Newsline

Newsline , Society

DHS Secretary Gives Lip Service to Fighting Human Trafficking

Posted on Wednesday, January 31, 2024
|
by Outside Contributor
|
38 Comments
|
Print
Mayorkas against fighting human trafficking

Each January, law enforcement agencies and advocacy groups mark National Human Trafficking Prevention Month to focus public attention on this horrific crime and its devastating effect on victims. The Department of Homeland Security is about to wrap up its annual “Blue Campaign,” which focuses almost entirely on increasing public awareness of trafficking and reporting it to authorities.

This is a laudable effort, but it is tragically undermined by the reality that DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas happens to be one of the most significant enablers of human trafficking. The mass migration crisis triggered by reckless open border policies that Mayorkas put in place has caused incalculable harm not only to American communities and the integrity of our immigration system but also, tragically, to many of the migrants themselves, who are lured into the clutches of traffickers.

For this reason, Mayorkas is now facing impeachment proceedings in the House of Representatives for high crimes and misdemeanors, including refusal to comply with the law and breach of public trust.

As a result of the Mayorkas policies, incidents of border-related human trafficking have exploded. Law enforcement agencies nationwide report a significant spike in incidents of labor and commercial sex trafficking involving non-citizens — and particularly cases involving minors.

Historically high numbers of undocumented migrants, enticed by the Biden administration’s policies, are smuggled across the border by transnational criminal organizations. This is facilitated by government agencies and contractors who funnel them through lenient processing with little vetting and then resettle them while turning a blind eye to the abuse and exploitation occurring under their watch.

Just last month, Tennessee investigators busted a commercial sex trafficking ring operating out of a Super 8 Motel in Murfreesboro. The accused ringleader, a 50-year-old Venezuelan woman, enslaved women from South and Central America after enticing them into the United States — an enterprise that would be much more difficult without policies that have allowed tens of thousands of migrants from Venezuela and other countries to enter without visas.

From the start, Mayorkas and his colleagues began dismantling an array of policies that had succeeded in controlling the years-long wave of undocumented migrants exploiting our dysfunctional asylum system and court rulings mandating the release of minors and those arriving with minors into the country.

Most problematic are the policies that virtually guarantee the release of the unaccompanied minor to a sponsor in the United States. More than 100,000 such minors have been released to a sponsor in each of the last three years — more than double any prior year, with the largest number arriving in Texas, Florida, and California. Smugglers persuade parents, primarily in Central American countries, into sending their children in pursuit of a “better life,” often resulting in forced labor debt bondage in factories and on farms, or worse.

The federal government has lost track of at least 85,000 of these kids, according to government records, but has failed to change policies, much less embark on an effort to rescue these kids from their exploiters.  The expectation is that state and local governments will step in to help them, but this is overwhelming state child welfare agencies and law enforcement agencies.  

A grand jury investigation in Florida recently revealed that every year the state takes into custody about 400 migrant children who ran away from their federally approved sponsors.

To solve the problem, Congress must update immigration laws and rein in the executive policies that are incentivizing the mass illegal migration of adults and minors, leaving them vulnerable to trafficking. We must create an environment where migrants understand that there is no point in contracting with criminal smuggling organizations or labor traffickers to come here illegally because the result will be to be sent home promptly.

When immigration enforcement is restored, especially at the workplace, and when authorities work together to disrupt the criminal enterprises that exploit vulnerable migrants, then profits for the smugglers and traffickers will dry up. The government agencies will have a much greater ability to deal with a far fewer number of exploitation cases.

For their part, state lawmakers should update anti-trafficking laws to penalize those who profit from the exploitation of migrants — including employers. An expansion of E-Verify and enforcement partnerships with DHS agencies is needed, as are stronger “know-your-customer” laws for financial institutions to address identity theft and the laundering of money payments by smugglers and traffickers.

Preventing border-related human trafficking requires more than just clever hashtags and federal government platitudes. It requires new leadership and initiative at all levels to reverse the disastrous policies that have enabled the traffickers to flourish without fear of consequences.

Jessica Vaughan is director of Policy Studies at the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington, D.C., research institute. She wrote this for InsideSources.com.

Reprinted with Permission from DC Journal by Jessica Vaughan

Share this article:
Subscribe
Notify of
guest
38 Comments
Most Voted
Newest Oldest
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
PaulE
PaulE
8 months ago

Why is there any expectation that Mayorkas would be concerned about this topic anymore than any other of the topics and laws he is supposed to enforce, but that he simpky and routinely chooses to ignore? Neither Mayorkas nor his supposed boss, the puppet President Biden, have any interest in this.

Stop wasting your time expecting this administration has any interest in obeying existing laws or protecting the American public.

Donna
Donna
8 months ago

Oh how the democrats love the little children. They love them so much that they allow an open southern border so that cartels can easily transport little children and sell them into a life of prostitution. They love the little children so much they allow them to be sexually abused on their way to our border. They love the little children so much that they allow mutilation of their young bodies to conform to the gender of their choosing. They love the little children so much that they allow abortion all the way up to and including labor, where they allow a suction catheter to be plunged into the base of the skull to suction out the brain, delivering a dead baby. Oh how the democrats love the little children. God Almighty will someday soon remedy this situation and those who participated in this heinous endeavor will be judged accordingly. Praise God.

Thinking American
Thinking American
8 months ago

Ya, right. That’s why NY is closing schools to handle the ILLEGALS and the VA is using resources assigned to serving Vets to hand immigration issues. Just two obvious examples of the FAILURES of the Feds.
Ya have to admit, Obummer did a great job of setting up the destruction of the Western Culture! O’Biden is implementing his marching orders with the help of those engrained from the Obummer term.

GTPatriot
GTPatriot
8 months ago

The repubs are saber-rattlling about impeaching Myorkas ( they still haven’t done it) in order to take attention away from the more obvious impeachment whichis Biden. Comer and Jordan have overinvestigated. It was obvious 6 months ago that our president is crook. The lack of determination among the repubs about Biden is just what we will see this fall in the election. Trump has to supply the backbone for the repubs. The congressional repubs do not have any.

Kim
Kim
8 months ago

Laws currently on the books should prevent all this. Unfortunately, the alphabet agencies that could do something about it, choose not to.
As we see each time a new president is inaugurated, federal policies can do a 180 flip with the stroke of a pen. On Day 1 of his presidency, Biden erased all the policies that had been working quite well (but not perfectly) to secure the border. So, now we have over 250,000 mostly young people dead from fentanyl brought over the border, 85,000+ children subjected to who knows what kind of depravity, millions of illegal immigrants bound to any scrap of income they can get their hands on to pay back the cartels, and a government that has failed to protect this country.
It will improve when Donald Trump is elected later this year, but all his efforts will hit the fan if/when the dems take over in future years. I wouldn’t mess with the Constitution. Instead, any individual ignoring the law should be fired immediately and pensions and benefits nullified. The People deserve and demand an accountable government, and we want it now…no more endless interrogations in front of a dozen congressional subcommittees. We’re tired of waiting. People like Biden and Mayorkas have made a mockery of our country, and, more importantly, they’ve made it very unsafe for us law-abiding citizens.

Vince
Vince
8 months ago

Why in the world isn’t the DHS secretary brought up on criminal charges along with his commanders in chiefs Obama,Biden and whoever else that is running this s@it show. It’s beyond comprehension that this has spiraled into this situation.

anna hubert
anna hubert
8 months ago

Where is author of 1619 project on this one? That would be something to get her teeth into Children of color being taken into slavery I don’t hear here rave and rant about the atrocity of it

Lynn
Lynn
8 months ago

He the biggest cause for this whole mess in the United States ????????

Theresa Coughlin
Theresa Coughlin
8 months ago

It’s not human trafficking that Mayorkas is paying lip service to. It’s ANYTHING having to so with border security.

Louanna Bonogofski
Louanna Bonogofski
8 months ago

Mayorkas 100% deserves impeachment and is a traitor to America. He needs to be sent away to some other country or imprisoned. Not a strong chance that he will actually be impeached due to the GOP not having a majority in the Senate unless there happens to be a few honest democrats which are hard to come by. All we can do is hope for a good outcome.

SAW
SAW
8 months ago

A pathetic shell of a man or whatever he is. No moral compass or backbone at all.
Just take the money and walk away…

papaYEC
papaYEC
8 months ago

While raking in bribes from the cartels and terrorist organizations, no doubt.

Robert Zuccaro
Robert Zuccaro
8 months ago

Its no wonder Jeffrey Epstein was a huge Democrat donor. Common cause.

Fred Noel
Fred Noel
8 months ago

He probably visits place the use trafficked children to relax.

Pat R
Pat R
8 months ago

Impeachment, even if it were to pass the House, will never pass the Senate with the Dem majority. Repubs in House need to stop the J-6 prosecutions and continued harassment of people who simply showed up on Capital grounds. BUT it seems as though GOP as well as Dems, do little other than boondoggle or write/pass laws they can make $$ from.
We so need term limits.

Karen Rapp
Karen Rapp
8 months ago

I heard ALL this 3 years ago. At that time it was considered a conspiracy theory. Biden lied through his so called “campaign”. Trump said everything that we have endured in the last three years would be the outcome of a Biden Presidency. Biden reversed extremely important policies for the border on day one. Pipelines were shut down & oil reserves drained. The country’s debt increased astronomically and continues today. Biden’s master created the Covid tragedy, and it is well known he colluded with China and Ukraine. Inflation is through the roof. Due to the border being wide open for the last three years, our country has been taken over by cartels, illegal migrants, and terrorists. The gaslighting from the enemy is unprecedented. We no longer have an America. It has been taken over and the citizens are paying for it financially and physically. There will NEVER be a normal and people need to realize that no one or thing is going to save us except our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. It’s too late so if you have not chosen a side yet, it is probably a good time to grab your Bible and get right with God. Sorry, I’m just over sugar coating it

BillBoy Baggins
BillBoy Baggins
8 months ago

War need be declared against the human/drug traffickers. Forget criminal prosecution, they must be destroyed, regardless.

Gabe Hanzeli kent wa
Gabe Hanzeli kent wa
8 months ago

does that mean mayorkas is sucking a human trafficker? he looks like he would.

Casey C Matt
Casey C Matt
8 months ago

For many years I worked for and with a number of animal control agencies (most folks call such, “dog pounds”, though their endeavors are much more broad). During my career of course I encountered hundreds of thousands of both dogs and cats and would frequently encounter those that had no care provided. Many showed signs of parasitic infestation………..they were “wormy”. All animals so afflicted present with certain visible signs and Mr. Mayorkas presents himself with those self same signs. The corpse like pallor,the way the skin falls away from the eyeball…many visible cues does Mayorkas show.
Perhaps the creatures problem is related to parasitic infection, beyond those expected of unelected bureaucrats who are parastic themselves universally.
Maybe thats why the current administration showed such seemingly irrational hatred of the anti parasitic medication called Ivermectin.
Time to dose up Mayorkas!!

Kim
Kim
8 months ago

And a low labor force participation rate…
And savings accounts being depleted…
And 70% of us living paycheck to paycheck…
And government still handing out billions of “Covid relief” dollars…
And a debt clock recently ticking over $34 trillion…
And gasoline prices still way above what Trump left us with…
And emergency petroleum reserves less than half full…
And countries laughing at us for electing such a buffoon to the most important job in the world…
And billions for student debt forgiveness…
And billions to enemy countries…
And almost 10 million invaders, hundreds of whom are right now planning another 9/11…
And 250,000 people dead from fentanyl poisoning and 85,000 lost and no doubt abused children because biden won’t close the border…
And misguided climate change mandates to take away our gas heat and ICE vehicles…
And high mortgage rates that stalled the real estate industry…
And new wars starting with biden which could have been avoided…
And high prices at grocery, hardware, department, and drug stores that aren’t so “transitory” after all…
Oh, yeah, biden deserves an A+, all right…

virginia state flag and voter box
President Joe Biden delivers remarks on the economy at a roundtable with business and labor leaders, Friday, November 18, 2022, in the South Court Auditorium in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building at the White House. (Official White House Photo by Erin Scott)
jim nicholson and kamala harris with bible and rosary behind them about her anti-catholic acts
ActBlue logo

Stay informed! Subscribe to our Daily Newsletter.

"*" indicates required fields

38
0
Would love your thoughts, please comment.x
()
x

Subscribe to AMAC Daily News and Games