Staff Reports
A Senate hearing this week cast a harsh light on yet another disturbing consequence of the Biden administration’s reckless border policies: the trafficking of unaccompanied children across the southern border. Authorities revealed that four individuals—two U.S. citizens and two Mexican nationals—were charged in a horrific scheme in which smugglers posed as parents, used counterfeit documents, and even fed marijuana-laced gummies to children as young as five years old to keep them quiet while sneaking them past Border Patrol checkpoints. The details are shocking, but sadly, they underscore a trend that has become all too common under Biden’s watch.
The current administration’s open-border agenda has left tens of thousands of children vulnerable to predators and traffickers. Instead of enforcing strong immigration laws, Biden and his allies have chosen to dismantle Trump-era policies that prioritized border security and vetted so-called sponsors of unaccompanied minors. As a result, criminal networks have thrived. The federal government itself has admitted to losing track of over 320,000 unaccompanied children—an astounding and heartbreaking number. Each one of these children represents a life that may already be suffering under abuse, exploitation, or forced labor because of failed leadership at the top.
The smugglers in this case demanded around $900 per child, turning human lives into little more than dollar signs in their trafficking business. The use of sedation, which left at least one child hospitalized, shows an unfathomable disregard for life and resonates with the broader truth: these cartels and their American accomplices are treating children as disposable commodities. At the same time, left-wing politicians continue to pretend that open borders are “compassionate,” when in reality, porous borders have fueled a humanitarian disaster. The so-called compassion of Biden’s policies has directly empowered criminal organizations to profit from the suffering of children.
Former border officials have been warning for years that the system is ripe for abuse, and they have been proven right once again. The lack of serious sponsor vetting is a scandal in its own right, with reports showing many children placed in the homes of individuals who exploit them as laborers or abuse them outright. Meanwhile, activists in Washington push radical border measures that weaken enforcement even further and ignore the real victims—the innocent children who are being abused, trafficked, or abandoned. America’s families are being told to look the other way, while Washington insiders bury the human toll under political narratives.
This crisis is a direct result of policy choices, not bad luck. Without secure borders, cartel profits soar, children disappear into the shadows, and American communities bear the burden of trafficking operations that never should have been allowed in the first place. The Senate hearing may serve as another wake-up call, but the question is whether lawmakers are willing to do the hard work of enforcing the law and reinstating strong deterrents. Until Washington returns to an agenda of law and order at the border, more children will fall into the hands of traffickers—and every American should be furious at the sheer negligence of leadership that allowed it to happen.
