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.

Report: At Least 2 of the 5 Leftist New Year’s Eve Bombing Suspects Are Transgender

Trump Reduces Federal Workforce to Lowest Level in a Decade

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to where we stand with a healthcare package

201 House Dems vote against bill named after 20-year-old American killed by illegal immigrant teen

JD Vance Responds to Controversial Susie Wiles Interview: ‘Sometimes I Am a Conspiracy Theorist’

CBP officer fires weapon during road rage incident near JFK Airport entrance

Wiles panned Bondi’s ‘binders full of nothingness’ during Epstein files stunt

Trump Chief of Staff Susie Wiles Issues Statement After Stunning D.C. with Friendly Fire Interview

Trump admin fights in court to keep White House East Wing demolition, $300M ballroom build on track

US and UK will need to offer a sweet deal for Jimmy Lai as China stands firm on conviction

Democrats push DOJ to reveal hidden half of Jack Smith report as GOP prepares tense deposition

FBI had doubts about probable cause for Mar-a-Lago raid, emails show

MIT professor shot dead in Brookline home, Massachusetts State Police launch homicide investigation

The White House Reportedly Chastised Netanyahu with a ‘Stern’ Message After Weekend Strike

SNAP Recipient Complains About New Rules Blocking Junk Food Purchases: ‘What Is the Point?’

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.