Biden administration ignored warning signs, dodged blame for migrants forced into child labor: Report

A recent New York Times report detailed how the Biden administration "ignored" reports and "warning signs" that migrant children coming into the U.S. from the southern border, were being released to sponsors who put them into "grueling, dangerous jobs."

The report claimed that even though official complaints and warnings from people working at migrant shelters – as well notices from government staffers and others – made it in front of U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, the department did not respond.

And when it finally did, it "shifted blame for failing to protect them."

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Migrants attempting to cross in to the U.S. from Mexico are detained by U.S. Customs and Border Protection at the border August 20, 2022 in San Luis, Arizona.  (Nick Ut/Getty Images)

The outlet published the story Monday, starting with the perspective of San Antonio migrant shelter worker and immigration lawyer Linda Brandmiller, whose job "was to help vet sponsors" in the U.S. for many of the thousands of boys who crossed into the U.S. without parents. She alerted her supervisors and HHS to two cases involving men seeking boys to work jobs for them.

Brandmiller "immediately contacted supervisors working with the Department of Health and Human Services, the federal agency responsible for these children," addressing them in email, which claimed "This is urgent." 

Despite her warning, officials never reviewed the case or paused the boys’ sponsorship to the man in Florida. The Times added that days after she "emailed the shelter’s manager" with her concerns, "her building access was revoked during her lunch break. She said she was never told why she had been fired."

The paper offered this as one example of migrant children being sponsored by people who force them into brutal and illegal jobs across the country, and the Biden administration doing little to nothing about it. 

It reported, "Over the past two years, more than 250,000 migrant children have come alone to the United States. Thousands of children have ended up in punishing jobs across the country — working overnight in slaughterhouses, replacing roofs, operating machinery in factories — all in violation of child labor laws."

The Times added that the White House has "announced policy changes and a crackdown on companies that hire children," but only since this phenomenon was exposed by the paper’s reporting in February.

"But all along, there were signs of the explosive growth of this labor force and warnings that the Biden administration ignored or missed, The Times has found," it added.

The Times claimed, "Again and again, veteran government staffers and outside contractors told the Health and Human Services Department, including in reports that reached Secretary Xavier Becerra, that children appeared to be at risk. The Labor Department put out news releases noting an increase in child labor."

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US Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra testifies before the Senate Finance Committee regarding 2024 budget proposals on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, on March 22, 2023.  ((Photo by Stefani Reynolds / AFP))

And even though "Senior White House aides were shown evidence of exploitation," there continued to be incidents. "Children were released with little support to sponsors who expected them to take on grueling, dangerous jobs," the report claimed. 

When HHS finally responded, it blamed other government departments. The piece noted, "H.H.S. officials said the department vetted sponsors sufficiently but could not control what happened to children after they were released. Monitoring workplaces, they said, was the job of the Department of Labor."

And the Labor Department partially absolved itself over the issue. The report said, "Officials at the Labor Department said inspectors had increased their focus on child labor and shared details about workers with H.H.S., but said it was not a welfare agency."

White House officials as well admitted that the situation was not prioritized by the administration, saying, "while the two departments had passed along information about migrant child labor, the reports were not flagged as urgent and did not make clear the scope of the problem."

Brandmiller characterized the many dropped balls on this issue, commenting, "If I saw it, they could have put it together. There were so many opportunities to connect those dots that no one ever did."

The paper also mentioned senior HHS staff member Jallyn Sualog who became disturbed by reports that migrant children were being exploited and tried to warn her bosses to no avail.

The Times wrote, "She warned her bosses in a 2021 email, ‘If nothing continues to be done, there will be a catastrophic event.’ She continued to email about situations she described as ‘critical’ and ‘putting children at risk.’"

Migrants wait in line to board a chartered bus traveling to New York outside a Welcome Center in El Paso, Texas, US, on Thursday, Sept. 22, 2022. Less than two weeks before the end of the federal fiscal year, encounters between migrants and Border Patrol agents on the U.S.-Mexico border have already surpassed 2 million a new record, reports The Texas Tribune.  (Photographer: Paul Ratje/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

According to Sualog – a Biden voter and "lifelong Democrat" – no one in the Biden administration took her seriously, not even after she filed a complaint with the H.H.S. Office of Inspector General. 

She claimed, "I feel like short of protesting in the streets, I did everything I could to warn them. They just didn’t want to hear it."

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After the complaint, Sualog was "moved out of her position." She filed a complaint against the HHS, accusing the department of illegally retaliating against her. Eventually, Sualog settled with the agency and resigned.