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.

Ohio Doctor Indicted for Allegedly Drugging Pregnant Girlfriend with Abortion Pills

Polling Finds Pete Buttigieg Less Popular with Black Voters Than Former KKK Leader

Los Angeles Electric School Bus Bursts Into Flames, Driver Hospitalized

Trump’s election win filled Hamas with ‘fear,’ hostage held like ‘slave’ for 505 days recounts

Leaked lessons from first-year University of Illinois education course show extreme left bias: ‘Just so wrong’

Gruesome Charges: She Was a Miss Switzerland Finalist Then Her Husband Used an Industrial Blender to ‘Puree’ Her – That Was After He Cut Out Her Womb

Person of interest in custody following deadly shooting at Brown University

Platner courts progressives as Maine Senate race with Mills and Collins tightens

How fears of being labeled ‘racist’ helped ‘provide cover’ for the exploding Minnesota fraud scandal

Poll: Trump Holds Double-Digit Leading Majority Over Democrats Regarding Who Americans Trust to Manage the Economy

New York to spend $2 million providing mental health services to Afghan refugees

After Trump Break-Up, MTG Seeks to Build ‘Bridges’ with Feminist Left-Wing CCP-Linked Activists

Law enforcement expert warns early details ‘often change’ as manhunt intensifies at Brown University

Elite Ivy League campus latest to grapple with mass shooting as violence erupts at Brown University

FBI ousts reinstated whistleblower over unauthorized media talks, ‘poor judgment’

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.