A bombshell report by The New York Times exposed a staggering number of migrant children in forced labor at manufacturing and production companies associated with major brands like Hearthside Food Solutions, Fruit of the Loom, Whole Foods, Target, Walmart, J.Crew, Frito-Lay, Ben & Jerry’s, General Motors, Ford, and more.
Required to work long shifts in dangerous jobs like roofing and slaughterhouses, migrant children forced into these situations are at higher risk for injury or death. At least a dozen migrant children have died under these conditions since 2017.
These unaccompanied minors should have been released to sponsors committed to ensuring adequate care for them. However, under pressure from the Biden administration to quickly move kids out of shelters, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) often released kids to adults without proper vetting—essentially trafficked them into this grueling work.
Exploited migrant children have been forced to attend school and carry a full workload, some working the night shift and then hustling to class in the morning, some not enrolled in school at all. And while the Department of Health and Human Services was supposed to keep track of these minors and their sponsors, The New York Times’ exposé revealed that the agency lost contact with one-third of migrant children. This is child labor abuse in America, plain and simple.
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Sign the petition: End child labor, expand asylum for unaccompanied migrant children.
The Biden administration responded quickly, announcing that the Department of Labor and the Department of Health and Human Services will take new actions to crack down on child labor and exploitation, and securing a commitment from HHS to improve the vetting of adults who sponsor migrant children out of government custody.
That's a step in the right direction, but it’s certainly not enough. Since taking office, the Biden administration has launched and implemented a number of policies that have hindered our asylum system such as the transit asylum ban and expanding the baseless Title 42 restrictions.
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An overwhelming number of unaccompanied children coming to the U.S. are fleeing persecution and violent and impoverished conditions. Without the stable legal protection of asylum, these children will be afraid to interact with law enforcement or public officials to report abuse, including child labor violations.
The burden is not on the Biden administration alone. Congress must also act and make asylum more attainable and to impose harsh penalties on companies taking advantage of the vulnerability of child migrants when they come to the U.S.
Immigrant children deserve safety, support, resources, protection, and the ability to go to school like every other child in this country. We can demand more, on all fronts, to end the abuse of immigrant children in America.
Sign the petition: End child labor in America, expand asylum for unaccompanied migrant children.