The rise in unlawful child labor at workplaces throughout the United States is a consequential outcome of Vice President Kamala Harris’s anti-enforcement policy, which she put forth during her time in Congress. This policy has been included in all funding bills for the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) since 2019, and it is up to the Republican lawmakers in the US House of Representatives to reverse it.
While President Trump was in office, then-Senator Harris contested the fact that the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was working with US Health and Human Services (HHS) to run background checks on unaccompanied alien children (UACs) and their sponsors, leading to appropriate arrests. This effort came as a response to years of ineffective vetting of UACs and sponsors during the Obama administration, which led to child labor issues that were highlighted in a Senate report.
The Memorandum of Agreement needed HHS to share information regarding UACs in their custody with ICE, including criminal activity, claims of abuse, violence, and gang affiliations, as well as data on potential sponsors of UACs and any other adults who would live at the same address. In return, ICE was required to share background information on potential sponsors and all adults living in sponsor households.
While this collaborative effort prevented child exploitation and minimized child smuggling to the US-Mexico border, then-Senator Harris opposed ICE arresting potential UAC sponsors and announced a bill that prohibits immigration enforcement on UACs and their potential sponsors and other adults residing at the child’s address. Harris’ legislation would take $220 million from ICE’s 2019 budget to provide social services such as “acculturation,” “therapeutic,” and “legal services” to UACs and their sponsors.
Once the Democrats took over the congressional spending in 2019, they included Senator Harris’s anti-enforcement provision in the DHS funding bill and made some exceptions. Therefore, adults with undocumented backgrounds living illegally in the United States travel to the border, pick up illegal alien children with unknown backgrounds, and vanish into the country. As a result, child smuggling rings function freely, resulting in the massive escalation of child labor at job sites across the country.
Vice President Harris stated in her anti-enforcement press release that “we will ultimately be judged as a society by how we treat our children.” In light of the rise in child exploitation due to her policies, how does she believe she should be judged now? Additionally, the House GOP can address this provision in the forthcoming DHS funding bill, but stopping it is inadequate. Congressional Republicans can include a requirement in the funding bill for ICE to arrest UAC sponsors. It is now up to them to act.
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