As\nillegal migration from Central America soars, more minors are moving into\nAmerica\u2019s cheap labor pipeline. It\u2019s a dismal journey enabled by lax\nimmigration policies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Reuters news service<\/a> recently highlighted the wretched story of a Guatemalan teenager who, at the hands of labor brokers, was put to work in an Alabama chicken processing plant so she could repay the traffickers who brought her here. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Bottom-feeding\nbusinesses are capitalizing on a steady supply of underage foreign workers. The\nlow-wage labor force comes courtesy of the Biden administration\u2019s decision to\nstop expelling unaccompanied children at the southern border and, instead, to\nsend them into the U.S. interior.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now,\naccording to Reuters, authorities are investigating cases of minors \u201csucked\ninto a vast network of enablers, including labor contractors, who steer\nyoungsters into jobs that are illegal, grueling and meant for adults.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Peering into this adolescent meat-grinder, Reuters interviewed 16-year-old \u201cAmelia\u201d (not her real name) in rural Alabama, where at least three federal agencies<\/a> are investigating possible violations of immigration and labor laws.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Amelia\nwas among scores of unaccompanied minors released from Department of Health and\nHuman Services shelters to Alabama\u2019s Coffee County, home of a booming\nchicken industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For\n$1,500 up front, local labor brokers furnished Amelia with a stolen Social\nSecurity number and fake identification documents showing her to be an adult.\nThe I.D. enabled her to pass the federal government\u2019s E-Verify\nemployment-vetting system. Amelia\u2019s adult sister, with whom she lives, paid for\nthe documents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To earn\nher keep, Amelia toils five to six days a week on the frigid floor of a poultry\nprocessing plant. It\u2019s mind-numbing and malodorous work, but she says her $10\nhourly wage is twice what friends and family in Guatemala make in a day. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Paying\nusurous loans (10 percent interest per\nmonth<\/em>) to traffickers and labor brokers, and sending money to help family\nmembers back home, means that teenage laborers are under intense pressure to\nmake money quickly. Vans supplied by staffing firms shuttle them to work, deducting\n$40 a week from paychecks for the service.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What about education, mandatory for 16-year-olds under state law? \u201cSchool isn\u2019t for me,\u201d Amelia says. \u201cI have debts.\u201d For her, those three words are a more fitting motto than U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services\u2019 happy new \u201cNation of Welcome\u201d<\/a> slogan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yes,\nWelcome to America, where the exploitation of children is countenanced in\npursuit of the Biden administration\u2019s political goal of limitless immigration.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As illegal migration from Central America soars, more minors are moving into America\u2019s cheap labor pipeline. It\u2019s a dismal journey enabled by lax immigration policies. Reuters news service recently highlighted the wretched story of a Guatemalan teenager who, at the hands of labor brokers, was put to work in an Alabama chicken processing plant so<\/p>\n