unfortunately, there are over 18,000 
children who are waiting for home study post-release services. 
Some of whom have been on the waitlist since 2021. Post-release 
services are a highly effective way to mitigate the risk of 
exploitation and ensure the safety of children. But to do so, 
they must be implemented immediately following release and they 
must involve in-person visits. Additionally, UC need access to 
ongoing legal services post release.
    All unaccompanied children are in removal proceedings, yet 
most do not have access to legal counsel. This makes it very 
difficult for them to comply with their immigration case. 
Attorneys are also often the only trusted adult relationship 
that an unaccompanied child has and the only individual to help 
them understand their rights and to really understand if they 
are being exploited. Not only do attorneys screen children for 
protection cases, but they also assist in creating a 
repatriation plan if it's determined that it's safe for the 
child to return to their country.
    I believe that all children have a right to protection and 
that they're best cared for by their families. To ensure the 
safety and well-being of unaccompanied children in our 
communities, Congress must focus on improving protections and 
ensuring adequate resources to make sure that all unaccompanied 
children receive in-person post-release services immediately 
following their release, and that they have access to ongoing 
legal representation to safeguard against labor and other types 
of exploitation. Thank you.
    [The prepared statement of Ms. Davidson appears as a 
submission for the record.]
    Chair Durbin. Thank you. Ms. Basham.

STATEMENT OF ANNE BASHAM, FOUNDER AND CHAIR, INTERPARLIAMENTARY 
   TASKFORCE ON HUMAN TRAFFICKING, FAIRFAX STATION, VIRGINIA

    Ms. Basham. Thank you so much. Thank you, Chairman Durbin, 
Ranking Member Graham, and all Members of the Committee. It is 
an honor to testify before you today. And in this hearing, we 
have the opportunity to discuss one of the most important human 
rights issues facing our country right now. And that is the 
safety and well-being of unaccompanied children. To put this to 
you plainly, in March of this year, more than 12,000 
unaccompanied children crossed the U.S. border, and this number 
has remained relatively consistent month after month.
    Many of these children were between the ages of 11 and 15, 
the prime age targeted by sex trafficking. I am a mother of two 
teenage girls squarely within this age range, and I am 
especially distraught at the thought of the physical and sexual 
violence, human degradation, hunger, thirst that many of these 
children have experienced en route to the United States. And 
sadly, this is a prelude to the violence that many experience 
once they are in the U.S. when promises of a better life are 
shattered and many are sold repeatedly for sex and forced 
labor.
    To address the root, though, I believe it is important to 
first understand who is crossing the southern border. And I 
know this was touched on earlier by Chairman Durbin, and I 
appreciate it: 47 percent of unaccompanied children were 
apprehended in the United States from--or were apprehended in 
the United States come from Guatemala, while an additional 40 
percent come from Honduras and El Salvador. Last year, I was 
invited to speak at the Guatemalan Congress on the intersection 
between human trafficking and transnational crime.
    I have met Guatemala's President Giammattei. And 
Guatemala's Secretary Against Sexual Violence Sandy Recinos is 
a colleague and a member of the International Human Trafficking 
Task Force that I lead. In February of last year, Guatemala 
passed a law which increased prison sentences for human 
smugglers from 2 to 5 years to 10 to 30 years. Guatemalan 
leadership clearly do not want their children to leave their 
country with smugglers, nor do they want their children to face 
the unspeakable violence that often awaits them on the journey 
to and after arrival in the United States.
    Prior to arriving in the United States, these children and 
their parents are frequently in remote regions of Central 
American countries which are impoverished and somewhat isolated 
because of language barriers, which is not something that's 
often talked about. For example, Guatemala alone has 24 
different dialects. This means that it's difficult to 
communicate with parents the incredible risks that their 
children face if they leave in search of a better life. Coyotes 
are in a business, and they often trick or coerce mothers into 
paying children's hefty smuggling fees.
    And the mothers do this because they believe that a better 
life awaits their children in the United States. Unfortunately, 
for many children this is simply not the case. Human 
trafficking is big business, and unlike other human rights 
abuses, it is a transnational organized crime, and it is the 
second largest criminal enterprise in the world. It is only 
surpassed by drug trafficking. It generates more than $150 
billion annually for traffickers, and it actually funds every 
nation and movement that is currently threatening the security 
of our world today.
    And that is why there is a critical intersection between 
human trafficking and illicit finance networks. For example, to 
put this globally, the Taliban particularly support their 
operations through the opium trade. And sex trafficking is a 
key component of their funding apparatus. Unlike drugs or 
weapons, however, a person can be sold over and over again. MS-
13, one of the most notorious gangs operating in Guatemala, 
Honduras, and El Salvador, the three countries I mentioned, 
they operate similarly.
    In 2015, the U.S. Treasury Department found that money 
generated by local MS-13 clicks engaged in sex trafficking, 
drug trafficking, murder for hire, extortion, money 
laundering--and I'm going to quote the U.S. Treasury Department 
``consolidated and funneled to the group's leadership in 
Central America.'' All of these factors contribute to a 
heightened risk of human trafficking, especially for children. 
Many of the Latin American children sent across the border 
alone or with smugglers have been taken by organized criminals 
and the cartels.
    And what frequently follows, as we know and has been said 
here, is child sex trafficking or labor exploitation. We all 
know the story of The New York Times and the labor 
exploitation. But the Department of Homeland Security's HSI has 
been involved in the prosecution of sex trafficking cases 
involving children as young as 14 who were funneled across a 
human pipeline from Mexico to New York City. Other 
unaccompanied children enter the U.S. foster care system. And 
for children who have been raped, beaten, exploited, or starved 
on the long journey, this can be a very welcome transition. 
They are free from coyotes. They're shuttled through a version 
of the American life, but the U.S. foster care system is no 
sure haven.
    Certainly, many U.S. families open their doors. They do it 
with integrity and self-sacrifice. My own parents were actually 
foster parents, and I was a foster sibling. And I applaud 
people like Venus Bradley here today who give these vulnerable 
children loving homes. We need more like that. But what we 
know, and this is so important for everyone to hear, is that 
the U.S. foster care system is already overly burdened with the 
number of children in the system outpacing the number of 
available families to provide a safe home.
    And additional to that, we know that U.S.-born children in 
foster care are already the most vulnerable to trafficking. In 
fact, 60 percent--remember this, 60 percent of trafficking 
victims have been in the foster care system at one time. So 
increasing burdens on the foster care system also puts 
vulnerable children more firmly in the crosshairs of 
traffickers. So there's so much more I could say, but I know in 
2015 that President Obama made an incredible statement and he 
said, ``To the people of Latin America, don't send your 
children unaccompanied, they may not make it.''
    If more Central American parents knew the truth of what 
their children would experience, many would think again before 
relinquishing them into the hands of violent criminals. And so 
I want to close with this, our country is divided on many 
issues. We know this. But on this we can all agree no child 
should be trafficked, and no child should be abused. And 
because of this I'm very hopeful that there are creative, 
compassionate, and comprehensive solutions. And I thank you 
again, Chairman Durbin, Ranking Member Graham, and the rest of 
the Committee for your time and attention to this. Thank you.
    [The prepared statement of Ms. Basham appears as a 
submission for the record.]
    Chair Durbin. Thank you, Ms. Basham. Ms. Gerstein.

    STATEMENT OF TERRI GERSTEIN, DIRECTOR, STATE AND LOCAL 
   ENFORCEMENT PROJECT, CENTER FOR LABOR AND A JUST ECONOMY, 
             HARVARD LAW SCHOOL, BROOKLYN, NEW YORK

    Ms. Gerstein. Good morning, Chairman Durbin, Ranking Member 
Graham, and distinguished Members of the Committee. Thank you 
for the opportunity to testify today. To lay some initial 
groundwork, no one is against teenagers having jobs. What our 
child labor laws prohibit is work that is damaging to children 
in two ways. First, employers can't assign children to too many 
hours or to work at certain times of day like the night shift 
because of the harm to kids' education. Second, employers are 
not allowed to have children working on a set of hazardous 
occupations.
    These jobs were chosen based on injury and fatality data, 
and they're among the most dangerous jobs for adults, so even 
more so for children who are at higher risk of workplace 
injuries. As we've heard, we are currently experiencing a 
serious upsurge in child labor violations. The Federal Labor 
Department reports a 69 percent increase in violations in the 
last 5 years. And of course, there's been extensive media 
reporting on this as well. These cases affect children who are 
immigrants and also children born here. Some cases involve 
companies we all know.
    Chipotle, for example, paid over $9 million for child labor 
violations in Massachusetts and New Jersey. Other cases involve 
processing of products many of us eat every day like Cheerios. 
In Alabama, teenagers were working on manufacturing auto parts 
for a Hyundai supplier. In the most striking case, the Federal 
Labor Department found over 100 minors in several States 
working the night shift at meatpacking plants operated by large 
meat companies like JBS and Cargill. The children were working 
for a sanitation contractor, PSSI, that cleans the plants at 
night.
    Children were cleaning the conveyor belt and meat 
processing machines, for example. Some had chemical burns. Some 
were missing classes or falling asleep in school. This work was 
performed at the facilities of some of the biggest meat 
corporations in the world. All children are vulnerable at work, 
but immigrant children, as we've heard, are at heightened risk. 
They face language barriers, have uncertain legal status, 
limited access to resources, and they don't know U.S. laws or 
their workplace rights. As a result, too many have ended up in 
workplaces that knowingly flout our child labor laws.
    Economists have posited that unethical employers' 
compliance with the law is a function of two things, the 
likelihood of detection and the gravity of potential 
consequences. Our current system is inadequate on both fronts. 
Three changes would help. First, the Labor Department needs far 
more resources. The Wage and Hour Division enforces our child 
labor laws, as well as a minimum wage and a bucket of other 
statutes. The Division currently has around 800 investigators 
to cover all of those laws in the entire country.
    That's about 165 million workers and around 11 million 
workplaces covered by these laws, and we have only 800 
investigators to do this work. These staffing numbers are eye-
poppingly low. They're also historically low relative to prior 
decades, even though the economy has massively grown throughout 
the decades. Second, we need to hold lead corporations 
responsible for violations in their supply chains. When these 
cases come to light, large corporations deflect responsibility 
and point to contractors, subcontractors, suppliers, and 
staffing agencies.
    Major corporations have the power to prevent violations. 
They can set contractual standards in their supply chains, 
monitor subcontractors, and make it clear they will stop 
working with anyone who violates child labor laws. They can 
also bring jobs in-house. If we really want to stop the 
exploitation of children, we need legal accountability at the 
top of the chain. This would mean strict liability for child 
labor violations in a supply chain, or at the very least, 
strict liability for repeat or widespread violations.
    It would also mean the Government refusing to contract with 
lead corporations that have oppressive child labor in their 
supply chains. Third, we need stronger penalties. There are 
currently bills in Congress proposing this, which should be 
passed. But even very high penalties won't do enough if 
employers think they'll never be caught and if lead 
corporations never face consequences. This hearing is about 
ensuring the safety and well-being of unaccompanied children. 
The problem of oppressive child labor stems from unscrupulous 
employers violating the law. If employers didn't hire children 
for too many hours or assign them to do dangerous work, our 
child labor crisis would not exist. I believe we can do better. 
When teenagers go to work, migrants or U.S. born, we can and 
must keep them safe. I look forward to your questions.
    [The prepared statement of Ms. Gerstein appears as a 
submission for the record.]
    Chair Durbin. Thank you very much for your testimony. It's 
a cliche on this side of the table to say that our immigration 
system is broken. But when you hear the testimony of these five 
witnesses, you can't reach any other conclusion. From one end 
of the table to the other, you have given us a litany of 
failings of our current immigration laws. And sadly, most of 
those failings that you've talked about really relate to 
innocent and vulnerable young people who were caught up in a 
circumstance that was not their choice and whose lives are at 
stake in the process many times over. That is the reality. Ms. 
Bradley, thank you--you and your family for reaching out to 
help so many others. The two daughters that you've adopted, can 
both of them now legally work in the United States?
    Ms. Bradley. They can. Thanks to our Congresswoman, we were 
able to push through their employment authorization cards so 
that they didn't expire. So they are both eligible to work 
full--yes, one of them has a job. She's worked for 2 years, and 
the other one is able to work at a salon as soon as she signs 
the contract. So yes.
    Chair Durbin. As you mentioned, they do not qualify for 
many government programs that other children may be eligible 
for. At this point, do you see them--let me ask you, what is 
their immigration status at this moment?
    Ms. Bradley. At this point, they have a special immigration 
juvenile status, which they got when they came into foster 
care. It was approved by a judge, and they applied for their 
green cards in December 2021. And we're told we just have to 
wait three to 8 years for that to come. So that's their current 
status.
    Chair Durbin. I hope it's only 8 years.
    Ms. Bradley. Yes.
    Chair Durbin. Ms. Davidson, you've talked about attorneys 
representing these young people and said they don't all have 
legal counsel. Is that correct?
    Ms. Davidson. That is correct.
    Chair Durbin. Do they have any representation at all?
    Ms. Davidson. So, sadly, most children do not, and we want 
to make sure that kids have access.
    Chair Durbin. If you could get closer to the microphone----
    Ms. Davidson. Yes, sorry.
    Chair Durbin [continuing]. I'd appreciate it.
    Ms. Davidson. Most children do not have legal counsel, and 
it's so important because it helps them comply with their 
immigration case, but it also gives them that trusted adult 
relationship to make sure that they have someone that they can 
talk to if they're concerned about their rights.
    Chair Durbin. What about the phenomena that I've heard 
described where it's difficult to have a sponsor or even a 
member of the family to step forward because they're worried 
because of their own immigration status, of identifying 
themselves to the Government to unite with the children? Have 
you run into that situation?
    Ms. Davidson. Yes, absolutely. I think, you know, 
particularly under the last administration when it was made 
clear that sponsor information would be used against them in 
immigration enforcement. So it is really difficult for sponsors 
to come forward. And we want these kids to comply with their 
immigration case because that's where they're guaranteed a 
right to have their case heard before a judge.
    Chair Durbin. Ms. Basham, this sexual trafficking and 
sexual abuse that takes place, I mentioned earlier that I met 
with some of the migrants that were sent to Chicago from Texas 
when the Governor decided to send them up, and sat down with 
them for several hours to talk about their experiences. There 
were no children involved in this interview process, at least 
of an age that they could tell me much. But I do recall a young 
woman who was about 30 years old who could have sat at this 
panel and looked like she was at home. She was a college 
graduate who made that trip to the U.S.-Mexican border, and she 
clearly was raped in the process.
    So the worst case, obviously, is human--pardon me, child 
sexploitation. But it happens obviously at many different 
levels, and yet they still make the journey knowing that danger 
lies ahead. I couldn't agree with you more that we have to find 
a way to educate, as President Obama tried with his statement, 
the families in these other countries about the dangers if they 
try to make this journey. What more do you think we could do at 
this point?
    Ms. Basham. So that's a question that takes a lot more than 
40 seconds to answer. But I'll tell you, one of the things 
that's currently in Congress that will help right now is--I 
know TVPA is controversial, but there's a portion of the 
Frederick Douglass Trafficking Victims Protection Act that 
should be introduced shortly, and it deals with prevention 
education. And I will tell you that when it comes to human 
trafficking, the biggest gap is in victim identification. Less 
than 1 percent of victims are ever identified. And if in 
general we had more prevention education and more children were 
able to come forward themselves and self-identify, if more 
teachers were able to identify, we would see a dramatic result 
throughout the country. So I think that's one legislative fix 
that's actually currently going to be in Congress shortly.
    Chair Durbin. Thank you very much. Senator Cornyn.
    Senator Cornyn. Thank you to all the witnesses for being 
here today and sharing your perspective. I'd like to start with 
you, Ms. Basham. You've talked about the scourge, what I would 
call the evil of human trafficking. And you described the 
transit or the path of many of the victims of human trafficking 
from their home country up to the border. And then, of course, 
we've talked a little bit about how many of these children are 
unaccounted for now once they've been placed with sponsors in 
the country. Do you consider the status quo compassionate or 
humane?
    Ms. Basham. So I can't speak to current immigration--I'm 
not going to speak today to current immigration policy, but I 
will tell you that currently in the United States, there are 
far too many children who are falling through the cracks. That 
is very obvious. That's something we can all agree with. So I 
think there are--absolutely when it comes to compassionate 
responses, the most compassionate is to make sure that every 
child has a loving family and very clearly most of the children 
coming or a lot of the children coming across the border, it's 
a nightmarish experience, to put it mildly. And that's where--
well, I'll leave it with that.
    Senator Cornyn. Well, like, I wonder, you know, why would 
we expect any different outcome when the people who are mainly 
in charge of immigration policy in this country are the 
transnational criminal organizations that get rich smuggling 
people from their home country, perhaps across the border into 
the United States? This is a huge money-making proposition. As 
someone pointed out to me years ago, the cartels are really 
commodity agnostic, and I found that to be a strange way to 
describe it. But, basically, they said they don't care about 
smuggling people or money, anything that's going to make them 
money--or drugs, I should have said. They don't care whether 
they're smuggling people or drugs or anything else, weapons for 
that matter, all they care about is the money.
    And Ms. Ries, I know you've spent a lot of time looking at 
the current policies. But I would wonder if you could talk a 
little more about what you see as the consequences of the 
current policy with regard to the welfare of these children 
once they are placed with sponsors and the fact that there are 
no follow-on services that are routinely available. In fact, 
the administration doesn't even know where these children are. 
Could you talk about the welfare of the child or these 
children?
    Ms. Ries. Yes. In addition to the journey being horrific, 
as has been described by many, conditions are not necessarily 
better once they're here. And due to the volume of 
unaccompanied children among the volume of other illegal aliens 
coming to the U.S., HHS is releasing them very quickly. They've 
lowered their standards for vetting, and so some dangerous 
sponsors are taking them in. And we are seeing that HHS is not 
able to make contact with many of these unaccompanied children, 
85,000 is a number that has been cited.
    And if it is their responsibility for the care of these 
children, at the very least, it is key that enough information 
is shared and followed up on by HHS, by ORR. But you have to go 
upstream. And what is causing this is the very strong pull 
factors for unaccompanied minors to either be sent here or come 
on their own in the case of some older teens. If you turn off 
that magnet, you resolve a lot of these downstream effects.
    Senator Cornyn. So you mentioned the pull factors, which is 
what the Border Patrol has routinely told me. And of course, 
coming from Texas with a 1200-mile common border, I've spent a 
lot of time along the border talking to the people who deal 
with this public health and safety crisis, this humanitarian 
crisis on a regular basis. But they talk in terms of the push 
factors which are things like violence and poverty. We all 
understand why those would push people to take this risky 
avenue of submitting themselves to criminal organizations to be 
smuggled into another country.
    But talk a little more about the pull factors. These are 
things that the current policy does to actually make it easier 
for the cartels to smuggle people into the United States. And 
actually, it tells people, in effect, that we've got the 
welcome mat out, so please come.
    Ms. Ries. Right. When the border has been thrown open, when 
Secretary Mayorkas has said we will not return unaccompanied 
minors, when whether minors or family units are then released 
into the communities of the U.S., those are the strongest pull 
factors for more illegal immigration. The President, the Vice 
President, the Secretary can tell people, ``Don't come,'' but 
it is the results that are the strongest pull factor. When 
people south of the border learn that their friend, their 
family member got into the U.S., went to their location of 
choice in the U.S., is able to work, etc., that's the strongest 
message that goes back to both the cartels, the smugglers, and 
then more future illegal aliens.
    Senator Cornyn. Thank you.
    Chair Durbin. Senator Whitehouse.
    Senator Whitehouse. Thank you very much. Ms. Gerstein, 
there are right now States around the country attempting to 
weaken child labor protections. What do those efforts to weaken 
child labor protections portend for unaccompanied children?
    Ms. Gerstein. So yes, those are very disturbing 
developments, 14 States have had bills proposing to weaken 
child labor laws in the last couple of years. Two States have 
already passed laws weakening child labor laws, Arkansas and 
Iowa. These laws are going to put kids at risk. More kids are 
going to be in dangerous work. Iowa, for example, in certain 
circumstances is going to allow children to be working in 
hazardous occupations that are prohibited by Federal law. And 
this isn't just a question of cutting red tape.
    It's going to result in kids actually being in workplaces 
that are truly dangerous for them. I would note also that in 
Iowa--the Fair Labor Standards Act, our Federal law, is a floor 
and all employers have to follow that. And so, in Iowa, passing 
a law like this actually puts employers in a bad situation 
because it can be very confusing to them. They could be 
following the State law and find themselves facing Federal 
penalties. So the entire trend is the opposite of what we need 
right now both for U.S.-born kids, for immigrant kids, and 
unaccompanied minors.
    Senator Whitehouse. And speaking of Federal child labor 
violations, how well can major companies insulate themselves 
from accountability for persistent child labor violations 
through the use of subcontractors and staffing agencies?
    Ms. Gerstein. Many major corporations do insulate 
themselves from responsibility or try to deflect responsibility 
through using subcontractors, suppliers, staffing agencies, and 
more. Our labor law, the Fair Labor Standards Act, the 
definition of employee is to suffer or permit to work, which is 
extremely broad and really should include these circumstances. 
But the caselaw has developed in a way that makes it very hard 
to go up the chain and find a corporation to be a joint 
employer. That is something that should be fixed. There should 
be strict liability, as I said, either in regard to supply 
chains in general or certainly for repeat or widespread 
violations.
    Senator Whitehouse. Thank you. Ms. Davidson, as I 
understand it, unaccompanied children don't have a right in 
immigration proceedings to have legal counsel appointed, and 
they don't even have a right to have a guardian ad litem. I 
don't think there's a courtroom in the country where a minor 
would be put in the position of having to represent themselves 
without even a guardian ad litem. Is that a defensible 
situation? Should we try to repair that? How big of a problem 
is this problem of a lone child having to defend him or herself 
in an immigration proceeding?
    Ms. Davidson. Yes, most children do not have legal 
representation. Most unaccompanied children are trying to 
navigate this process on their own with language barriers and 
cultural barriers. And so giving access to legal counsel for 
children post release is critical. All of these children are in 
removal proceedings. We want them all to comply with their 
immigration case. And to do that they need to have someone 
who's helping them to navigate that process, so they can stay 
in compliance and the judge can determine whether or not they 
have a right to stay.
    Senator Whitehouse. It strikes me, having spent a fair 
amount of time in the law, that whether you're in family court 
or whether you're in a civil proceeding or whether you're in 
juvenile proceedings, minors don't appear in those matters 
without either legal representation or a guardian ad litem or 
both. And I'm wondering if you can think of any other 
proceedings in which children appear without benefit of either 
legal representation or a guardian?
    Ms. Davidson. I do not know of any other circumstances in 
which a 3-year-old would have to represent themselves in court. 
It is indefensible.
    Senator Whitehouse. Yes. Thank you very much. Thanks, 
Chairman.
    Chair Durbin. Senator Tillis.
    Senator Tillis. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you all for 
being here. And Mr. Chair, I understand that you and Senator 
Cornyn agree that we will be hearing from administration at a 
future hearing and getting the data. I think that that's very, 
very important if we want to solve a complex problem. The 
subject that we're discussing today is one part of a--it's 
really not that difficult policy proposition, but for the 
politics, but what I hear people on either end of the political 
spectrum here blame one administration or another.
    The only thing that I believe is absolutely true is for 
about the last 40 years there have been bipartisan failures. 
Under Republican administrations, we can point back to 1986 
with Reagan's decision to provide amnesty that created some of 
the pressures on the border. And each of the administrations 
I've observed, they've all failed. We haven't solved the 
problem. When you get into this, the reason why it's so 
important for us to get data is we've got to understand and 
come up with a common understanding of the problem.
    If we have child labor--if we have any person working 
because they're essentially forced to, the person who made the 
decision to hire them should be subject to criminal penalties 
and fines, just simply--that simple. Let's talk about policies 
to do that. But then, let's also talk about the reality that 80 
percent of the people who come to the United States and claim 
asylum are ultimately adjudicated as not having a credible fear 
claim. So how many of these children were carried across the 
border, were subjected to the kinds of atrocities that I have 
firsthand accounts of, being down at the border several times, 
because someone made a decision to come to this country, put 
their children at risk, and not have a valid, credible fear 
claim?
    What about the families that leave one country, transit to 
a safe third country, and instead of choosing to apply for 
asylum there, then risk their child's life and limb by crossing 
the Rio Grande river? Every single person crossing the border 
now, if they want a good chance of surviving, have to pay a 
toll to the transnational criminal organizations. It was 
estimated that a year and a half ago, transnational criminal 
organizations were making $800 million a year in human 
trafficking. I fully believe that many of these children who 
find themselves having to work, is in part having to pay the 
toll that they had to pay to get across the border.
    Depending upon the country, that can range anywhere from 
about $5,000 to $50,000. So the reason that we wanted a hearing 
is to baseline each and every one of the challenges that we're 
confronted with and address them separately. I personally 
believe that a parent who chooses to subject their children to 
all of the risks that come from transiting the southern border 
should be held accountable if in fact they had an opportunity 
to go to a safe third country, get them out of what I will 
stipulate was a dangerous situation in their country of origin. 
But why on earth would you not try and take the safest path to 
get here legally?
    Why on earth wouldn't you stop in a safe third country and 
say, ``I have a difficult, dangerous situation in my country. I 
have documentation to prove it, and I'm applying for asylum''? 
What's wrong with that? So, sooner or later, we have to talk 
about the reality that parents are making bad decisions in the 
thousands. Eighty percent folks, 80 percent of the people who 
apply for asylum are adjudicated by Democrat, Independent, and 
Republican judges as not having a valid, credible fear claim. 
That's a big number.
    So we have to start looking at this and teasing through it 
and then getting to immigration policies that work. Most people 
know that I've been on every bipartisan effort to try and get 
immigration reform, border security done since I've been in 
Congress for the last 9 years. But then, we talk past 
ourselves. We say, ``Well, if we just have guest worker 
programs.'' What we don't talk about is how labor unions want 
to artificially increase the rates to the point to where you 
just won't have those jobs in the United States, and they could 
be living wage jobs. But that dirty little secret from the left 
never gets brought up, but it's real and we can point to 
proposals where that's a problem.
    But I'll tell you who's watching this hearing probably more 
than anybody else. It's the cartels. When you grow an 
enterprise to $800 million a year, you can get pretty 
sophisticated. And we're letting the cartels play us like a 
piano by talking past each other and not coming up with 
sustainable, smart solutions to immigration reform, 
humanitarian accommodations for the families who are truly at 
risk and the children, and all of these other things that we 
could be working on. But my guess is in this hearing, we'll 
talk past each other quite a bit, and we're at risk of going 
another 4 or 5 years if we don't get this right in this 
Congress without any solution at all.
    And the kids suffer, Border Patrol agents will die, 100,000 
people will die of fentanyl overdoses and we'll be so close, 
but people do not have the political courage to step up and 
solve this problem. That's on us. It's not on you. Thank you, 
Mr. Chair.
    Chair Durbin. Thanks, Senator Tillis. Senator Padilla.
    Senator Padilla. Thank you, Mr. Chair. As I referenced in 
my opening remarks, there's significant reporting just in the 
last several months alone by NBC News and The New York Times 
calling our attention to the labor violations found by the 
Department of Labor. Migrant children being exploited for their 
labor. So, in response to the reporting, as you partnered with 
Senator Hickenlooper to send letters to 27 CEOs of the major 
companies accused of the wrongdoing in that most recent round 
of reporting.
    Our letter demanded they take immediate steps to stop the 
ill treatment of children. And according to the findings and 
the reporting, migrant children have reportedly been working in 
unsafe conditions, in hazardous conditions, and in other 
unlawful circumstances. We asked the CEOs to carefully examine 
their hiring procedures. We asked them to examine their 
workplace safety policies, and we asked them to review their 
compliance with wage and hour laws to prevent any further 
exploitation of children and to share with us their 
assessments.
    Now, their responses were--how should I say this?--
overwhelmingly lackluster, often filled with finger pointing, 
``Not our fault, it's a subcontractor issue.'' ``Not our fault, 
it's a subsidiary issue.'' Anything, but actually taking 
accountability. One would think that the Fair Labor Standards 
Act would protect all children from labor exploitation at all 
levels of the supply chain, but there's clearly a breakdown. My 
first question is for Ms. Gerstein. Can you explain the 
challenges that exist in enforcing child labor protections at 
all levels of the supply chain, and what would you encourage 
Congress to do to ensure that children are better protected?
    Ms. Gerstein. So you're absolutely right. The lead 
corporations do point a finger and deflect responsibility to 
suppliers and subcontractors and staffing agencies. The Fair 
Labor Standards Act defines employee very broadly, but caselaw 
treats it very narrowly and makes it very hard to get 
accountability up the supply chain. What is needed is--the 
challenge is in enforcing child labor protections, one is the 
funding limitations on the Federal Department of Labor. They're 
grossly underfunded relative to the need. Another challenge is 
the difficulty in going up the supply chain.
    These cases also are very resource intensive and difficult 
to enforce. If you look at the Federal Department of Labor's 
PSSI case, it was an investigation that involved 100--they 
found over 100 minors working at multiple States. They did 
surveillance and warrants and multiteam investigator 
investigations and interviewing many, many reluctant witnesses. 
These cases are hard to do, and the Department of Labor really 
needs the resources to do them effectively. In terms of 
liability up the supply chain, strict liability for the lead 
corporations for violations in their supply chain or at least 
strict liability when there are repeat or widespread 
violations.
    And also Government contracting, the Government can use its 
contracting abilities to not do business with lead corporations 
that have these violations in their supply chains.
    Senator Padilla. Thank you. Now, on a different note, I do 
want to tell my Republican colleagues that there is actually an 
agreement. It's undeniable that we need to crack down on 
dangerous cartels and traffickers who exploit children. It's 
absolutely necessary. However, we must also recognize that 
parents and relatives who flee persecution should not be 
treated as criminals merely for trying to keep their children 
alive. Implementing policies, as the last administration did, 
that aims to criminalize these individuals inevitably leads to 
family separations, inflicting harm upon children, leaving them 
even more susceptible to exploitation.
    Policies such as the Title 42 Public Health Order, right? 
It was a public health order, not an immigration law, which 
denied adults the chance to seek asylum, often left parents 
facing an agonizing choice. They were forced to decide between 
either staying with their children and risking continued 
persecution for the entire family or providing at least their 
children with an opportunity for stability and safety. So this 
policy created a dilemma that had profound consequences for 
many, many families, often leading to the heart-wrenching 
decisions and the exacerbation of vulnerabilities. Ms. 
Davidson, you testified that the continuous application of the 
Homeland Security Act of 2002, the TVPRA, and Flores is 
critically important to protecting kids from exploitation. Can 
you explain why a break in procedure has proven to be so 
harmful?
    Ms. Davidson. Yes, absolutely. When we're talking about 
these protections, this is the bare minimum. We're talking 
about things like giving a child access to food and water and 
to be held in humane conditions. And if we were to roll back 
any of those protections and not look at children in terms of 
their best interests and to make sure that they are in the 
least restrictive setting, that they're unified with their 
sponsor quickly, if we roll those back, we are putting children 
in grave danger. We saw over half a dozen children die in CBP 
custody under the Trump administration. And so we really have 
to prioritize these protections and make sure that they are in 
place for unaccompanied children.
    Senator Padilla. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    Chair Durbin. Thank you, Senator Padilla. Senator Hawley.
    Senator Hawley. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm glad we're 
having this hearing. And thank you to all of the witnesses. 
Thank you for being here. I want to visit with you in just a 
second. But I just want to reiterate something that I heard the 
Chairman say that I agree with, which is that there really 
ought to be Government witnesses sitting there. And I tell you 
what I'm tired of. I've had Secretary Mayorkas sit in front of 
me in a different Committee, the Homeland Security Committee, 
where I asked him at length about the outrage of 250,000 
migrant children unaccompanied crossing the border in the last 
2 years and tens of thousands of them being sold into slavery.
    Let's not mince words. They've been sold into slavery. When 
kids are being put into factories, forced to work overnight, 
forced to work in terrible conditions, they're not getting 
paid, they're not going to school, sometimes they're not 
getting fed, that's slavery. And what I heard from Secretary 
Mayorkas--don't take my word for it, you go look at the record, 
read the transcript. What he told me was, ``Oh, it's not my 
problem. We don't have anything to do with it. Not my 
problem.'' Now, we have a new report from HHS where they say 
it's not their problem. Amazing how this works. Nobody's 
responsible.
    These kids are literally being sold as slaves in the United 
States of America in the year 2023 and nobody's responsible. 
They don't want to come and testify to this Committee. You bet 
they don't. They don't want to be put under oath. They don't 
want to answer any questions. They don't want cameras here. 
They don't want to take any responsibility. Well, I tell you, 
it's somebody's fault. It's not the kids' fault. Thank God for 
The New York Times. A phrase I never thought would come out of 
my mouth.
    But really, I mean, thank the Lord that The New York Times 
did these series of reports, because otherwise we'd still be 
fed the lies--the lies from this administration that everything 
is fine and dandy, ``We know just where the kids are. It's all 
great. They're all fine.'' No, it's not.
    Is it fine that people like Carolina Yoc, who's 15 years 
old--and I apologize to her if I mispronounced her name. She's 
one of the folks, one of the young women that The New York 
Times caught up with. What is she doing? Midnight in Grand 
Rapids, Michigan, a conveyor belt carrying bags of Cheerios 
past a cluster of young workers.
    Carolina, every 10 seconds, has to stuff a sealed plastic 
bag of cereal into a passing yellow carton. It's dangerous 
work, fast-moving pulleys and gears that had torn off fingers 
and ripped open a woman's scalp. The factory was full of 
underage workers like Carolina, who'd crossed the southern 
border by themselves, vulnerable, now spending late nights bent 
over hazardous machinery in violation of child labor laws. 
Carolina says, ``Sometimes I get tired and feel sick.'' Her 
stomach often hurts. She was unsure if that was because of the 
lack of sleep, the stress from the incessant roar of the 
machines, or the worries she had for herself and her family in 
Guatemala.
    This is totally, utterly, completely unacceptable. And I am 
sick unto death of this administration coming before this 
Congress and saying, ``It's not our fault. We have nothing to 
do with it. We don't know where they are. The kids are fine. 
Somebody will do it. Somebody will get around to it.'' 
Ridiculous. Let's look at some of the things that we've learned 
about what's going on over at HHS that Secretary Becerra is 
doing. Here are some quotes from employees at HHS.
    [Poster is displayed.]
    Senator Hawley. At least five Health and Human Services 
staff members said that they were pushed out after raising 
concerns about child safety. This is all from The New York 
Times, by the way.
    ``Mr. Becerra told the Office of Refugee Resettlement 
director that if she could not increase the number of 
discharges of children, he'd find somebody who would.'' Next, 
``20 percent of kids have to be released every week or you get 
dinged.'' It's a conveyor belt of children being forced through 
the system. And what's the priority of HHS? Just get them out 
as fast as we can. They go to factories, they go to slave 
labor.
    I've written to the FBI and asked the FBI, where are the 
80,000 plus children this administration's lost? They don't 
know. I've said it's your responsibility to go get them. It's a 
direct violation of child labor laws.
    They're not doing anything. Nobody's doing anything. It's 
outrageous. It's absolutely outrageous. And the fact that the 
administration won't come and sit there and answer questions to 
this Committee is absurd, and it is nothing more than 
cowardice. They don't want to answer questions. They don't want 
to be responsible. They don't want to take responsibility for 
this. So let the record reflect that this administration has 
let tens of thousands of children be sold into slavery and they 
are doing nothing about it.
    And I hope, Mr. Chairman--I'm glad you said that we would 
be holding additional hearings. We need to have additional 
hearings. There need to be administration witnesses there, and 
we need to figure out what in the world is going on and who's 
to be held accountable for this. Because I tell you what's not 
an acceptable answer--it's not acceptable to say, ``It's not my 
problem.'' We wish the kids the best. 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. Thank you, 
Mr. Chairman.
    Chair Durbin. Senator Blumenthal.
    Senator Blumenthal. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. Thanks for 
holding this hearing, and I, too, am glad that we're going to 
have others, because I'm hoping that we'll have bipartisan 
support not only for enforcement of prohibitions against 
exploiting child labor, but also perhaps for comprehensive 
immigration reform as Senator Tillis said. We need to confront 
the broken system that currently is our immigration legal 
apparatus.
    Not only stronger border security, a faster, more reliable 
asylum process, visas for people who will have jobs that are 
vitally needed here, and a path to citizenship for our 
Dreamers, but also enforcement of labor law violations now on 
the books. And I want to ask you, Ms. Gerstein--thank you for 
your very extensive report in your testimony. What kind of 
grade would you give Federal law enforcement of our child labor 
prohibitions under OSHA?
    Ms. Gerstein. Well, the child labor prohibitions are 
located within the Fair Labor Standards Act and the Wage and 
Hour Division has responsibility for enforcing them. But, 
obviously, OSHA enforces workplace safety and health. I think, 
you know, I think, they're doing a very good job given the 
extremely limited resources that they have been provided. Our 
Federal labor agencies have been starved for funding for 
decades. They have not been supported in a way that is 
necessary to help them do their jobs. In the meantime, the 
economy has grown tremendously.
    We also have the rise, for example, of forced arbitration 
that prevents people from being able to bring cases in court 
and adds greater pressure to public agencies. The decline of 
union density, unions help make people more able to report 
violations because there's less fear of retaliation. And so, 
with all of this added pressure, the growth of the economy, the 
labor agencies are just really, really underfunded. Under the 
current acting Labor Secretary Julie Su and the incredibly--
there are so many civil servants and people within the Labor 
Department who are really doing the best that they can and 
being strategic.
    The PSSI case was really, really well investigated and well 
done, but they're not given the tools and the resources they 
need to do their job effectively.
    Senator Blumenthal. To put it very simply, our enforcement 
mechanisms are being starved?
    Ms. Gerstein. Absolutely.
    Senator Blumenthal. And they were under the previous 
administration? In fact, the number of OSHA inspectors under 
President Trump fell to the lowest number in 45 years, correct?
    Ms. Gerstein. Yes. And the Wage and Hour Division, for 
example, had 400 more inspectors in the late 1970s than we have 
now. And one expert did some calculations and found that if you 
look at the number of investigators to workplaces, that Wage 
and Hour at its inception in the 1930s had 64 times as many 
investigators per workplace as it does now.
    Senator Blumenthal. And having been a prosecutor, I think 
we have a number of prosecutors on the Committee, deterrence 
depends on enforcement. Respect for the law depends on reliable 
and effective apprehension and prosecution. It also depends on 
penalties. Right now, the maximum penalty, I think, is $15,000 
for violating the child labor laws. Is that correct?
    Ms. Gerstein. Yes, it's a little over $15,000.
    Senator Blumenthal. And would you agree that increasing the 
penalties would also have a strong effect in deterring these 
kinds of violations and protecting children?
    Ms. Gerstein. I think it's critical that we increase the 
penalties. I think that alone will be inadequate unless funding 
is also increased, and unless we find a way to hold lead 
corporations responsible and accountable.
    Senator Blumenthal. So I invite my Republican colleagues 
who speak vociferously and vehemently on this topic to join the 
Child Labor Prevention Act, which would increase the maximum 
fines for violations and establish new criminal penalties, now 
we're talking, criminal penalties for child labor and hold 
employers accountable. There's also the Child Labor 
Exploitation Accountability Act, which is sponsored by our 
colleague, Senator Booker. I am a co-sponsor of these measures. 
But, unless we take these kinds of practical steps, resources, 
penalties, more effective enforcement, we can make all the 
speeches we want, we can use all the rhetoric we please, but it 
won't have an effect on employers who exploit children because 
for them it's all about the money. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Chair Durbin. Thank you, Senator Blumenthal. Since the 
Senator for Missouri is still here, there are two points I'd 
like to make about--that he mentioned in testimony. We did not 
invite representatives of HHS or DHS to this hearing today. We 
did not today. What we have done with these expert witnesses is 
have the first hearing. We are having a document production. I 
invited Senator Graham, Senator Cornyn to join Senator Padilla 
and myself for documentation to follow forward.
    On the 85,000 sponsors--or children that are unaccounted 
for, it is my understanding that after they have identified--
ORR has identified a sponsor and the children are placed with 
that sponsor, the follow-up to find out how they are doing is a 
very poor one on my estimation. It's a series of telephone 
calls. Three telephone calls to the sponsor, and if they have 
not answered after the third call, they're listed as not being 
reached. We had testimony here from witnesses that these young 
people have no legal representation necessarily. And so it's up 
to the sponsor to link up with ORR, and it's not happening, 
which I think is a deficiency in the system. That's very 
obvious. I think Senator Ossoff is next.
    Senator Ossoff. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just want to 
associate myself with Senator Blumenthal's remarks.
    Chair Durbin. Excuse me, Senator Ossoff. I've made a 
grievous error.
    Senator Ossoff. Wow. We'll get through this together, Mr. 
Chairman.
    Chair Durbin. Senator----
    Senator Ossoff. It's all right, you know, it's all right.
    Chair Durbin. Senator Graham is next. I'm sorry.
    Senator Graham. I'll be brief. Senator Hawley, yes, we do 
need to have the administration here and hopefully we will. So 
let's see if we can find some common ground here. Of all the 
witnesses, how many of you agree with the following statement 
that the system is broken and needs to be fixed? Who thinks the 
system is working? Let's do it the other way. Raise your hand. 
Well, nobody raised their hand. So bottom line is I think it's 
broken, and I'd like to fix it. Now, how do you fix it? You 
punish people who exploit children as one fix. You change your 
policy so it's not so incentivized to have unaccompanied minors 
come. Ms. ``Gerstein,'' is that right?
    Ms. Gerstein. Yes, that's right.
    Senator Graham. Why do you think there's been a 300 plus 
percent increase in unaccompanied minors coming to the border 
since 2020?
    Ms. Gerstein. I'm not here to talk about that today. My 
expertise is in labor law enforcement.
    Senator Graham. Fair enough. Ms. Basham, can you give us an 
answer to that question?
    Ms. Basham. Well, I don't know for certain, but I will tell 
you this, that it's probably a combination of factors. And I do 
know when it comes to human trafficking in general we can talk 
about all sorts of things, but the root cause is actually the 
criminals themselves. And so, when we talk about push factors 
and pull factors, those have to be addressed because at the end 
of the day it's a crime of luring.
    So they are luring the mothers to oftentimes hand over 
their children and they don't really know what's ahead of them. 
So I know Chairman Durbin spoke of, you know, a terrible 
testimony that you'd heard in Chicago, and I do not believe 
that many of those who are coming know what lies ahead, that's 
first. And I also believe that the root is actually the 
criminals themselves. And so, as I think Senator Tillis said 
earlier, you know, this is really a crime where we are dealing 
with--they're making money off the sale of people.
    They could be making money off the sale of drugs, they 
could be making money off the sale of weapons, but they're 
making money off the sale of people. And so you have to deal 
with that one.
    Senator Graham. Is the Taliban involved in this, you 
mentioned?
    Ms. Basham. So the Taliban, I don't believe--I have no 
evidence of that directly with this. But I will tell you that 
sex trafficking itself is a huge money-making operation for 
every single terrorist network in the world. So, whether we're 
dealing with ISIS or we're dealing with Boko Haram in West 
Africa, whether we're dealing with what I would call 
adversarial nations, they all use versions of human trafficking 
to fund their operations. All of them.
    Senator Graham. So, Mr. Chairman, there are three 
countries, Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador, that make up 
the vast majority of unaccompanied minors. So I would recommend 
that we have the ambassadors of those countries come and talk 
to the Committee. We don't have to do it publicly, but 
privately and see if we can find some kind of agreement with 
the countries to do more on their end. I'm willing to help them 
do more. I'm certainly willing to punish them if they don't. So 
it seems to me that one of the reasons you have so many more 
coming is that the narrative is if you get an unaccompanied 
child to the United States, chances are they're not going to be 
sent back to these three countries.
    We need to change our policy and treat these three 
countries and really all countries as if they were Canada and 
Mexico. This noncontiguous policy is incentivizing this. And 
the money to be made--Ms. Basham, I will go back to you. The 
average unaccompanied minor doesn't just leave the house and 
walk to America. Somebody guides them through. Is that correct?
    Ms. Basham. Correct.
    Senator Graham. And who are these somebodies?
    Ms. Basham. Smugglers.
    Senator Graham. Smugglers?
    Ms. Basham. Coyotes.
    Senator Graham. So there is a criminal enterprise built 
around unaccompanied minors, and we know what countries are the 
biggest offenders. So why don't we start, Mr. Chairman, with 
trying to find some agreement with these countries to deal with 
this problem? And I'm willing to do incentives, carrot sticks, 
maybe that will help. It can't hurt. When it comes to stopping 
the problem, you're going to need immigration reform. And I'm 
hoping we can find some foothold on immigration reform. But the 
explosion in numbers, 300-and-something percent increase in 2 
years, there's a way to stop it if you want to and slow it back 
down and get the numbers down.
    Mr. Chairman, that's going to require a policy change. This 
administration has to come to grips with the fact that their 
policies are failing miserably in this area. Thank you.
    Chair Durbin. I'll sign up for that meeting with the 
ambassadors. That's a good idea. Now, let's try Senator Ossoff.
    Senator Ossoff. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for 
holding this hearing. Thank you to the panelists for your hard 
work and for lending your expertise to the Senate. I think for 
all Americans and particularly for parents, it's just heart-
wrenching to hear, to know what so many children are going 
through who are in such vulnerable positions and let down at 
every stage along the way. So I just want to actually just open 
this up and ask each of you to make one recommendation to 
Congress that you think is practical and achievable right now 
to reduce the suffering of vulnerable children who are entering 
our country unaccompanied. Beginning with you, please, Ms. 
Gerstein.
    Ms. Gerstein. Adequately fund labor enforcement and create 
up chain liability. I know that's two, but I said it quickly.
    Senator Ossoff. Ms. Basham?
    Ms. Basham. I think increasing victim identification, 
specifically through education widespread throughout the school 
systems.
    Senator Ossoff. Ms. Davidson?
    Ms. Davidson. Need to adequately resource post-release 
services and legal services to make sure children are 
protected.
    Senator Ossoff. Ms. Ries?
    Ms. Ries. Secure the border to prevent the flow.
    Senator Ossoff. Ms. Bradley?
    Ms. Bradley. I will repeat what Ms. Davidson said as well, 
that being able to make sure that the children are protected 
after they have been released to their sponsors would be good.
    Senator Ossoff. Thank you, Ms. Bradley. And Ms. Davidson, 
I've co-sponsored Senator Hirono's bill, the Fair Day in Court 
for Kids Act, to ensure that unaccompanied minors do have 
representation as they move through the adjudication process. 
Can you explain to the Committee how a lack of legal 
representation impacts an unaccompanied child who is moving 
through adjudication or detention or the ORR system, please?
    Ms. Davidson. Absolutely. So unaccompanied children are 
some of the most vulnerable children. Most of these kids don't 
speak English. They don't have a strong understanding of how 
the immigration system works, yet they are in removal 
proceedings. And so it's imperative that these children have 
legal counsel, so that they have their day in court that 
they're able to share their story, and then a judge is going to 
determine whether or not they qualify for relief. And without 
that attorney, I mean, it's just ludicrous to think of small 
children having to represent themselves in immigration court. 
And so making sure we have resources for legal services for 
children post release is critical.
    Senator Ossoff. Ms. Davidson, I want to talk about the 
unaccompanied children who end up in foster care. And quite a 
number do wind up in foster care for some period of time. 
Senator Blackburn and I have launched an inquiry focused on the 
abuse and neglect of children in foster care in the United 
States. What sort of process, in your view, Ms. Davidson, 
should we undertake to ensure that unaccompanied minors who 
wind up in foster care systems don't suffer abuse or neglect or 
wind up lost to the system?
    Ms. Davidson. Yes, I think first we want to work on 
preventative measures. So making sure that children and family 
have the support that they need, so that we can care for them 
without having to put children into foster care unnecessarily. 
But children in foster care need to be protected. And we need 
to make sure that local Child Protective Services understand 
some of the additional vulnerabilities of unaccompanied 
children, such as the fact that they have no legal immigration 
status. And once we have really provided additional training 
for CPS to understand the needs of these children, I think we 
protect them because we want children to feel like they have 
that trusted adult. Somebody that they can tell if they're 
worried about abuse or neglect.
    Senator Ossoff. Thank you, Ms. Davidson. Thank you, Mr. 
Chairman.
    Chair Durbin. Senator Blackburn.
    Senator Blackburn. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I'm so 
pleased that Senator Ossoff mentioned the work that we're doing 
looking at foster care. I think that's going to be important to 
making certain that children are properly cared for. Mr. 
Chairman, I know that you and Senator Hawley discussed the fact 
that we have no Government representative here today. And HHS--
--
    Chair Durbin. I mentioned they were not invited.
    Senator Blackburn. I think that they're--my understanding 
was that there was a choice not to invite someone. The point 
is, Secretary Becerra needs to come before us. I've got a 
letter I sent to him on April 27th. It was after a hearing at 
the Finance Committee where he could not give me an answer of 
what has happened to 85,000 children--85,000 unaccompanied 
children. HHS is responsible for them, and they can't find 
them. They don't know if they're dead or alive or trafficked or 
being worked because they can't find them. The Office of 
Refugee Resettlement has lost about a third of the children 
that they're supposed to be caring for.
    I think this is shameful. I have not received a response 
from the Secretary on what has happened to 85,000 children. I 
will ask to put my letter in the record because he has had this 
time. The point is, they don't know where these children are 
and they cannot find them, and they're not doing anything about 
it. I think that it is shameful, and we need to call him before 
this Committee and find out what has happened with these 85,000 
children that they cannot find. Ms. Ries, I want to come to 
you. You mentioned the southern border as something that could 
be done to stem this.
    I've been on the border several times. I see exactly what 
you're talking about. And it is why last week I introduced the 
End Child Trafficking Now Act. It would require a DNA test to 
establish familial relationship. This is something that had 
been put in place under the Trump administration, but like most 
Trump era border policies, the Biden administration chose to 
end that. It is a 45-minute test. It tells you if a child is 
related to a person or not. It would put a stop to much of this 
child recycling, which is disgusting.
    And I would just like for you to speak for a moment about 
why it is so critical for the CBP to establish that familial 
relationship right there at that border with that adult and 
that child standing in front of them.
    Ms. Ries. Because we have seen in the past, and we will 
soon see again, an increase in fake families. The cartels 
respond to border operations. And if CBP is going to stop 
taking DNA tests when they suspect a fake family, or if they 
have seen this child again with a different adult before, then 
they're going to send more fake families through, which means 
more suffering of kids, more trafficking, and more terrible 
results. So it was a bad decision, and they really need to 
reverse course and continue to test. When the agents who have 
developed expertise on this suspect fake families, they should 
be testing them.
    Senator Blackburn. And the numbers that I have seen are as 
many as 30 percent of the children being presented as a family 
member at the border are being trafficked. Does that match up 
with the numbers that you have?
    Ms. Ries. There have been several that have been 
discovered. So it is effective. And for any family, any child 
that can be saved from smugglers and adults who are lying and 
claiming that this child is theirs with obviously ill intent, 
then that is well worth it.
    Senator Blackburn. One of the things that I had noticed as 
I was preparing for this hearing, Secretary Becerra pressured 
the Office of Refugee Resettlement to speed up sponsor 
transfers for unaccompanied alien children. Going so far as to 
say, and I'm quoting him, ``If Henry Ford had seen this in his 
plants, he would have never become famous and rich. This is not 
how you do an assembly line.'' Now, Secretary Becerra's comment 
is repulsive, but I think it's also revealing. It confirms what 
we already know, that Secretary Becerra has no regard for what 
happens to these children that are released into the country.
    So I would just like to--well, and I'm over time. Ms. Ries, 
I'm going to ask you just to send in writing to me how you 
perceive Secretary Becerra's attitude. What does it do to harm 
the system and to make children less safe?
    Ms. Ries. I will do that. And just to follow up on your DNA 
question, one statistic: Between April and June of 2019, ICE 
was able to identify approximately 275 fraudulent families in 
just a matter of a couple of months.
    Senator Blackburn. Thank you.
    Senator Padilla [presiding]. Thank you. On behalf of the 
Chair and for clarification for the record, DHS does conduct 
DNA testing and continues to when there's a question about the 
validity of a parent-child relationship, and additional 
scrutiny is placed on individuals who are not related to the 
child to ensure that a child is not being trafficked. The Chair 
recognizes Senator Booker.
    Senator Blackburn. Mr. Chairman, I think--and let's say for 
the record, I think that policy was ended on May 31st.
    Senator Padilla. We're giving you the most current----
    Senator Blackburn. And they're relying on documents----
    Senator Padilla. The Chair has provided the most current 
information. We can continue the discussion after.
    Senator Blackburn. Thank you.
    Senator Padilla. Senator Booker.
    Senator Booker. Mr. Chairman, thank you. And I want to 
thank all the witnesses. I think there's been valuable 
perspective given on all components of this problem, from 
what's happening at the border all the way to U.S. labor laws. 
I have been sitting here and have some appreciation for 
colleagues of mine on both sides of the aisle who don't see 
this as a political blame game, but are trying to find 
constructive solutions to this problem. It's the only way we're 
going to deal with it. This is clearly a deplorable reality in 
any country, this violation of human rights and the 
exploitation of children. But to have it happen in the United 
States is so shameful and so outrageous.
    It should inspire the best of all of us to look to real 
constructive solutions. And it is so outrageous that this 
continues to happen year after year in the United States of 
America. There are children being exploited by companies and 
others who are absolutely deplorable. Let me get to my, 
hopefully, constructive questions. Earlier this year, I 
introduced the Child Labor Exploitation Accountability Act, 
which would hold corporations accountable for the exploitation 
of children and workers by simply saying that frequent 
violators, repeat violators of worker safety laws shouldn't be 
eligible for Federal contracts paid for with taxpayer dollars.
    I think that if when someone does this once, it should have 
real significant penalties. These are rational economic 
entities. If they know they were going to pay a severe price 
for it, then you would see it less happening. And so this is a 
legislation that, in my opinion, would increase penalties that 
would change behavior. Monetary penalties or debarment is 
important to address child labor laws. Ms. Gerstein, would you 
agree, just really simply?
    Ms. Gerstein. Yes, I agree. Government contracting should 
support good, high-quality jobs and at the very least, jobs 
that are legally compliant, not jobs that are--not companies 
that are violating child labor laws.
    Senator Booker. Right. And the acting Chairman, who is an 
extraordinary friend of mine--the United Farm Workers asked 100 
Senators to go out and work a day in the fields. He and I went 
out and actually did it. Some of the hardest work of my life. 
And just talking with the women I was working with and hearing 
their stories of sexual harassment, of wage theft, that alone 
shouldn't go on. But, when you talk about child labor, one of 
the things that seems to me needed is funding for the 
Department of Labor. Just having the resources to do their work 
as the acting Chairman sort of whispered to me earlier. Could 
you just comment on that for a moment?
    Ms. Gerstein. Yes. The Federal Department of Labor is 
grossly underfunded. The Wage and Hour Division has record low 
numbers of investigators. OSHA as well is at very low numbers. 
There's some statistics about how each workplace at current 
OSHA staffing levels would be investigated every like 150 years 
or so. The Solicitor of Labor's office doesn't have enough 
resources either. You know, I'm really encouraged to hear a lot 
of concern by the Members today about the exploitation of child 
workers, but if we really want to address this, we need to fund 
the agencies that are charged with enforcing our laws.
    Senator Booker. I mean, that's common sense to me that this 
is a functional way to enforce the law. I think there's 
bipartisan agreement on having resources for border 
enforcement. I think there's bipartisan agreement when it comes 
to our local police departments to keep us safe. But the people 
who are enforcing the law for labor, the people that should be 
out there doing a better job stopping this exploitation don't 
have the resources they need.
    The final sort of point that I have is that there are 
consequences for industries--and I want to focus in this last 
question on industry, the meatpacking industry, which is more 
concentrated today, more corporate concentration than it was 
when Upton Sinclair wrote ``The Jungle'' and exposed the 
horrific practices that were going on. You are now seeing in 
that industry horrific practices and labor violations, 
including child labor. And I'm wondering if you think your 
commentary on--I'm seeing some move toward unionization which 
there was far more. It used to be a middle-class job to be 
working in these things.
    Now, it is a job where you see immigrants and exploitation. 
Is there any hope that union organizing that's starting to go 
on can offer any antidote to what's happening?
    Ms. Gerstein. Well, there's tremendous support for unions 
among Americans. In surveys, 50 percent of workers say they 
would join a union if they could, 70 percent of people surveyed 
say they have a positive impression of unions, and yet only 6 
percent or so of private sector workers are actually unionized. 
And that's because our Federal labor law, the National Labor 
Relations Act, is really outdated and needs to be updated. At 
the same time, unions really do offer a better job and--better 
jobs and opportunities to people.
    They raise standards when they're present in industry, not 
just for members, but also throughout the entire industry. And 
one interesting--in relation to meatpacking, one interesting 
development after the Department of Labor's PSSI case is that 
JBS created JBS Sanitation and took some of these jobs instead 
of outsourcing to a subcontractor--to the contractor, PSSI took 
some of these jobs in-house and has an agreement with UFCW. And 
now, these are going to be good union jobs instead of jobs that 
are being done by exploited young immigrant children.
    Senator Booker. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Senator Padilla. Senator Cruz.
    Senator Cruz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Every day the 
disaster on our southern border continues to get worse. This 
disaster is a true humanitarian crisis, and it is the result of 
deliberate political decisions by Joe Biden and Kamala Harris 
that have inflicted unspeakable horrors on millions of illegal 
immigrants: 6.6 million illegal immigrants have crossed 
illegally into this country since Joe Biden became President. 
And it has, in particular, done enormous damage to children. 
We're here today because the Biden administration has utterly 
failed.
    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. And it's failed to protect 
these children after they were let into the United States. The 
Democrats running this Committee have also failed. As we're 
holding a hearing to discuss the issues facing HHS's placement 
of unaccompanied minors, but we don't even have a single 
official from HHS here to answer our questions. Xavier Becerra 
should be sitting right in the middle of this panel, under 
oath, being forced to answer difficult questions about his 
absolute dereliction of duty when it comes to caring for these 
kids.
    But the Democrat leadership of this Committee doesn't want 
Secretary Becerra to face those hard questions because it would 
reveal his utter negligence and the children who are being 
harmed as a result. And so the absence of HHS is not an 
accident. It's not an omission. They just forgot. It's a 
deliberate decision: Let's protect the Biden administration 
from accountability. And concomitant with that decision is a 
decision to say the children being harmed are not important 
enough to the Democrat Senators on this Committee to overcome 
their partisan desire to play politics and protect the Biden 
administration from the consequences of their own failure.
    [Poster is displayed.]
    Senator Cruz. Take a look at this image. This image was 
captured from a video shot in El Paso on March 24th, 2023, 
where a smuggler abandons a 1-year-old child, a Guatemalan boy, 
on the riverbank. This 1-year-old child has now entered the 
unaccompanied minor alien child system currently administered 
by the Biden Health and Human Services.
    According to the Department of Health and Human Services, 
approximately 127,000 unaccompanied minors entered the United 
States during Fiscal Year 2022. So 1 year, 127,000 kids all 
alone; 2021, again, according to HHS, 107,686 unaccompanied 
minors entered the United States.
    Compare that to the last year of the Trump presidency, 
where that number was approximately 30,000. A 7-year low. Now, 
let me be clear, even one child in the custody of human 
traffickers is horrific and wrong. But 127,000? This 
administration--no wonder Secretary Becerra is too scared to 
sit there. He should be embarrassed of that record. Health and 
human services received $7.8 billion last year just for 
unaccompanied minor children.
    Troublingly, on February 24th, 2022, HHS admitted in a 
letter to Representative Andy Biggs that it could not contact 
approximately 20,000 minor children it placed in 2021. In 1 
year, 20,000, it just lost them. No wonder Secretary Becerra is 
not sitting at that table. On March 22nd, 2023, Senator James 
Lankford pressed Secretary Becerra on a portion of The New York 
Times expose indicating that HHS had failed to account for 
85,000 previously placed alien children.
    Becerra disputed the question saying it was unrealistic, 
but he failed to offer any concrete evidence or data or 
statistics. On April 25th of this year, I joined Senator Marco 
Rubio and my colleagues in a letter addressing HHS failures on 
this score, which actively highlighted the fact that the Biden 
administration loosened vetting, fired HHS staffers who filed 
complaints, and ignored HHS contracted organizations who voiced 
concerns. After The New York Times published a second expose, 
the administration announced the Department of Labor was taking 
action. What action? Action addressing child labor.
    Well, child labor is abhorrent. But how about the hundreds 
of thousands of children who are being smuggled in by human 
traffickers, who are being abused, who are being sexually 
abused, who are being physically abused, and whom the Biden 
administration has lost? This is a humanitarian crisis, and it 
is a man-made crisis produced by political decisions from this 
White House. And every American, whether Democrat or 
Republican, should be horrified at this state of affairs.
    Senator Padilla. Thank you to the witnesses, members of the 
public who are here today, Members of the Committee who have 
participated in today's hearing. I do want to reiterate what 
Chairman Durbin announced a couple of times earlier in the 
hearing. And number one, that the document requests are into 
the administration for the additional information and data 
that's been discussed. Also that there will be additional 
hearings on this topic in this Committee, including one with 
Government representatives. This is the first of, not the only, 
hearing on this topic.
    And also, on behalf of Senator Durbin, I want to thank the 
witnesses for participating here today. Now, one of the biggest 
concerns that I've had over the past several months and again 
today as I've listened to the testimony from our witnesses is 
about accountability. Time and time again I've seen a stunning 
lack of accountability and a willingness to pass the buck on 
something as outrageous as child labor exploitation. And let me 
be more precise. We're talking about billion-dollar companies, 
household names in America, who are more than happy to report 
and brag about their profits each and every year.
    Corporations who spend heavily on hiring consultants to 
analyze every step of their supply chain, their manufacturing 
process, make recommendations on how to eke out ever more 
efficiencies, productivity, and profit. Yet when it comes to 
responsibility of who's working for them, who's making these 
profits even possible, they claim ignorance. It's offensive 
that CEOs of these companies want us to believe that they don't 
know what's happening in their facilities or what's happening 
with suppliers or the contractors that they choose to employ.
    It's a shock to the conscience. And there's no longer room 
for ambiguity for who's at fault. As you heard from Ms. 
Gerstein today, employers across the Nation indeed have the 
means to prevent this exploitation from happening. But, all too 
often, their choice to look away has become more profitable and 
those profits have become their priority. We must enforce the 
laws to hold these employers accountable and ensure that our 
Federal agencies are working and working together to better 
protect these children, all children. And it's clear that we 
must work together to enact some of the reforms mentioned here 
today to do better for their sake. With that, I thank you all 
once again. This hearing is adjourned.
    [Whereupon, at 12:19 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
    [Additional material submitted for the record follows.]

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