U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) led 17 of her Senate Republican colleagues in introducing the Preventing the Recycling of Immigrants is Necessary for Trafficking Suspension (PRINTS) Act, aimed at combatting trafficking and child recycling by giving U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) the authority to fingerprint non-citizens under the age of 14.
“Under President Biden’s open border policies, we are witnessing a devastating humanitarian crisis, and children are the primary victims,” said Senator Blackburn. “Abusing and using a child again and again is one of the most heinous acts imaginable, and yet it happens every day along the southern border. Empowering border patrol agents to fingerprint non-citizens under the age of 14 would give them the tools they need to identify victims of child recycling and stop this abuse in its tracks. Given that the Biden administration just carelessly lost track of 85,000 migrant children, passing this legislation could not be more critical.”
One in every three human trafficking victims is a child. ICE identified 600 kids who were “recycled” in 2019, with one child being brought across the border as many as eight times. According to reports, the Department of Health and Human Services has lost track of more than 85,000 children released to sponsors. Despite those facts, DHS has current regulations and there is a federal law prohibiting border agents from fingerprinting kids under 14 years old.
The proposal would give the Customs and Border Patrol authority to fingerprint non-citizens under 14 years old to combat trafficking and child recycling. It would also require DHS to publicly report the number of apprehensions in a given month involving child traffickers who falsely claimed that an accompanying child was a relative, an annual report to Congress identifying the number of minors who were fingerprinted pursuant to the proposal, criminalize child recycling and remove the Attorney General’s authority to waive fingerprinting requirements for those illegally crossing the border.
CO-SPONSORS: U.S. Senators Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), Bill Cassidy (R-La.), Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.), Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), Steve Daines (R-Mont.), Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), Ted Cruz (R-Texas), John Hoeven (R-N.D.), Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), Mike Lee (R-Utah), Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.), John Cornyn (R-Texas), Katie Britt (R-Ala.), Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), and Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.).
