President Joe Biden’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) admitted that many of the lost tens of thousands of Unaccompanied Alien Children (UACs) released into the United States over the last two years are being labor trafficked.
During a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing this week, Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) noted that more than 85,000 UACs released into the U.S. interior from DHS custody have been lost in the system after being sent to live with sponsors and family members by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
“We’ve got 85,000 Unaccompanied Alien Children … who have been released in the U.S. and HHS has lost track of these unaccompanied children,” Blackburn said. “… what you’re doing on the border is causing 85,000 children to be lost, can’t find them, and not knowing if they’re being trafficked, put in gangs, put in the sex trade.”
Blackburn asked DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas how many are being trafficked and what the administration is doing to find these lost UACs. Mayorkas, though, replied by suggesting that DHS is focused on busting labor trafficking schemes because many of the UACs are ending up in brutal factory jobs.
“One of the reasons why we are devoting our worksite enforcement resources and energies on unscrupulous employers, is precisely the reason you’ve identified,” Mayorkas said. “We must hold accountable employers who engage in child labor.”
The admission is significant, as the Biden administration has sought to downplay the link between the nation’s UAC pipeline and labor trafficking.
Last month, as Breitbart News reported, reports revealed that federal investigators have opened an investigation into whether UACs were the victims of a labor trafficking scheme coordinated to provide meatpacking companies and supporting industries with cheap young border crossers — most of whom are teenagers — who were forced to take the jobs while traffickers profited.
WATCH: Ted Cruz TORCHES Mayorkas for Refusing to Answer if There Is a Crisis at the Border
C-SPANJohn Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.
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