South Carolina’s attorney general sent a letter to the Biden administration over the human trafficking of minor migrants and demanded answers on 85,000 missing children who are believed to be the victims of human trafficking.
“The United States needs to stop handing over children to ‘probable traffickers,'” said a letter from South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson (pictured above), addressed to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director Christopher Wray. “President Biden’s border crisis has reached never-before-seen levels. Even worse, we now learn that the Department of Health and Human Services cannot find more than 85,000 migrant children who entered our country over the last two years. Reports show that many of those children have been forced into the labor market, where they work debilitating hours under dangerous conditions in violation of child-labor laws or are sex trafficked.”
“Our States have a strong interest in enforcing the law within our borders,” the letter said. “That includes ensuring that companies follow child labor laws and legal guardians comply with child abuse and neglect laws. We are also dedicated to fighting against human trafficking and are outraged that victims now include children that were in the federal government’s care.”
Attorneys general from 21 other states, including Iowa, Mississippi, Utah, Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia and West Virginia all co-signed the letter.
Wilson and his counterparts demanded answers to the following questions in the letter:
1. Where were the 85,000 missing children last seen? What efforts are being taken to locate them?
2. What percentage of migrant children are ending up with their parents once they enter this country?
3. What safeguards are in place to ensure that family members or other sponsors with whom children are placed in the U.S. are, in fact, the relations they claim to be?
4. What processes are in place to avoid placing children with human traffickers or other individuals that a pose a risk to children?
5. What factors are considered when determining whether a potential sponsor of a migrant child is suitable to provide for the child’s physical and mental wellbeing?
6. What follow-up does the Government perform to ensure that children are not being abused, and how frequent is this follow-up? If you determine that a migrant child has fallen victim to sex trafficking, how do you ensure that the victim receives the necessary treatment? Are states’ victims’ advocates notified?
Human trafficking is on the rise.
The first human trafficking report in a decade in the state of Tennessee showed a dramatic 800 percent rise in the practice.
According to United States Bureau of Justice Statistics, the number of people prosecuted for human trafficking doubled from 2011 to 2021.
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Pete D’Abrosca is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Pete on Twitter/X.
Photo “Alan Wilson” by South Carolina Attorney General.
