According to a Senate subcommittee testimony last week, nearly 1,500 immigrant children were lost in government arranged foster homes last year, with the suspicion that many of them were kidnapped by human traffickers.
During the hearing, Senator Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota told child protection representatives with the Health and Human Services Department (HHS) that they were “the worst foster parents in the world.”
“You are the worst foster parents in the world. You don’t even know where they are. We are failing. I don’t think there is any doubt about it. And when we fail kids that makes me angry,” Heitkamp said.
Many of the children are still unaccounted for, but some of them who have been found were held captive by human traffickers in terrible conditions.
Subcommittee Chairman Senator Rob Portman said that an investigation into the lost children began after the HHS put eight children from Guatemala into the custody of human traffickers, who forced them to work on a farm for 12 hours a day without pay.
“It is intolerable that human trafficking — modern-day slavery — could occur in our own backyard. What makes the Marion cases even more alarming is that a U.S. government agency was responsible for delivering some of the victims into the hands of their abusers,” Portman said after learning of the case.
“Whatever your views on immigration policy, everyone can agree that the administration has a responsibility to ensure the safety of the migrant kids that have entered government custody until their immigration court date,” Portman said.
Since that incident came to light, HHS and The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) promised to check up on the unaccompanied immigrant children who passed through their care. After these checkups, it was revealed that many more children were slipping through the cracks than anyone anticipated.
Acting assistant secretary at HHS, Steven Wagner, told the committee that between October and December of 2017, HHS called 7,635 children that the agency placed with sponsors and they were only able to track down 6,075 of them. At least 28 of them had reportedly run away, five others were deported, 52 were living with someone else and 1,475 were missing.
The number of children in danger could be much larger, considering that since 2013, more than 180,000 unaccompanied immigrant children passed into America, and very few of them had family in the states who they could stay with, so many of them were placed in the care of random foster families who did not have to go through the same types of background checks and scrutiny that foster families usually do.
The agencies blame their neglect of these children on low budgets, but they seem to have billions to spend on fighting the drug war and creating a police state at the border.
Of those 180,000 children that were placed in new homes, it is hard to imagine how many are currently missing, since so many of the 7,635 children who were actually followed up on could not be found. In 2016, an AP investigation found that more than two dozen children had been sent to homes where they were sexually assaulted, starved or forced to work for little or no pay.
Child welfare lawyers from Ohio who testified at the hearing said that increased persecution from immigration enforcers has made family members of unaccompanied children who enter the US afraid or unable to take custody. One of these attorneys, Jessica A. Ramos, suggested that the children be appointed lawyers, in addition to having the opportunity to reunite with family members in the US without fear of deportation.
“Prioritization of enforcement over humanity is endangering children. My clients, despite having been born in another country and not speaking English, are still, above all things, children. Children who deserve to be safe from harm. Children who deserve a chance, just like our own children,” Ramos said.
There have been similar concerns in Europe as well—in 2016, it was reported that more than 10,000 immigrant children may have disappeared after arriving in Europe over a two-year time period.
“It’s not unreasonable to say that we’re looking at 10,000-plus children. Not all of them will be criminally exploited; some might have been passed on to family members. We just don’t know where they are, what they’re doing or whom they are with,” Europol’s chief of staff told the Observer newspaper. While it is possible that some of these children are intentionally staying under the radar because they fear deportation, there have been enough cases of human trafficking in these circumstances to show that this is a widespread problem.
Along with immigrants and refugees, Native Americans have an especially high risk of becoming victims of human traffickers.
As The Free Thought Project reported last year, Native American women and children are disappearing from areas near oil fields, where thousands of workers from around the country live in “man camps.”
Investigations have revealed human trafficking to be a factor in many of these instances, but police in native tribes do not have jurisdiction to arrest non-natives, making it difficult to prosecute the human traffickers who are preying on their community.
Sadly, whether they are immigrants, natives, orphans, or just poor, children who are in vulnerable positions become easy targets for predators, and they are often ignored by the law as well, since these are already groups who are not treated with the dignity that they deserve by the systems that they live under.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY:
My name is John Vibes and I am an author and researcher who organizes a number of large events including the Free Your Mind Conference. I write for numerous alternative media websites, including The Free Thought Project @tftproject and The Mind Unleashed. In addition to my first book, Alchemy of the Timeless Renaissance, I have also co-authored three books with Derrick Broze @dbroze : The Conscious Resistance: Reflections on Anarchy and Spirituality, Finding Freedom in an Age of Confusion and Manifesto of the Free Humans
I just won a 3-year-long battle with cancer, and will be working to help others through my experience, if you wish to contribute to my medical bills, consider subscribing to my podcast on Patreon.
Your point about the drug war is important. One question it brings to my mind is, why do you never see the prosecutors going after the customers of these traffickers? There is only a supply to meet a demand. Unfortunately, there is an evil which places great value on the abuse & death of children. Why all the push for a war on drugs but a war for child trafficking is never launched. The priorities of the state tell a tail but we must stare into the face of a horrible element in humanity to know it.
The Drug war is not a war on drugs but a war on competition. The biggest drug dealer is the foreign controlled CIA. Why do you think the US invaded Afghanistan? Before the US invasion they had almost zero opium. Now, its booming and the US has an opioid problem.
Thanks for pointing that out. My comment got messed up due to our new baby cutting teeth so I got to write half a sentence at a time till I just said screw it & posted it after about 2 & a half hours of trying to get it done right. So I'm sorry it's so sloppy. But the unrefutable fact that the C.I.A. is protecting its fav business model can't be ignored. You're the best!!!
Very sad. :( FYI there is a .02 earnings threshold so .01 posts or comments don't get paid out.
good to know! thank you!
Wait! are you saying we don't need a government to loose 1500 kids? Outrageous! What about happiness of Clintons? Don't you care about that? They might even get a mouthfull of their lord Rothschild's finest dingleberry for that :D
there is no government like no government...
No mistake either, if you ask me. This nation is currently led by PURE EVIL...I'm not kidding, and I'm not being rhetorical.
Good work JohnVibes...keep it up. We 'need' to keep atrocities like these in the public eye, and hold those responsible for gross negligence accountable.
this news leaves me totally surprised, as someone can affirm it without having a minute of guilt, as someone can allow this to happen without doing anything to stop it, it seems incredible
This post was upvoted and resteemed by @thethreehugs. Thank you for your support of @familyprotection.
The one thing WE DON'T WANT OUR GOVERNMENT TO BE EFFICIENT AT, giving the kids directly to traffickers... oyyy.
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So horrific that all this stuff goes on, the mainstream news never reports on it. They should be shouting this from the rooftops instead of all the constant "stormy daniels" diatribe.
"We are with the government and we are hear to help."
DHS and HHS promised to "check up" on these children? They don't regularly check on them to begin with? Well, I'm not sure why I'm so appalled. Chances are this is all just going according to plan.
yeah they didnt have the funding to check up on the kids initially, that was their excuse anyway
Lovely child😍
huh? creepy ass bot
The most terrible thing is the frequent occurrence of this kind of things and that nobody does anything to prevent it from happening, even no media makes public news about it. How sad