newYou can listen to the Fox News article!
Last week, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Office of Inspector General revealed that the Biden-Harris administration has failed to verify the location, safety, or well-being of 323,000 unaccompanied migrant children released from government custody. It's a disturbing revelation, but it goes much further than that.
Because the report only looked at the Department of Homeland Security, it did not explore systemic failings at the Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), which actively pushes children into dangerous situations and is responsible for caring for unaccompanied children and placing them with safe, thoroughly vetted sponsors.
My years of investigation into ORR have found that Biden-Harris Administration officials are prioritizing speed over safety in processing the thousands of unaccompanied minors crossing the border, even going so far as to hand these children over to dangerous sponsors, including those with close ties to sex offenders and MS-13 gang members.
A migrant child sits in the back seat of a Border Patrol vehicle after being apprehended by U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents in Ruby, Arizona, on June 24, 2024. (Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
To protect the White House from the political embarrassment of processing facilities overflowing with unaccompanied children arriving across the open border, Biden-Harris administration officials have instructed ORR officials to speed up the process of releasing migrant children to outside sponsors.
Homeland Security Inspector General discovers ICE has lost tens of thousands of migrant children
For example, in some cases, the Biden-Harris Administration removed requirements that ORR officials check whether sponsors had criminal records or whether their identities were genuine. In other cases, ORR failed to verify whether a sponsor's claimed address was an actual home, sending a child to an address that was just a vacant lot.
Joe Biden and his border chief Kamala Harris are failing to manage the impact of the crisis they have created at the border.
When Biden took office, the U.S. had the lowest illegal immigration rate in 50 years. Biden and Harris almost immediately reversed the tough border policies inherited from President Trump. They ended “Remain in Mexico,” reintroduced “capture and release,” and removed unaccompanied children from Title 42.
'It's a complete lie': Trump campaign slams Harris for 'absurd' claims of border wall support after media reports
These open border policies have fueled the worst illegal immigration rates on record, with more than 500,000 unaccompanied migrant children entering the U.S. under this administration. In fact, the month after Biden and Harris removed unaccompanied children from Title 42, the monthly total number of these children crossing the southern border hit an all-time high.
Many of these children are forced to work in hazardous conditions and are exploited illegally. In one facility currently under investigation for child labor violations, a 16-year-old boy died after being pulled into a meat-processing machine.
Other children are forced to turn to drug trafficking, sex trafficking and other criminal activities to bribe the drug cartels that brought them here, with no follow-up or oversight by the Biden-Harris Administration.
Dr. Phil speaks to “VIEW” hosts about the dire fate of migrant children at the southern border
These children do not deserve to suffer. It is unacceptable that officials of the Biden-Harris Administration will continue to place these children in unsafe conditions. Hundreds of thousands of children who may be missing due to this Administration's incompetence will continue to be exploited, abused and killed at the hands of their captors.
Serious problems with the ORR and child exploitation have been documented for years, and unaccompanied children are still crossing the border in record numbers, yet neither Biden nor Harris have made any substantive efforts to amend the open border policy or reform the ORR to protect unaccompanied children from harm.
In fact, it wasn't until Biden was struggling in the polls against Trump that Democrats began to acknowledge that the border was a problem. Their solution: that Republicans were to blame for creating the border crisis. Convincing the American public will be tough.
Click here to read more FOX News Opinion
It is clear that Democrats are not treating the border and child exploitation issues as serious problems that need to be solved, but simply as messaging issues to be “prioritized” in an election year. This is shameful.
Since Harris' dramatic entry into the presidential race, the liberal media has understandably refused to pursue her on anything, let alone her border mismanagement that has led to child exploitation.
Make no mistake: Harris is not an accomplice in the border conflict, she is a perpetrator. At the White House swearing-in ceremony for her new border secretary, Biden said Harris would lead an administration that would “stop migration to our southern border,” and that “when she speaks, she speaks for me.”
Click here to get the FOX News app
Less than four years later, it's clear that she has not only failed the American people, but also the unaccompanied children who are being exploited and abused because of her willful incompetence.
The border crisis is Kamala Harris' legacy, and no amount of media coverage or rewriting of history will change that.
To read more comments from Senator Bill Cassidy, click here
