The White House said it is creating a new task force to take action against the illegal exploitation of migrant children for work in the United States.
Hundreds of companies that employed nearly 4,000 infants in 2022 violated federal laws, a massive rise in the past five years.
The escalation of the problem has brought Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra under scrutiny with growing concerns that immigrant children have been discharged from refugees and out of federal custody too soon, forcing them to to be in situations that put them at risk, making them victims of child labor.
In a video, first reported by The New York Times, Becerra called on his staff to release children from the shelter system faster.
“If Henry Ford had seen this in his plants, he would never have become famous or rich,” Becerra told staff during a meeting last summer on tape. “This is not the way to run an assembly line.”
The New York outlet’s investigation identified more than 100 migrant children, some as young as 12, who say they work night shifts and dangerous jobs for large and small companies across the United States.
For his part, President Joe Biden still has “full confidence” in Becerra, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Monday when questioned about the secretary’s work in the wake of the new report.
“Of course, the president does not believe that the processing of migrants should be treated like an assembly line, and neither does Secretary Becerra,” he said.
The Democratic administration has struggled to control and respond to the surge of migrants, including children traveling alone to the US border since Biden took office, the AP reported.
In the fiscal year ending September last year, immigrants were stopped 2.38 million times, up 37% from the 1.73 million in 2021. The total was more than double the highest level during Trump’s tenure. Donald Trump in 2019.
HHS and the Department of Labor kicked off new policies and the task force Monday, while pledging stricter monitoring for children being transferred from refugees to live with sponsors in the United States.
The entity will help migrant children enroll in school. They will also need staff to follow up on infants who call the Refugee Resettlement Office’s National Call Center to report security concerns.
In addition, the Department of Labor threatened to stop the shipment of products made under child exploitation.
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