"The Biden administration received repeated warnings from both within and outside of the federal government in recent years about a rise in the exploitation of migrant children for child labor, but ignored the evidence it was presented with and in some cases retaliated against whistleblowers, an extensive report by The New York Times showed late Monday. According to the report, officials in the Biden administration including Susan Rice, director of the U.S. Domestic Policy Council, oversaw the loosening of restrictions on vetting potential sponsors for unaccompanied migrants under the age of 18 as emergency shelters that were set up to house the minors struggled to meet demand in 2021. Reports of the problem also reached Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra. At least five staffers at the the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services told the newspaper that they raised concerns about the welfare of children who were sent to live with improperly vetted sponsors, and that they were retaliated against by officials who were growing "exasperated" with employees who insisted the department take steps to protect the minors in its care.
The attorney, Linda Brandmiller, told the Times that she immediately flagged at least two suspicious potential sponsors who had contacted HHS to offer to take in some of the unaccompanied minors, allowing them to leave the emergency shelters that had been set up for an influx of young migrants over the U.S.-Mexico border. One person explicitly said they planned to employ three underage boys at a construction company, and another said they could take in two children who would then have to work off the cost of their travel. Brandmiller told the shelter she was working at in Texas that no children should be sent to the sponsors and warned that a 14-year-old boy had already been sent to one of the people, as well as emailing HHS supervisors and saying, "This is urgent." At least one boy was sent to one of the sponsors despite Brandmiller's warnings, and she was abruptly fired from her job with no explanation a few days later.
As Common Dreams has reported, companies including Packers Sanitation Services Inc. and Hyundai have been found in recent months to rely on the labor of migrants under the age of 18, in violation of child labor laws. According to the Times, Rice's team was briefed regularly for several months on Packers' employment of more than 100 Spanish-speaking children in meatpacking facilities where they operated the industrial cleaning company's equipment and in some cases were injured while using Packers' sanitation chemicals."
https://www.commondreams.org/news/biden-ignored-migrant-child-labor