[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
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
52-710 PDF WASHINGTON : 2024
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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
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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.]
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