Biden’s other border scandal: 320,000 migrant children are missing

OPINION:

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No group of people is more vulnerable and in need of protection from the powerful than children, yet the most powerful government in the world has allowed hundreds of thousands of them to vanish. It is scandalous and compounded by mainstream media that largely refuse to bring attention to it.

The Biden administration has lost track of more than 320,000 migrant children, according to a recent report from the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general.

Hundreds of thousands of children who have shown up at the border without their parents have been released into the country by this administration, which now has no idea where they are. Many of these children were likely trafficked into the U.S. by cartels, and all are vulnerable to abuse, including sex trafficking and labor exploitation. This is a blight on the moral integrity of the U.S. and demonstrates how anti-border policies harm the most vulnerable among us.

The main justification for the Biden administration’s anti-border policies is the need to treat foreign nationals who make the perilous journey to the U.S. with compassion. This administration has accused its predecessors of heartlessness and callousness for detaining those who enter the country illegally, especially children.

But it is hard to imagine anything less compassionate than creating an environment where cartels and other bad actors are emboldened to exploit and traffic children through Latin America. This administration’s anti-border policies encourage parents to send their children to entered the U.S. illegally.

Shortly after President Biden took office, he exempted unaccompanied children from enforcement action when it came to the use of Title 42 at the border. When the administration issued an executive order earlier this year to supposedly crack down on illegal immigration, unaccompanied children were once again exempted from enforcement. This might sound good on paper, but in practice, it serves to reward human trafficking.

The message these policies send to adults living south of the border is clear: You won’t be allowed in after a certain threshold is reached, but your children always will. Many parents will receive this message and pay cartels to take their children to the U.S. While in the custody of human traffickers, some of these children will be abused, exploited, even raped. After they arrive in the U.S., some will be released to shady and unvetted sponsors, and the abuse and exploitation will continue. This is a rotten system and one this administration’s policies are enabling.

This administration prefers the veneer of compassion over policies that actually keep children safe. Their policies are designed to avoid bad optics — such as viral images of children being detained in crowded detention centers — instead of avoiding bad outcomes for children who are sent to the U.S. illegally. Policies that reward foreign nationals for sending their kids across the U.S. border lead only to more human trafficking, abuse and misery. This principle was once widely accepted and was once articulated by Hillary Clinton, of all people.

“We have to send a clear message: Just because your child gets across the border, that doesn’t mean the child gets to stay,” the former secretary of state said in 2014. “So, we don’t want to send a message that is contrary to our laws or will encourage more children to make that dangerous journey.”

This is exactly correct, and if this principle had been applied to current U.S. policy, hundreds of thousands of children would not be missing. For some reason, anti-border activists and politicians believe that the basic principles of criminal law do not apply to immigration law. For example, nobody would support minors being exempt from laws against theft or murder, understanding the obvious perverse incentives that would create. At the same time, it is a core tenet of the anti-border movement that all immigration laws should include specific exemptions for minors.

A truly humane immigration policy would apply the law across the board. When unaccompanied minors cross the U.S. border illegally, they should be held, fed and taken care of until they can be safely returned to their home countries. Instead, the federal government has adopted a policy that plays right into the hands of the cartels and other human traffickers by making clear that children who enter the country illegally will be allowed to stay and ultimately released to sponsors who are not accounted for.

These hundreds of thousands of missing children mark the latest sad chapter in the collapse of the rule of law at our border. This tragedy was brought on by an administration prioritizing virtue signaling over real public safety. It is a national disgrace.

• Dale L. Wilcox is executive director and general counsel at the Immigration Reform Law Institute, a public interest law firm working to defend the rights and interests of Americans from the negative effects of mass migration.