More than 600 Children ‘Recycled’ by Migrant Smugglers At Border: ICE

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.

Ex-NFL Superstar Chris Johnson, 40, Diagnosed with ALS, Can No Longer Speak

Alaska Supreme Court allows second Dan Sullivan to appear on ballot

Watch: Radical Leftist Scott Weiner Roasted – Deranged Pride Activists Encircle, Attack Him for Not Being Woke Enough

Emotion and feelings: How Democratic Socialists’ congressional insurgency could come back to bite them

Trump unloads after Supreme Court upholds late mail-in ballots in Mississippi

Erika Kirk and Charlie’s Parents Set to Attend Pivotal Tyler Robinson Hearing

WATCH: Bill Maher says Vance interview critics wouldn’t be happy unless he ‘punched him in the nose’

Trump Notches Another Victory as ‘Unprecedented Election Endorsement Run’ Shows No Signs of Ending

Alito blasts latest SCOTUS ballot ruling as invitation to ‘voter fraud’ risks

Five uplifting Venezuela earthquake rescue stories

Weekend alligator attacks leave Florida woman dead, child injured

Two corrections officers held hostage after inmates take over portions of North Carolina detention center

Ethics panel clears Gallego as Luna declares, ‘Once a creep, always a creep’

Amy Coney Barrett and John Roberts Side with Liberal Justices on Key Election Integrity Case

Conservatives revolt after Trump-appointed Barrett joins liberals in ‘shockingly wrong’ mail ballot ruling

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.