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.

College students accused of turning popular beach town into booze-soaked free-for-all in takeover chaos

Single Chart Shows DNC’s Downfall Among the American Electorate Since 2009

Man arrested for allegedly hurling beer keg through window of famous Georgetown Cupcake bakery

Sanders caught on camera snapping at reporter over Platner’s posts: ‘Get a better job’

Former Detroit mayor blows governor’s race wide open in surprise move

Trump Admin Moves to Supercharge Deportations with Unprecedented Immigration Judge Addition

NASCAR Star Kyle Busch Hospitalized with ‘Severe’ Medical Issue

Senate Republicans Deal a Serious Blow to Trump’s White House Ballroom Project

RNC legal victory clears North Carolina voter roll purge of noncitiznes through jury responses

Rep. Jim Jordan asks whether Southern Poverty Law Center paid Jan. 6 confidential sources

‘Seattle can’t survive this’: Critics hammer socialist mayor after Starbucks reversal

Zohran Mamdani announces $50 World Cup tickets for New Yorkers

Wall Street banks helped Chinese military-linked firm raise billions despite red flags, lawmakers find

Republicans recoil as Trump’s billion-dollar DOJ ‘slush fund’ for allies threatens ICE, Border Patrol plan

Manhunt underway after woman allegedly assaulted inside Harvard dorm, suspect spotted at MIT: officials

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.