Pirate's Cove

Of course, should we be surprised? It sure seemed like it was the Biden-Harris and their Democrat Comrades who were enabling the sex trafficking (the best way to read the full article is to hit this Real Clear Politics link then click the link there, otherwise you get paywalled at the 3rd paragraph)

Trump’s Opening Move Against Migrant Sex Trafficking

Melissa Harper, who was installed a few weeks ago as the temporary head of the federal government’s Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), is wasting no time making important and necessary changes to the agency’s infamous Unaccompanied Alien Children program. On Friday, the agency released new guidance that will make it more difficult for members of transnational criminal organizations and pimps to “sponsor” teenage migrants and then traffic them for sex or labor. The problem grew significantly under the Biden administration, with three times more victims applying for government benefits under the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act during the Biden administration.

The most significant change is that all potential sponsors must be fingerprinted, and the fingerprints must be sent to the FBI to check for criminal records. No child will be released to a sponsor until their fingerprints are recorded in the unaccompanied child’s file. In addition, all identification documents must be legible and unexpired.

Critics of the Trump administration’s immigration policy complain that cumbersome fingerprinting and identification rules could delay the vetting of sponsors, leading to a backlog and overcrowding in shelters that house unaccompanied children. They also fear that under Harper, who has been an official with Immigration and Customs Enforcement since 2007, ORR will share information about the sponsors, most of whom are illegal immigrants themselves, with ICE, making it easier to arrest and deport them. But Harper was unapologetic in an email to the ORR staff. “The pervasive fraud in the sponsor process is undeniable,’ she wrote.

Um, so, “critics”, meaning Democrat and Never Trumpers, are against a proper vetting system to keep children out of the hands of bad people who could do very bad things to children, including sex trafficking? Do these “critics” ever stop and listen to themselves?

Last October, The Free Press published an exposé about the explosion of labor and sex trafficking by transnational criminal organizations operating in the U.S.—trafficking enabled in no small part by the Biden administration’s open border policies. Gang members and others who were essentially pimps took advantage of the system by claiming to be “sponsors” of unaccompanied teens who were being housed temporarily in shelters run by federally contracted NGOs.

These are the people “critics” are supporting over children. Why? Is it simply because Orange Man Bad so take the opposite position, or is it something more nefarious?

Tara Rodas, a whistleblower who has documented that fraud, told The Free Press, “We can’t continue to prioritize the anonymity of the sponsors over the safety of the children.” Rodas, 56, a federal employee, was shocked by the problems she witnessed while volunteering at an ORR-run shelter for unaccompanied children in 2021. “These new changes are basic, commonsense things and are the bare minimum for a program wrought with fraud.”

But, “critics.”

“There are criticisms that these new rules will discourage sponsors from coming forward to claim unaccompanied children, but frankly, these children might be better off in government custody than with some of these so-called sponsors,” Florida prosecutor Rich Mantei told The Free Press. “I applaud this small step toward making it much safer for these children. It’s good, it’s positive, but it’s not enough, in my opinion.”

“Critics”.