UPDATE 2/31/23… The Biden Administration now admits that what I posted here is indeed happening… proving me correct.
Paco Calvo arrived in Middlebury, Vermont, when he was fourteen years old. He has been working 12-hour days on dairy farms for the last four years. His hand was crushed in a milking machine after only a few months on the job. When asked about it, he said, “Pretty much everyone gets hurt when they first start”.
On July 1, 2019, a 15-year-old Guatemalan boy was employed to help replace the roof of a commercial building in Cullman, Alabama. On his first day on the job, he fell nearly 50 feet to his death. Multiple witnesses confirmed that none of the workers on the job site were wearing safety harnesses.
15-year-old Carolina Yoc came to the United States last year. She works the midnight shift in a packaging plant, where she packs a sealed bag of cereal into a passing box every 10 seconds. It is dangerous work, where exposed pulleys and gears can cut off fingers or worse.
Hannah Dreier, an investigative reporter for The New York Times, recently wrote this...
“In town after town, children scrub dishes late at night. They run milking machines in Vermont and deliver meals in New York City. They harvest coffee and build lava rock walls around vacation homes in Hawaii. Girls as young as 13 wash hotel sheets in Virginia. These workers are part of a new economy of exploitation. Migrant children, who have been coming into the United States without their parents in record numbers, are ending up in some of the most punishing jobs in the country. This shadow workforce extends across industries in every state, flouting child labor laws that have been in place for nearly a century. Twelve-year-old roofers in Florida and Tennessee. Underage slaughterhouse workers in Delaware, Mississippi, and North Carolina. Children sawing planks of wood on overnight shifts in South Dakota.” She reports, “Migrant child labor benefits both under-the-table operations and global corporations. In Los Angeles, children stitch “Made in America” tags into J. Crew shirts. They bake dinner rolls sold at Walmart and Target, process milk used in Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, and help debone chicken sold at Whole Foods. As recently as last fall, middle schoolers made Fruit of the Loom socks in Alabama. In Michigan, children make auto parts used by Ford and General Motors.”
In interviews with more than 60 caseworkers in one southern state, most estimated that about two-thirds of all unaccompanied migrant children end up working full-time, often under cover of darkness at night.
That’s if they get here at all... America’s border with Mexico is the deadliest land crossing in the world, according to a 2022 report by the United Nations’ International Organization for Migration. See my recent post on this subject.
Despite the number of deaths and injuries to underage workers, many politicians and business owners openly welcome the illegal workers as replacements for lazy able-bodied Americans who are more than happy to live on government handouts. Supporters of these policies are not all Democrats but also include several Republicans as well.
Why is this happening in America?
Many of these children are working to pay off high-interest debts to the cartels who helped them illegally enter this country. Some want to send money back home to support their families. Others who simply want to earn an honest living are being exploited by unscrupulous employers.
The federal government’s implied welcome of the child workers, the “Unaccompanied Alien Children” Program (UAC), was introduced in 2008 by a unanimous vote in Congress. (If one thinks all Republicans are your friends... they are not.)
The Trump Administration closed down the UAC pipeline in 2020 after more than 400,000 children and teens arrived. However, it was promptly reopened by the Biden Administration. At the same time, they described the underage workers as “mere children who are fleeing persecution and poverty”.
Many politicians bury their collective heads in the sand as they do not want to alienate business donors by exposing the ugly truth. The Blackstone investment firm owns one staffing firm that supplies children to meatpackers. Before the 2022 elections, Blackstone donated $34 million to the Republican Party to back candidates who opposed restricting immigration.
U.S. law specifically prohibits people under 16 from working in industrial factory settings. Anyone under 18 is prohibited from working in hazardous jobs in automotive plants, such as driving forklifts or operating metal-cutting and stamping machines.
As one might expect, the abuse of migrant children under Biden’s policies receives very little coverage by the progressive mainstream media. One exception is the New York Times, whose editorial policies I generally abhor, but I will give them credit for exposing some of these abuses mentioned above.
Also, on the positive side, South Korean automaker Hyundai Motor Company told shareholders that it would divest its controlling stake in a major Alabama auto parts plant where it was documented that children as young as 12 years old were working there. In a February 24, 2023 letter to shareholders, the company said recent audits of its direct suppliers across Alabama made them confident they are “now in full compliance with underage labor laws.”
Please understand that not all employers are 100% culpable, as many staffing firms supply false employee documentation for underage workers. But many are... who can’t see they have a 12-year-old girl working in their factory?
Instead of doing something themselves, these “woke” leftists task others to take care of the human beings who seek to enter our country illegally. Instead, they tell us that we are mean-spirited, morally deficient people for “not loving our neighbors,” as Jesus commanded. Sadly, some so-called Christian organizations are being paid millions of dollars annually to participate in this illegal immigration and refugee resettlement willingly. Worse, Roman Catholic organizations (among others, including some Lutheran charities) are reaping millions upon millions of dollars every year to participate in this illegal immigration and refugee resettlement. Catholic Charities are involved with the most extensive illegal alien immigration scheme in American history. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has apparently also sold out to the Democrats to boost their annual revenue stream. Further following the money, illegal workers send back billions of dollars in remittances to their home countries, some of which will surely end up back in Roman Catholic collection plates.
Please note I am not suggesting organizing a boycott of these businesses. As I have written in this blog before, we don’t affect true change by trying to hurt others. Typically, when sales drop in any business, the lower-level employees are the first to be laid off while the top executives and owners continue to prosper. I will leave the matter to your individual conscience.
All of this brings these two verses to mind…
For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? 37 Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? 38 For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him the Son of Man also will be ashamed when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels.” (Mark 8: 36-38)
For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs. (1 Timothy 6:10)
I found this article informative and I wonder why immigration reform has been stymied for so long.
One cannot speak of immigration across the southern border without referencing American foreign policy in Latin America:
Support for the most repressive regimes; coups, subversion, and sanctions against democratically elected socialist governments; Green Berets sent to Colombia to help the government repress and murder labor union organizers, the Catholic left, and land reformers; a 70 year war against socialist Cuba; war and sanctions against Nicaragua, Bolivia, and Venezuela. Support for the murderoous landowners in El Salvador and Guatemala.
Perhaps our greatest hope is that all the working people, labor organizers, the remnants of the Catholic Left, and left wing revolutionaries will cross the border and help overthrow the repressive government of the United States.