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.

Former White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt opens up about Trump, motherhood

Pentagon sends hundreds of Army troops to Latin America for training as drug-trafficking campaign expands

Trump announces advanced weapons testing ‘super range’ in Montana

MS NOW Falsely Reports Kash Patel Is in Russia – Gets Brutally Fact-Checked Directly by the FBI

Tension erupts during House midterm debate as Lawler fact-checks New York Democrat opponent on immigration

‘Serial Killer’ Concerns Grip Michigan’s Capital as Similarities Are Noted in 5 Recent Deaths

Copper theft suspect’s desperate escape caught on bodycam video before deputies discover what he left behind

Trump torches Democrats at Arizona rally, warns they will ‘destroy our country’ ahead of midterms

Will Trump’s contempt for Zelensky force Ukraine to choose between an election and survival?

FBI Says Saudi OpenAI Employee Bugged Company to Spy on Top Executives

Federal agents seize phone of Rep. Ilhan Omar in raid tied to immigration fraud probe

DOJ threatens emergency legal action against California over suspected noncitizen voters

High School Football Coach Fired, Allegedly for Running Up Score Against Lesser Opponent

House Democrat Reveals Plan to Knock Maxine Waters Off Her Leadership Pedestal, Sparking Internal Turmoil

Fox News Poll: Cost of living concerns weigh on GOP in midterms

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.