Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird, Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch, and Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes today led a 22-state coalition in a letter to the Biden Administration, demanding that it locate the thousands of missing migrant children it lost and quit handing them to probable traffickers.
The Biden Administration lost more than 85,000 migrant children in just two years. Reports show that many of those children have been trafficked or forced into the labor market under dangerous conditions where they are denied basic necessities such as sleep, food, and education. Despite requests from U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley, the Biden Administration has put forth no plan to address this crisis.
The Biden Administration’s own Department of Health and Human Services revealed that almost 20% of unaccompanied children arriving at the U.S. border were released without required sponsor safety checks. In addition, one-third of sponsor identification documents raised red flags. Some of these migrant children have even faced life-threatening injuries or been killed. In one case, a fourteen-year-old was hit by a car while delivering food on a bike in Brooklyn. In another, a fifteen-year-old plummeted 50 feet to his death on his first day of work for a roofing company. There are also many examples of girls being released to traffickers who immediately forced them into sex slavery.
“The Biden Administration needs to quit handing kids to criminal traffickers,” said Attorney General Bird. “Losing 85,000 kids is like losing the entire population of Sioux City. This is unacceptable. As a mom, it makes me sick to know that many of these missing kids have been trapped into forced labor and exploited by heinous sex traffickers. It’s the federal government’s job to keep these children safe. I’ve joined with 21 other attorneys general in demanding that the Biden Administration immediately locate and protect these children.”
Iowa co-led the letter with Mississippi and Utah. They were joined by Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and West Virginia.
Read the full letter here.
Well hell YES!!!