More than 600 children were “recycled” through the border over the last year, including some who were carried across eight times, by a different person each time, looking to exploit lax policies to gain a foothold in the U.S., a top ICE official told Congress on Wednesday.
And those are only cases that were detected, officials said.
The recycled children are one of the more disturbing aspects of illegal border flow over the last 12 months, which set records for the number of children and families who snuck into the U.S.
The families were drawn by a lax policy, imposed by a federal court, that gives adults a quick release into communities as long as they brought a son or daughter with them.
The result was massive levels of fraud, with adults renting or outright buying unrelated children in order to present themselves as a family, authorities said. In some cases it was a one-off, but in other instances children were “recycled” across the border multiple times, said Derek N. Benner, acting deputy director at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
“We’ve identified over 600 children that have been recycled,” he said.
Watch: US Soccer Player Takes Possibly Worst Dive Ever Caught on Camera After Mexico Player Barely Taps Him
Child Dies After Freak Accident in Playground Tube Slide
Denver man’s escape exposes chilling Tren de Aragua kidnapping plot that lands trio in prison
Former TV anchor who pleaded guilty to killing mother last Halloween gets life sentence
Trump says Putin call coming ‘very soon’ as US tracks suspected plague death in Russia
Ex-CIA official admits to $194 million fraud scheme involving gold bars
Cornell Appoints Former Acting Attorney General Who Was Fired by Trump for Insubordination to Lead Investigation
Foreign adversaries running ‘psyop’ to fuel anti-AI and anti-data center movement, war official says
Veterans of ‘unbearable’ Chinese factory in Ohio detail brutal work conditions amid top Dem’s oversight visit
GOP Sen. Thom Tillis Sucks Up to ‘The View’ by Threatening to Dox Trump’s Personal Phone Number
Unearthed social media posts contradict El-Sayed’s ‘capitalist’ narrative
Christa Pike now conscious and talking after surviving 2 doses of lethal injection drug: report
Delta Air Lines jet clips Air Canada plane on Los Angeles International Airport tarmac
Israel claims Hamas is planning Oct. 7 anniversary attack. Does it have the means to do so?
Immediate Impact Seen at CNN HQ as Paramount and Warner Bros. Finalize Controversial Mega Merger
That means that once they came across with an unrelated adult, they were then separated by the smuggling operation and taken back south across the border to be brought back again with a new adult, he said.
“Some of them had indicated they’ve made the trip as many as eight times, with separate, unrelated adults each time,” he added.
Mark Morgan, acting commissioner at Customs and Border Protection, recounted one case where they caught a Honduran man who’d “bought a child” for $80, then attempted to cross into the U.S.
“Why did he do it? Because the loopholes in our system told him — and the smugglers made sure he understood — ‘You grab a child, that’s your passport into the United States,’” Mr. Morgan told the Senate Homeland Security Committee.
Mr. Benner detailed another case where a Guatemalan man showed up at the border with a girl he claimed to be his daughter. Authorities didn’t immediately sniff out the fake relationship and under the lax U.S. policies toward families the man and girl were released.
The girl was “repeatedly” sexually abused and beaten, until she was finally rescued, Mr. Benner said.
ICE began in the spring to use DNA testing to try to weed out fraudulent families at the border.
That involved taking people who presented as families, but where suspicions were raised, and testing DNA to try to confirm the purported relationship. At the height, Mr. Benner said, about a quarter of the cases tested came back as fake families.
Cartels began to adjust their strategies and the rate is now 13% to 15%, he said.
Watch: US Soccer Player Takes Possibly Worst Dive Ever Caught on Camera After Mexico Player Barely Taps Him
Child Dies After Freak Accident in Playground Tube Slide
Denver man’s escape exposes chilling Tren de Aragua kidnapping plot that lands trio in prison
Former TV anchor who pleaded guilty to killing mother last Halloween gets life sentence
Trump says Putin call coming ‘very soon’ as US tracks suspected plague death in Russia
Ex-CIA official admits to $194 million fraud scheme involving gold bars
Cornell Appoints Former Acting Attorney General Who Was Fired by Trump for Insubordination to Lead Investigation
Foreign adversaries running ‘psyop’ to fuel anti-AI and anti-data center movement, war official says
Veterans of ‘unbearable’ Chinese factory in Ohio detail brutal work conditions amid top Dem’s oversight visit
GOP Sen. Thom Tillis Sucks Up to ‘The View’ by Threatening to Dox Trump’s Personal Phone Number
Unearthed social media posts contradict El-Sayed’s ‘capitalist’ narrative
Christa Pike now conscious and talking after surviving 2 doses of lethal injection drug: report
Delta Air Lines jet clips Air Canada plane on Los Angeles International Airport tarmac
Israel claims Hamas is planning Oct. 7 anniversary attack. Does it have the means to do so?
Immediate Impact Seen at CNN HQ as Paramount and Warner Bros. Finalize Controversial Mega Merger
Mr. Morgan and Mr. Benner testified at a hearing called to examine the border numbers from fiscal year 2019, which ended Sept. 30, closing out the worst year in more than a decade.
Still, things ended on a better note than the nadir in May, when more than 5,000 persons were caught jumping the border on some days. The number is now less than 1,400 a day.
