UPDATED: Neo Slavery — Child Labor Imported Across Our Borders
All persons held as slaves within any State, or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free.
— President Lincoln, Emancipation Proclamation, 1863
AMENDMENT XIII
Section 1.
Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
Section 2.
Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
Passed by Congress January 31, 1865. Ratified December 6, 1865.
Chicken With a Side of Slavery
What rights do undocumented children have? Who are their advocates? Is this the life they are being brought to the US for?
The Labor Department is investigating Perdue Farms and Tyson Foods — two of the biggest poultry producers in the U.S. — after reports that migrant children as young as 13 have been working overnight shifts to clean the companies' plants.
NPR: Perdue Farms and Tyson Foods Under Federal Inquiry Over Reports of Illegal Child Labor (September 25, 2023)
What incident led to this investigation?
The New York Times Magazine published an article on September 18, 2023. The story was about 14-year-old Marcos Cux, who worked at a Perdue slaughterhouse in Virginia. In a workplace accident, Marcos's arm was nearly torn off.
He came from a village in Guatemala to this small town on the Eastern Shore of Virginia several months earlier. Before he left, his family was struggling to pay for electricity and skipping meals in the aftermath of the pandemic. They couldn’t afford formula for his infant sister. His parents were growing desperate and knew that while adults who arrive at the U.S. border are generally turned back, minors traveling by themselves are allowed in.
The policy dates back to a 2008 law intended to protect children who might otherwise come to harm on their own in Mexican border towns. In the 15 years since, the carveout has become widely known in Central America, where it shapes the calculations of destitute families. Marcos’s parents decided he would go north and find a way to earn money. They borrowed against their land to pay a coyote — technically a human smuggler, but in this case, more like a travel agent — to help him reach the United States without being kidnapped or hurt. He made his way to an adult cousin in Parksley, a town of 800 people bookended by the Perdue plant and another sprawling chicken operation run by Tyson Foods.
His cousin, Antonia de Calmo, was living in an already-cramped home with her husband and four children in a trailer park called Dreamland, but she agreed to take in Marcos after his mother called in tears and said that they had no other options. Federal law bans minors from cleaning slaughterhouses because of the risk of injury. But with the help of a middle-school classmate who already worked at the plant, Marcos bought fake documents that said he was a man with a different name in his 20s. When he was hired, children made up as much as a third of the overnight cleaning crew at the Perdue plant, workers told me. The work was harder than Marcos expected, but it also paid better than he could have imagined — around $100 for each six-hour shift, more than he could make in a month back home.
Internet Archive: New York Times: The Kids on the Night Shift (September 18, 2023)
Marcos hasn't been the only child hurt.
Duvan Robert Tomas Perez, a 16-year-old Guatemalan who came to the US 6 years ago, died at another poultry plant. He became caught and tangled in the machinery he was cleaning.
Immigrant Alliance for Justice and Equity (IAJE) spokesperson Jess Manrriquez told NPR that Perez and his family are indigenous Guatemalans who immigrated approximately six years ago.
"Workers are put in these conditions that are truly deplorable," Manrriquez said. "We've been hearing from folks on the ground that there is a lot of child labor that is happening at that poultry plant, so there's a lot that needs to be investigated. But right now, we just want to help the family through this process."
NPR: A 16-Year-Old Died While Working at a Poultry Plant in Mississippi (July 20, 2023)
Child Labor
And on February 17, 2023, the Department of Labor published this news release which found more than 100 children illegally employed in hazardous jobs.
One of the nation’s largest food safety sanitation services providers has paid $1.5 million in civil money penalties after the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division found the company employed at least 102 children – from 13 to 17 years of age – in hazardous occupations and had them working overnight shifts at 13 meat processing facilities in eight states.
The employer’s payment of civil money penalties is the result of the division’s investigation of Packers Sanitation Services Inc. LTD, based in Kieler, Wisconsin. The division found that children were working with hazardous chemicals and cleaning meat processing equipment including back saws, brisket saws and head splitters. Investigators learned at least three minors suffered injuries while working for PSSI.
Department of Labor: More Than 100 Children Illegally Employed in Hazardous Jobs, Federal Investigation Finds; Food Sanitation Contractor Pays $1.5M in Penalties (February 17, 2023)
If this investigation happened last year and a press release was published in February, why are there reports coming out afterwards regarding companies like Tyson Foods and Perdue?
Marcos's arm is the price of an immigration policy unchecked. But it gets worse. At least Marcos was getting paid. What is an arm compared to $100 per day?
The federal inquiry comes about seven months after the Biden administration vowed to crack down on illegal child labor in the country. In February, the Labor Department imposed a $1.5 million fine on Packers Sanitation Services Inc., one of the country's largest cleaning services for meat plants, for hiring minors. At the time, the department did not pursue food corporations, including Tyson, that had benefited from underage labor.
According to data from the Labor Department, child labor violations have nearly quadrupled since a low point in 2015 — leading to more injuries and deaths on the job.
NPR: Perdue Farms and Tyson Foods Under Federal Inquiry Over Reports of Illegal Child Labor (September 25, 2023)
Forced Labor... Slavery Rebranded
What about the children who illegally come across the border who aren't as lucky in finding employment as Marcos?
“Santos Teodoro Ac-Salazar and Olga Choc Laj trafficked two children who they forced to work for them against their will. We are committed to working with our law enforcement partners to investigate those who engage in labor trafficking and involuntary servitude, particularly when children are involved,” said Irene Lindow, Special Agent in Charge, Great Lakes Region, U.S. Department of Labor, Office of Inspector General.
Per their plea agreements, between February 2019 and February 2020, Santos Teodoro Ac-Salazar, 27, and Olga Choc Laj, 34, who are both Guatemalan citizens, conspired to unlawfully enter the United States with two children who were not their own in order to more easily be allowed entry into the United States and to avoid prolonged detention by U.S. immigration authorities. Once in the United States, Ac-Salazar and Choc Laj harbored the two children (ages 15 and 10 at the time) in a residence in Aurora by, among other things, failing to enroll the children in school, prohibiting them from leaving the residence except in limited circumstances, and instructing them to provide false information to third parties, including law enforcement authorities. Ac-Salazar and Choc Laj also forced the two children to work as their domestic servants and childcare providers and would physically strike and threaten to strike the children if the children did not do as they were told. Ac-Salazar and Choc Laj also forced the older child to work various paying jobs outside the Aurora residence and took nearly all of the earnings from the jobs the child worked.
When you start looking into this topic, you find that this problem is not new. As long as we have illegal immigration, we are going to have a US slave trade.
From 2013 through 2014, at least 4 people were paid $6 million by an egg farm called Trillion Farms for "its labor services."
In 2018, Pablo Duran Ramirez, Aroldo Castillo-Serrano, Ana Angelica Pedro-Juan, and Conrado Salgado-Soto all pled guilty to a labor trafficking scheme.
Those defendants admitted to recruiting workers from Guatemala, some as young as 14 or 15 years old, falsely promising them good jobs and a chance to attend school in the United States. The defendants then smuggled and transported the workers to a trailer park in Marion, Ohio, where they ordered them to live in dilapidated trailers and work at physically demanding jobs at Trillium Farms for up to 12 hours a day. The work included cleaning chicken coops, loading and unloading crates of chickens, de-beaking chickens and vaccinating chickens. During their sentencing, Senior United States District Judge James G. Carr found that they had threatened workers with physical harm and withheld their paychecks in order to compel them to work. Eight minors and two adults were identified as victims of the scheme.
Three additional defendants, including Duran Ramirez’s son, pleaded guilty for their roles in encouraging the workers’ illegal entry into the United States.
US Attorney's Office, Northern District of Ohio: Another Defendant Pleads Guilty in Connection with Labor Trafficking of Minors at Ohio Egg Farm (September 18, 2018)
And the problem keeps getting bigger.
The Department of Labor says it identified nearly 5,800 illegally employed children in the 2023 fiscal year, up 88% since 2019.
Investigators discovered child labor violations in 955 cases in 2023, up 14% from 2022.
Several major employers have been accused of child labor violations, including meat processors and auto suppliers.
Axios: Exclusive: Hawley and Booker Propose Bipartisan Child Labor Law Legislation (October 26, 2023)
Slavery By Government Agency
Tara Rodas, Debra White, Mayra Moreno, and Aaron Stevenson are all whistleblowers who have reported on illegal immigration. Hannah Dreier of the New York Times is a reporter who has written a series of articles about this. The stories they are telling are horrific.
On October 4, 2023, the Office of Refugee Resettlement proposed a change to its policies which would make child trafficking schemes easier to carry out. Due to our current system of government by agency, these were laws that were being enacted via agency and would bypass any vote which would be held in Congress. The proposed rule changes can be found here.
Federal Register: Unaccompanied Children Program Foundational Rule
These whistleblowers came out and asked for help on social media. Thanks to the tireless efforts of many patriots, patriots and influencers on social media were able to raise awareness file tens of thousands of questions and complaints against these proposed rules changes. Due to the enormous and tireless efforts of thousands of people, we delayed these rule changes from becoming regulation for a few months ― from the original date of February until July of 2024.
While this is a small victory, another small victory was shining a spotlight on these new rules and catching the attention of Capitol Hill, namely Senator Chuck Grassley.
On June 5, 2024, Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) moved to overturn Biden’s administration rule which enables the abuse of unaccompanied migrant children. “The Biden administration ignored warnings from Congress and the Inspector General that its policies put children at risk and instead moved to finalize its current rule. Biden’s Health and Human Services Department has lost tens of thousands of vulnerable kids and handed over many others to abusers and criminals. This exploitation is one of the most heartbreaking tragedies the Biden Border Crisis has created. Since the Biden administration has refused to lift a finger to fix this problem, it’s now up to Congress to put a stop to it,” Grassley said.
The HHS rule Grassley is seeking to overturn, which was finalized in April, codifies harmful practices, including:
Lax or optional sponsor vetting;
Refusal to consider a sponsor’s criminal record, including illegal drug use, history of abuse or neglect, or other necessarily disqualifying child welfare concerns;
Refusal to share a sponsor’s immigration status with law enforcement;
Weak standards for post-release home studies to determine a child’s status or safety once in the custody of a sponsor; and
Restrictions on whistleblowers’ rights to disclose to Congress and the HHS Inspector General (IG) information on wrongdoing and misconduct in the program.
So far, 45 Senators have joined Grassley in his efforts. He needs more support. If you would like to call your Senator in order to encourage their decision of whether to support Grassley in his efforts, you can find a list to do so here.
These aren’t the only abuses regarding these issues. A sweeping review of potential abuse within the Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) program for placing unaccompanied alien children with U.S.-based sponsors is being conducted by Senator Grassley. “It is essential that recipients of taxpayer money provide a full accounting to Congress and the American people with respect to how that money has been used,” Grassley continued. “That requirement is particularly heightened regarding the critical issue of caring for children and preventing evil actors from turning their young lives into a living hell through human smuggling and trafficking for sex or forced labor.”
So far that review is currently requesting information from the following non-government organizations (NGOs) and contractors:
You may choose to look the other way but you can never say again that you did not know.
― William Wilberforce
Sources and Further Research
Senate Letter Sent To Companies on December 15, 2022
Department of Labor: Child Labor Enforcement: Keeping Young Workers Safe
ABC News: Labor Department Fines Food Sanitation Contractor $1.5M for Child Labor Violations (February 17, 2023)
Axios: Department of Labor plans Child Labor Crackdown after Alleged Violations (February 27, 2023)
Axios: Lawmakers Target Child Labor Laws to Ease Worker Shortage (February 27, 2023)
US Senator for Hawai’i Brian Schatz: Schatz, Young Introduce New Legislation To Help Stop Child Labor (October 20, 2023)
Horrible…the people who are responsible for facilitating such an environment should be punished to the fullest extent of the law.
Truly evil these people are. I have such a hard time understanding how anyone could abuse children. It seems it's rampant everywhere. What has caused humans to have such moral decay? It's just so sad.