Our visitor Hannah Dreier, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter at The New York Occasions, has printed a bombshell new investigation headlined “As Migrant Kids Have been Put to Work, U.S. Ignored Warnings.” It reviews that the Biden administration has repeatedly ignored or missed warnings a few surge of migrant youngsters as younger as 12 working in factories throughout america underneath grueling and sometimes harmful working circumstances in critical violation of kid labor legal guidelines. “Individuals have been punished for bringing this to the eye of their supervisors,” says Dreier.
Transcript
This can be a rush transcript. Copy will not be in its remaining type.
AMY GOODMAN: The New York Occasions is reporting the Biden administration has repeatedly ignored or missed warnings a few surge of migrant youngsters as younger as 12 working in factories throughout america. The Occasions reviews, quote, “No less than 5 Well being and Human Companies employees members filed complaints and mentioned they have been pushed out after elevating issues about baby security,” unquote. One of many HHS staffers informed The New York Occasions, quote, “I really feel like wanting protesting within the streets, I did all the things I may to warn them. They only didn’t need to hear it,” she mentioned.
In February, the Occasions printed a blockbuster report about baby labor based mostly on accounts by over 100 unaccompanied migrant youngsters, largely from Central America, who described grueling and sometimes harmful working circumstances, together with having to make use of heavy equipment, being subjected to lengthy hours and late-night shifts at services that manufacture merchandise for main manufacturers and retailers, like Hearthside Meals Options, the makers of Cheerios, Fruit of the Loom, Entire Meals, Goal, Walmart, J.Crew, Frito-Lay and Ben & Jerry’s. Others have been pressured to work as cleansing employees at resorts, at slaughterhouses, building websites, automotive factories owned by Common Motors and Ford, in critical violation of kid labor legal guidelines.
On Tuesday, Homeland Safety Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas was grilled in regards to the Biden administration’s response to pressured baby labor. That is Republican Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri.
SEN. JOSH HAWLEY: You’re not going to take any accountability for the indentured servitude and exploitation of youngsters that’s taking place in your watch. A second in the past, you have been crowing about the truth that you handled youngsters so effectively, and but we discover tens of 1000’s of youngsters who’re pressured to work as slaves due to your insurance policies, and also you flip round and blame a previous administration.
Mr. Secretary, that is par for the course for you. You do it each time you seem earlier than this committee. You do it each time you seem earlier than Congress. I, for one, am sick and uninterested in it. And 1000’s of youngsters are in bodily hazard — hazard — due to what you’re doing. It is best to have resigned way back. And if you happen to can not change course, you have to be faraway from workplace. Thanks, Mr. Chairman.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re joined now by Hannah Dreier, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter at The New York Occasions. Her new investigation is headlined “As Migrant Kids Have been Put to Work, U.S. Ignored Warnings.” Dreier’s earlier piece was headlined “Alone and Exploited, Migrant Kids Work Brutal Jobs Throughout the U.S.”
Hannah Dreier, welcome again to Democracy Now! We had you on on your first blockbuster exposé exhibiting youngsters as younger as 12 working throughout america. Now you’re reporting that the Biden administration knew about this — not solely knew about this and didn’t do something, they really did do one thing: They pushed out these throughout the administration who have been elevating alarms. Are you able to discuss what you discovered?
HANNAH DREIER: It’s nice to be with you, Amy.
And yeah, simply as you say, individuals have been punished for bringing this to the eye of their supervisors. Individuals say that they have been fired, they have been demoted. I spent a yr speaking to youngsters who got here to this nation and are working in probably the most exploitative circumstances in factories, in slaughterhouses. I discovered these youngsters in each single state on this nation. And so, after that story got here out, I started asking, “How may it have been that the Biden administration didn’t learn about this?”
And what I discovered was that, really, they got proof. They got warnings. There was signal after signal that this was taking place for 2 years, and the administration actually didn’t spring into motion till simply final month.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Hannah, I used to be notably struck by the details about Susan Rice, the White Home head of home coverage, and her response to the reviews that there have been issues when it comes to how these youngsters have been being handled. May you discuss that? As a result of Susan Rice has been an individual who has been in each Democratic administration over the past 30 years — Invoice Clinton, Barack Obama and now Joe Biden.
HANNAH DREIER: Proper. Susan Rice is a vastly essential determine, and she or he is Biden’s high level individual on immigration. So it’s not, you already know, some junior staffer on the White Home who perhaps acquired a warning one time, and it didn’t get, you already know, channeled within the acceptable approach. What I discovered was that Susan Rice’s workforce was informed about this many times. And the form of proof we’re speaking about are clusters of youngsters discovered to be working in several elements of the nation, repeatedly, in these very industrial jobs. So these are youngsters making automotive elements. These are youngsters utilizing caustic chemical substances and acids to wash a hen plant. And people messages acquired to Susan Rice’s degree. Memos airing issues about these points acquired to Susan Rice’s degree. Her workforce was informed, going again to the summer season of 2021, that folks have been very fearful about this.
And what the White Home has mainly mentioned is, “Nicely, perhaps we noticed these indicators, however we didn’t put all of it collectively.” What their response has been is kind of a scarcity of curiosity or a scarcity of conscientious considering to understand that if we’re seeing children in all these completely different locations who’re doing these jobs, perhaps there’s a bigger development right here; perhaps there’s 1000’s of those children on the market.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Nicely, they did put it collectively sufficiently to power out 5 Well being and Human Companies employees members. May you discuss these — a few of these employees members and the alarms that they raised?
HANNAH DREIER: So, these are the individuals who have been operating the unaccompanied minor program for Well being and Human Companies. One of many girls who I spoke with, Jallyn Sualog, she helped construct this program. She began working for the federal government in 2010, proper once we first began to see these waves of youngsters coming over, and she or he was in control of this program for years and years. She was the very best official operating this system when Biden took over.
And what she says is she raised alarms. We’ve seen her emails the place she’s saying one thing catastrophic goes to occur, and pleading with any person to concentrate. When her emails went unanswered, she went to Congress, and she or he talked to Congress staffers and mentioned once more, “I’m actually fearful about what’s taking place right here. These youngsters are in peril.”
And he or she was pushed out. She was considered one of 5 individuals who I spoke to who filed complaints, who confirmed me their emails the place they have been saying, you already know, one thing actually unsuitable is going on right here. They usually say that as an alternative of being listened to, they have been demoted, and other people simply didn’t need to hear these warnings.
AMY GOODMAN: I needed to show to the White Home press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, who was talking on Tuesday.
PRESS SECRETARY KARINE JEAN-PIERRE: This administration moved swiftly to crack down on violators and are extra rigorously vet — extra vigorously vet sponsors of unaccompanied minors. DOL and HHS launched a brand new process power to intensify cooperation and higher share info. We additionally known as on Congress to offer the sources this administration has lengthy requested to assist us crack down on corporations that exploit youngsters for labor. The actions we’ve taken since February clarify that we’ll proceed to analyze and maintain corporations accountable, however we additionally want Congress to offer the sources we have to implement. And we’ve been very clear. Once more, DOL, HHS have taken actions. However we’d like Congress to additionally — to additionally give the — give DOL and HHS the sources that they should broaden these actions that they’ve put ahead.
AMY GOODMAN: So, that’s the White Home response. Should you may reply to that? And notably, discuss who’s chargeable for what. I imply, we noticed this dramatic confrontation between Senator Hawley and Alejandro Mayorkas, who’s head of Homeland Safety. Discuss what Homeland Safety is chargeable for — he was notably offended that Mayorkas was blaming the Trump administration for separating youngsters — what Homeland Safety is chargeable for, what HHS is chargeable for. And inform us extra about these whistleblowers who made clear, again and again, what was taking place, and weren’t simply not listened to, as was simply identified, however have been pushed out, one after one other after one other.
HANNAH DREIER: So, in equity to the Biden administration, they’ve taken speedy motion after our first story got here out a month in the past. And the Division of Labor is admittedly ramping up the best way that they’re going to attempt to go after these corporations that exploit migrant youngsters. And Well being and Human Companies has additionally taken some steps. What’s been simply so stunning to me is that these steps weren’t taken earlier.
And one dynamic that folks typically level out is that lots of this got here in response to the disaster on the border, the place youngsters have been coming in in file numbers proper when Biden took workplace. And lots of them have been kind of languishing in Customs and Border Safety jails, as a result of there wasn’t sufficient room within the shelter system to take them in. And so, there was wall-to-wall protection of youngsters sleeping on the ground, youngsters underneath these tin blankets, and the Biden administration was actually getting slammed on: “Why are these children languishing in jails? I believed you have been going to deal with them.” And so there was all this strain within the administration to maneuver these children out rapidly, as a result of it was so seen after they have been ending up sleeping on the flooring, sleeping in these horrible circumstances.
And what occurred after that, with all these children working, was a lot much less seen. , no person goes to go and have a giant newsreel about youngsters who’re working within the poultry plant, as a result of you possibly can’t get in there. And so, it was kind of a trade-off, because it’s been defined to me, between this very seen disaster, the place children weren’t shifting out of the shelters rapidly sufficient, and this hidden disaster, the place children are actually working these horrible jobs and sometimes kind of languishing in debt bondage. And that’s simply a part of this dynamic that kind of comes up many times.
The businesses which can be accountable listed here are actually Division of Labor and Well being and Human Companies. I do know Mayorkas has been getting questioned about this, I believe kind of as a proxy for the Biden administration. However the company that’s, you already know, in control of migrant youngsters is Well being and Human Companies. It’s not just like the common immigration system. Kids go to this completely different company that’s purported to be a baby welfare company. And it’s Well being and Human Companies that’s then chargeable for releasing them to sponsors and defending them from trafficking and exploitation.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And yeah, that’s what I needed to ask you about, the position of Well being and Human Companies, as a result of, clearly, we will perceive the strain that the Biden administration was underneath to get youngsters out of the detention services, however then the accountability needed to fall on the company that stored seeing one or one other particular person repeatedly providing to sponsor youngsters, to watch and test up what these — who was — what these sponsors have been really doing with the youngsters. So, wouldn’t that fall largely on Well being and Human Companies?
HANNAH DREIER: Sure, that’s Well being and Human Companies. And these staffers, who needed to attempt to join youngsters with sponsors and transfer them out of shelters, inform me that, to them, this typically felt worse than even throughout, you already know, baby separation underneath Trump. The individuals who work on this company, they’re largely Democrats. They largely are on this work as a result of they actually imagine that migrant youngsters are essential, and need to be careful for them. They usually say that they felt this large strain to simply get children out of the shelter, to ship them to whoever, to despatched them to individuals who had already sponsored a number of youngsters.
I spoke with considered one of these employees in Texas, who mentioned that simply in two weeks doing this job for Well being and Human Companies, she discovered six instances the place youngsters have been being despatched to individuals who mentioned that they have been intending to place the youngsters to work or who had already sponsored different children who weren’t their family members. She flagged the case of 1 14-year-old who was being despatched to a nonrelative. And he or she mentioned, “I’m actually fearful about this child. I believe this child is being trafficked. I believe this child goes to should repay some form of debt.” And so far as we will inform, nothing ever occurred. I caught up with that child two years later, and, certain sufficient, he was put to work. He needed to drop out of center college. He needed to pay his personal hire. He needed to repay 1000’s of {dollars} in debt. And he was simply utterly on his personal, regardless that his case had been flagged by a whistleblower.
AMY GOODMAN: Lastly, Hannah, we simply have 30 seconds. What you have been most shocked by in reporting this second exposé?
HANNAH DREIER: I simply couldn’t imagine that this wasn’t flagged earlier. I imply, with one thing this widespread, 1000’s and 1000’s of youngsters, you need to imagine that folks on the highest degree of presidency are going to concentrate after they’re proven proof of the worst form of baby labor exploitation.
AMY GOODMAN: Hannah Dreier, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter at The New York Occasions. We’ll hyperlink to your new investigation, “As Migrant Kids Have been Put to Work, U.S. Ignored Warnings,” and your earlier piece, “Alone and Exploited, Migrant Kids Work Brutal Jobs Throughout the U.S.”
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