A new investigative report from the New York Times showed how unaccompanied migrant children who have crossed the border are being forced into child labor, part of “a new economy of exploitation.”
It is horrifying to see that migrant child labor is thriving in the 21st Century. The exploitation of children is an inexcusable and cruel departure from our values. While federal agencies need to move quickly to place children with adult sponsors, they also have an imperative to get it right – first and foremost by conducting necessary vetting and taking steps to ensure children are not being placed in harm’s way.
Protecting children is too important to cut corners. The administration’s immediate response, announcing new measures to counter child labor, is a good beginning – but it cannot be the end. Federal agencies need to immediately make reforms to prevent children from being exploited again and hold those responsible to account.
The Biden administration should work toward immediate and longer-term solutions that keep kids safe and honor our values. Congress can and should hold the administration accountable. At the same time, they should also adequately fund backlogged agencies to better screen sponsors and act in children’s best interest. Congress should also advance needed reforms to make our immigration system work better, tackling the dysfunction that wrongdoers exploited to force vulnerable children into child labor.
Protecting migrant children and treating them with dignity and grace is not only the moral thing to do, but also core to our values and identity as Americans. We urge the Biden administration and Congress to put the safety of migrant children at the forefront and then work together to fix our immigration system to help ensure this type of exploitation cannot happen again.