04/23/2023
Republicans have a new way to attack President Joe Biden: illegal-alien child labor. Greedy companies hire the underage workers for jobs that require hours and pay wages that Americans would never accept. This makes a potent story with which the GOP can attack Biden’s Great Replacement immigration policies. But in using the kids as a stick with which to beat Biden, Stupid Party Strategerists might actually advance friendly pro-“migrant” policies. The worst thing about these illegal-alien children is not the conditions in which they work, awful as they are. And they are awful. Rather, they shouldn’t be working at all because they shouldn’t be here. They are illegal aliens. Solution: deport them and punish the employers.
The New York Times’s Hannah Dreier [Tweet her] has reported that the growing number of unaccompanied minors streaming across the border is leading to “new economy of exploitation.”
Migrant children, who have been coming into the United States without their parents in record numbers, are ending up in some of the most punishing jobs in the country, a New York Times investigation found. This shadow work force extends across industries in every state, flouting child labor laws that have been in place for nearly a century. Twelve-year-old roofers in Florida and Tennessee. Underage slaughterhouse workers in Delaware, Mississippi and North Carolina. Children sawing planks of wood on overnight shifts in South Dakota.
[Alone and Exploited, Migrant Children Work Brutal Jobs Across the U.S., by Hannah Dreier, February 25, 2023]
Subsequently, Dreier (right) followed up:
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. Senior White House aides were shown evidence of exploitation, such as clusters of migrant children who had been found working with industrial equipment or caustic chemicals.
As the administration scrambled to clear shelters that were strained beyond capacity, children were released with little support to sponsors who expected them to take on grueling, dangerous jobs.
[As Migrant Children Were Put to Work, U.S. Ignored Warnings, by Hannah Dreier, April 17, 2023]
Let’s be clear about one thing. The NYT isn’t wrong about the nature of the work these kids do. As reported on VDARE.com, one of the culprits in this exploitation was Packers Sanitation Services, Inc., which the U.S. Labor Department nailed with a $1.5 million fine. The company was using 13- to 17-year-olds in overnight jobs at slaughterhouses. The jobs were, as the NYT reported, “grueling,” and they were also unsafe. A 13-year-old girl showed up to school with burns.
Illegal-alien parents, by the way, are partly to blame for the exploitation of these kids by permitting or even encouraging it. But let’s stick with “unaccompanied minors” (UACs — Treason Lobby code for the illegal-alien kids).
Packers Sanitation Services Inc. has paid $1.5M after @WHD_DOL investigators found the company employed at least 102 children — aged 13 to 17 — in hazardous occupations and had them working overnight shifts at 13 meat processing facilities in eight states.https://t.co/5ez9ktG1hB
— U.S. Department of Labor (@USDOL) February 17, 2023
The Treason Lobby and the leftist Regime Media want us to believe that the real problem is that the Biden Regime is “not doing enough” to help these illegal minors stay in America. Unfortunately, GOP politicians are making the mistake of accepting this spin. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley, both of whom appeal to immigration patriotism, have led the Republican charge.
Earlier this year, DeSantis threatened that Florida would no longer house the “UACs” unless the federal government reduces those allowed into the country and sent to the Sunshine State. “We don’t want to be facilitating what is effectively the largest human smuggling operation in American history,” DeSantis said in February. That’s a solid message no immigration patriot could disagree with [Gov. DeSantis may stop Florida migrant shelters from caring for unaccompanied kids, by Joel Rose, NPR, February 11, 2023].
But the rest of his apparatus isn’t following that line. Last year, he requested that a grand jury investigate the federal government’s handling of “UACs.” It condemned the federal Department of Health and Human Services for “the complete abdication of responsibility for the welfare of minor children they have transported to our state, then effectively abandoned, often to dangerous and illegal situations.” The report criticized the Biden regime for effectively facilitating a human trafficking network.
Yet the report implied the real problem was the federal government not doing enough to better the conditions of the illegals [Florida grand jury accuses Biden HHS of ‘complete abdication of responsibility’ for migrant children welfare, by Adam Shaw, Fox News, March 31, 2023].
Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody, a Republican, repeated the mistake:
As a mother, I am outraged at how the Biden administration and others in authority have encouraged this nightmare through policy and are neglecting hundreds of thousands of children, subjecting them to abuse and sexual assault even after they cross the border. The federal government is knowingly aiding and abetting trafficking organizations and allowing horrific harm to happen to these children.
[Florida AG calls on Congress to investigate Biden admin over alleged poor treatment of migrant children, by Brandon Gillespie, Fox News, April 18, 2023]
Last week, AG Moody called for a congressional investigation into the Regime’s treatment of illegal-alien kids.
As well, Missouri’s Sen. Hawley roasted Homeland Security Chief Alejandro Mayorkas during a recent Homeland Security Committee hearing. “A moment ago, you were crowing about the fact that you treated children so well, and yet we find tens of thousands of children who are forced to work as slaves because of your policies. And you turn around and blame the prior administration,” Hawley told the Cuban-Jewish immigrant.
But that wasn’t all:
I am sick and tired of it, and thousands of children are in physical danger … danger … because of what you’re doing. You should have resigned long ago, and if you cannot change course, you should be removed from office.
Secretary Mayorkas’ failed border policies have led to the indentured servitude of migrant children on a scale never seen in American history. Kids treated like slaves in factories. Smugglers collecting the profit. Mayorkas should be removed pic.twitter.com/naql0cTGsQ
— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) April 18, 2023
Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson also told Mayorkas he should resign.
Of course, anyone with a heart is horrified by minors working in unsafe, atrocious conditions for little pay. And because of the never-ending stream of illegals pouring across the southwest border, Republicans have a compelling issue. And child exploitation will reach outside of the right-wing tent.
Needless to say, Democrats think the solution is opening the borders even more, as if that’s possible. Chuck Schumer, Dick Durbin, and other Democrats certainly aren’t drawing attention to the problem to push for increased deportations or building a border wall. They want the illegals to stay here to increase The Great Replacement headcount. In March after Dreier’s “brutal jobs” story, Democrats demanded answers from the HHS and the Labor Department.
Many Republicans are quite happy to score points against Biden and ignore the larger implications for immigration policy. And they are probably thrilled that Democrats are on the same side and reach across the aisle to create a legislative plan. But that won’t include introducing a bill that would deport these illegal-alien kids and any irresponsible parents. A “bipartisan” deal will keep them here… forever.
The GOP can certainly claim that illegal-alien child labor highlights one of the dangers of Open Borders. But its focus must be stopping the Camp-of-the-Saints invasion at the border. That must not be sacrificed to a narrative that depicts Biden and Mayorkas as unkind to “migrant” kids. That plays into Treason Lobby hands.
The solution: keep illegals — whether adults or minors — out of the country. Period.
Secretary Mayorkas should be impeached, but not for the exploitation of illegal-alien kids. Rather, he must be removed because he is aiding and abetting an invasion to dispossess and replace the Historic American Nation.
Shallow partisanship is an inherent feature of American democracy. Republicans and Democrats will always find ways to embarrass their enemies, even if it might undermine their own positions. Republicans shouldn’t fall prey to the petty desire to score points against Biden over illegal-alien child labor.
Their focus must be ending the invasion.
Washington Watcher II is an anonymous DC insider.
This is a content archive of VDARE.com, which Letitia James forced off of the Internet using lawfare.