NBC Duped by Adult Border Crosser Who Posed as Migrant Child to Get into U.S.

NBC News was forced to retract a published article in which the network interviewed a recently arrived border crosser claiming to be 16 years old and working in a Kansas slaughterhouse. Days later, the migrant admitted he posed as a child to get into the United States at the southern border.

On April 12, NBC News published the initial article in which a recently arrived male border crosser said he was 16 years old, enrolled in high school, and illegally worked at the Packers Sanitation Services, Inc., a meatpacking plant in Dodge City, Kansas.

According to the initial story, the border crosser was seemingly released to a sponsor in Kansas after arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border as an Unaccompanied Alien Child (UAC).

The federal government’s UAC program allows young migrants to get released into the U.S. interior. The majority end up living with sponsors who are not their relatives.

This week, NBC News retracted the initial story after it was revealed that the border crosser claiming to be 16 years old is actually a 21-year-old who merely posed as a UAC at the southern border to get released into the U.S. interior.

NBC News reports:

On April 12, NBC News and Noticias Telemundo together reported on the young migrant, identified as Pedro to protect his identity, who was working for Packers Sanitation Services Inc. (PSSI) in a meat processing plant in Dodge City, Kansas [emphasis added].

The young man had told NBC News and the U.S. government that he was 16. Under federal labor law, it is illegal to employ a minor in such a dangerous job [emphasis added].

Days after the reports aired, PSSI sent NBC News a videotaped interview the company conducted with Pedro in which he said he is not a minor. NBC News also asked Pedro to reconfirm his age, and he said it was “hard for me to explain.” NBC News and Noticias Telemundo then traveled to Guatemala and obtained official documentation showing he is 21 [emphasis added].

The practice of adult border crossers posing as UACs to get into the U.S. interior is widespread across the program.

In 2021, for example, 24-year-old illegal alien Yery Noel Medina Ulloa from Honduras duped federal officials at the border when he posed as a UAC to get released into the U.S. interior. Ultimately, Ulloa was placed with a father of four in Jacksonville, Florida, and allegedly murdered the man.

“This is not the way you keep people safe. It’s reckless, and it’s wrong,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said at the time.

Most recently, a Florida grand jury revealed the extent to which adult border crossers pose as UACs in the hopes of being released into the U.S. interior:

We received testimony and saw photographs and other evidence regarding other adults masquerading as UACs, including men and women ranging in age from 27 to 37. [The Department of Health and Human Services] discovered 105 children the agency later determined were actually adults during fiscal year 2021 alone [emphasis added].

…

The adults posing as children were simply taken out of the facility and released, as one manager put it, ‘into the wild’ [Emphasis added].

Since President Joe Biden took office, a quarter of a million UACs have been resettled with sponsors across American communities. The majority, 64 to 66 percent, are boys, and 72 percent of all UACs are 15 to 18 years old. Only 15 to 16 percent are babies, toddlers, and pre-teens.

Less than four-in-ten UACs are placed with their parents already living in the U.S.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.