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Most Unaccompanied Migrant Children End Up Brutally Exploited in US, Report Says

© AFP 2023 / ALLISON DINNERHundreds of migrants line up to be processed by THE US Border Patrol under the Stanton Street Bridge after illegally entering the US, in El Paso, Texas, on December 22, 2022
Hundreds of migrants line up to be processed by THE US Border Patrol under the Stanton Street Bridge after illegally entering the US, in El Paso, Texas, on December 22, 2022 - Sputnik International, 1920, 26.02.2023
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About two-thirds of unaccompanied minors who have been coming to the United States in record numbers since 2021 end up working full-time, according to the New York Times which interviewed over 100 migrant child workers in 20 states.
The New York Times has shed light on the growing exploitation of migrant children in the US. Having entered the "land of free" without parents, the migrant minors typically end up staffing low-wage subsidiaries of Fortune 500 giants and do dangerous jobs that violate child labor laws, the newspaper has concluded.
"This labor force has been slowly growing for almost a decade, but it has exploded since 2021, while the systems meant to protect children have broken down," the media noted.
Remarkably, the emergence of the trend coincides with the reversal of former President Donald Trump's border rules by his successor, Joe Biden, which resulted in the surge of migrant flow. US southern border authorities have found themselves overwhelmed with the influx of illegals; making it easier for drug and human traffickers to do their dirty work, according to conservative observers.
A Honduran man seeking asylum in the United States wears a shirt that reads, Biden please let us in, as he stands among tents that line an entrance to the border crossing, Monday, March 1, 2021, in Tijuana, Mexico. - Sputnik International, 1920, 28.12.2022
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Face of US Changing as Migration Becomes Major Driver of Population Growth
According to Customs and Border Protection data, the number of total encounters with illegals at the border during the 2022 fiscal year reached a whopping 2,378,944, while in 2021 it was 1,734,686. For comparison's sake, under then-President Donald Trump it was 458,088 in 2020; and 977,509 in 2019. Roughly 320,000 migrant children have been admitted into the US since January 2021.
The number of unaccompanied minors entering the US mounted to 130,000 in 2022 which is three times what it was five years ago; and a new wave is expected this summer.
So, what is going to happen to them? In fact, it's the Department of Health and Human Services which is responsible for vetting and picking sponsors who will support the minors and protect them from exploitation. However, as it has turned out, the HHS has little if any time to properly check all the sponsors as the Biden administration is urging the department's staffers to work faster as more and more illegals are coming to the US.
As a result, the agency has lost immediate contact with about a third of migrant children. According to the newspaper, over the last two years, the HHS could not reach more than 85,000 children. For their part, US child welfare agencies argue that the HHS regularly ignores obvious signs of labor exploitation.
A father sitting next to his son - Sputnik International, 1920, 05.12.2022
Analysis
Child Labor: How US is Failing Its Most Vulnerable for the Sake of Profit
The US conservative press hailed the Times' latest child labor piece, but said that the newspaper should have dug deeper and exposed the Democrats and migration advocates complicity in this human rights scandal. Some conservative journalists argued that there is a "shameful bipartisan" consensus on exploiting cheap child labor. Not only are US corporations benefiting from a nearly-free workforce, but also the migrant inflow successfully forces down Americans’ wages and deprives US citizens of jobs, according to them.
Last year, the US press lifted the veil on the widespread trend of child labor in the country. In particular, the Department of Labor (DOL) found 3,876 kids working in breach of labor rules in the US in 2022 fiscal year.

"Well, those numbers have to be the floor, right? Who knows how much goes unreported, uninvestigated, and unpunished," Jacob Morrison, secretary-treasurer of the North Alabama Area Labor Council, a regional body of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), told Sputnik in December 2022.

Children as young as 12-13 are reportedly working at metal stamping and meatpacking plants with dangerous equipment and doing hazardous jobs. One glaring example of what it may lead to is the death of a 14-year-old boy in July 2015 at the Park Family Farm: the teen was crushed by a hydraulic lift of a New Holland LS170 skid-steer loader.
Lots of those child labor violations reportedly remain on the hush-hush. "And when these children are undocumented, it makes it even less likely that others will report what is going on for fear of making the child's life and their families' even worse," Morrison remarked in December 2022. Unaccompanied migrant children remain the most vulnerable group which traffickers and various US industries are unscrupulously preying on.
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