Senate Democrats are seemingly shielding President Joe Biden’s current and former top officials from answering questions in regard to tens of thousands of Unaccompanied Alien Children (UACs) that have ended up in a labor trafficking pipeline after their release into the United States.
Since Biden took office, Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) officials have lost contact with at least 85,000 UACs released to adult sponsors after arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border.
According to the New York Times, Biden officials like HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra, former Labor Secretary Martin Walsh, and former Domestic Policy Adviser Susan Rice were aware of the widespread labor trafficking of UACs but ignored warnings from staff.
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has previously testified to Congress that his agency bears no responsibility for the issue.
During a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Wednesday, witnesses from various organizations as well as a foster parent of UACs appeared before committee members. Not present were any of the Biden officials — Becerra, Walsh, Rice, or Mayorkas — implicated in reports on the labor trafficking pipeline of UACs.
RELATED: Whistleblower: Federal Government Facilitating “Multi-Billion-Dollar Child Trafficking Operation” at U.S. Border
House Judiciary GOP/ YouTube“The New York Times illustrated that senior Biden administration officials like Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra knew about this and continued to move children out of Health and Human Services [custody] as fast as possible by loosening vetting requirements for sponsors,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) said:
Two former officials were also aware of this scandal and that these children were being exploited on a major scale. That includes Labor Secretary Marty Walsh and White House Domestic Policy Advisor Susan Rice.
[Emphasis added]To get to the bottom of this, my colleagues and I on this side requested the chairman to bring these high-level government officials in to give their explanation of what happened. And I’m disappointed that they could not be troubled to appear here today. The truth is, they don’t care. President Biden does not care about the fate of 300,000+ unaccompanied children that have been placed with sponsors in the United States since he became president … he can’t tell you where these children are, his administration can’t tell you what they are doing, or what is being done to them … they simply don’t care. [Emphasis added]
The truth is, nobody here today can shed light on the administration’s policies and why they simply decided to loosen vetting requirements.
[Emphasis added]
Likewise, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) said he would prefer to hear directly from Becerra, Walsh, Rice, and Mayorkas — noting that Mayorkas previously told him the issue did not fall under his jurisdiction as chief of DHS. Hawley said:
I’ve had Secretary Mayorkas in front of me … where I’ve asked him at length about the outrage of 250,000 migrant children, unaccompanied, crossing the border in the last two years and tens of thousands of them being sold into slavery … when kids are being put into factories, forced to work overnights, forced to work in terrible conditions, they’re not getting paid, they’re not going to school, sometimes they’re not being fed, that is slavery.
And what I heard from Secretary Mayorkas … what he told me was ‘Oh, it’s not my problem. We don’t have anything to do with it. Not my problem.’ Now we have a new report from HHS where they say, it’s not their problem. Amazing how this works. Nobody is responsible. These kids are literally being sold as slaves in the United States of America in the year 2023 and nobody is responsible. [Emphasis added]
…
The fact that this administration won’t come sit there and answer questions before this committee is absurd and it is nothing more than cowardice. They don’t want to answer questions, they don’t want to be responsible, they don’t want to take responsibility for this. Let the record reflect that this administration has let tens of thousands of children be sold into slavery and they’re doing nothing about it. [Emphasis added]
Becerra, Walsh, Rice, and Mayorkas, Hawley said, “don’t want to come and testify before this committee … they don’t want to be put under oath.”
“They don’t want to answer any questions,” Hawley continued. “They don’t want cameras here. They don’t want to take any responsibility. Well, I’ll tell you, it’s somebody’s fault. It’s not the kids’ fault.”
RELATED: Watch: Josh Hawley Shames DHS Chief Mayorkas over Teenage Labor Trafficking on His Watch
C-SPANSen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said there would be future hearings on the labor trafficking of UACs under the Biden administration but did not directly commit, even when asked by Cornyn, to calling Becerra, Walsh, Rice, and Mayorkas to testify on the issue.
“[Will] we have the government officials that are responsible for administering these programs as witnesses?” Cornyn asked, to which Durbin responded, “That’s my intention.”
“I think bringing these folks in, followed by the documentary evidence that we’re asking the administration for is the proper way to approach this,” Durbin said. “… we can certainly pursue that.”
Becerra, in particular, has contradicted HHS insiders who said he was warned of UACs being labor trafficked but ignored the issue to focus on getting as many migrant children released into the U.S. interior as possible, as quickly as possible.
During a Senate Finance Committee hearing in April, Becerra said he had “no idea” whether 85,000 UACs had lost contact with HHS officials, suggesting he had never heard the figure before it was published in the Times.
Unaccompanied Alien Children (UACs) reported to federal officials for being subjected to abuse, neglect, or trafficking after their release into the United States has exploded under Biden’s watch. https://t.co/r8NFuUXF00
— Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) April 28, 2023
HHS insiders, though, said they were reprimanded by Becerra when they raised the issue of UACs being labor trafficked and told to quickly get migrant children into the U.S. interior or risk being replaced.
“If Henry Ford had seen this in his plants, he would have never become famous and rich. This is not the way you do an assembly line,” Becerra said, according to the insiders. One such former HHS staffer said Becerra demands that 20 percent of UACs get released from the agency’s custody, regardless of circumstance.
Likewise, whistleblowers told the Times that Rice and her staff at the time were warned of the growing problem of UACs being labor trafficked. Her office received memos on the issue but nothing was ever done to remedy the problem, they said.
“We need to have additional hearings,” Hawley said. “There need to be administration witnesses there and we need to figure out what in the world is going on and who is to be held accountable for this.”
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.
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