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.

Sanders pushes ‘death penalty’ for crucial US industry that could give advantage to foreign adversaries

Mamdani under fire after symbolic 9/11 pen goes to former al Qaeda defense lawyer

While the Media Panics Over AI, Prisons Use It to Stop Rapes, Fights, and $200M Headcounts

X Caught a 200K-Account Chinese Bot Farm Pushing Panic Over AI Data Centers

‘Destroying the American way of life’: El-Sayed’s political orbit complicates effort to moderate his image

Mask-Off Moment: Palestinian Journo Calls African American Hakeem Jeffries an ‘AIPAC Monkey’

Kushner, Witkoff set for Kyiv talks after Putin meeting in US push for peace

Canada Talked Tough with Trump: Now Job Losses Hit 42K as Tariffs Are Set to Hit Harder

House Dems plot Trump investigation blitz if they seize majority

Karmelo Anthony seeks $250K for murder appeal as questions persist over family’s previous $634K fundraiser

California pizza joint allegedly used as meth distribution hub as illegal immigrant charged

Kennedy Center ceiling partially collapses as Trump-led board pushes for 2-year closure

Machete-wielding MS-13 gangster wanted for murder walks free after Biden-appointed judge releases him: DHS

Trump-linked MAGA Inc pours $10M into Ken Paxton’s Texas Senate race against James Talarico

Trump Admin Shows Iran What Real Power Looks Like: Responds to Attack By Annihilating 3 Oil Tankers

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.