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.

Christa Pike now conscious and talking after surviving 2 doses of lethal injection drug: report

Delta Air Lines jet clips Air Canada plane on Los Angeles International Airport tarmac

Immediate Impact Seen at CNN HQ as Paramount and Warner Bros. Finalize Controversial Mega Merger

Nebraska’s Dan Osborn says mocking Trump voters ‘came from a place of passion’

ICE Hunting for 2 Illegal Aliens Suspected of Stabbing an NYPD Officer 3 Years After Biden Released Them Into the U.S.

El Sayed creates ‘Mike Rogers is watching you’ website highlighting work on Patriot Act

Russian researcher’s mystery death could be ‘far worse’ than the plague, former senior Trump official warns

Lithuania moves to allow nuclear weapons on its territory, sparking threats of ‘escalation’ from Russia

Liberal justices look for ‘escape hatch’ as high-stakes climate case lands at Supreme Court, experts say

Judge Slams Mamdani’s ‘Arbitrary’ and ‘Capricious’ Tax, Hands New Yorkers Major Legal Victory

Icon Missing from Florida Church for 100 Years Turns Up on a Back Wall in Another Country

Trump turns to emerging tech giant in multi-billion bid to ramp up US submarine production

Trump sparks outrage for suggesting that Iran could ‘take out’ Los Angeles and San Diego

Blue city emerges as ‘suspected hotspot’ of visa fraud as swing state lawmaker demands answers

Peter Navarro seeks Supreme Court review as Trump allies brace for Democratic subpoenas

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.