Republicans have introduced a bill that would authorize immigration agents to obtain the fingerprints of underage illegal alien border crossers.
Called the Preventing the Recycling of Immigrants is Necessary for Trafficking Suspension (PRINTS) Act, the bill by House Rep. Ashley Hinson and Sen. Marsha Blackburn would empower Customs and Border Patrol agents with the authority to fingerprint kids 14 and younger.
The goal of the bill would be to prevent the continued trafficking of underage children.
Cartels kidnap children and then use them to smuggle adults across the border and abuse the asylum process.
It’s not just once — they’re recycling kids over and over.
I’m co-sponsoring @MarshaBlackburn’s PRINTS Act to ensure that CBP has the info to stop this exploitation. pic.twitter.com/7LrkANFnaU
— Senator Katie Boyd Britt (@SenKatieBritt) November 28, 2023
“There is nothing compassionate about an open border. The primary victims of President Biden’s border crisis are young children who are repeatedly abused and trafficked by the cartels,” Hinson told Fox News in an interview.
“In fact, the Biden administration has ‘lost track’ of over 85,000 migrant children, leaving them vulnerable to exploitation and further abuse,” she added.
“Abusing and using a child again and again is one of the most heinous acts imaginable, and yet it happens every day along the southern border,” Blackburn likewise said.
She added that the bill will empower CBP agents with “the tools they need to identify victims of child recycling and stop this abuse in its tracks.”
The “recycling” of children first drew government attention in 2019, when the then-Trump administration began collecting the fingerprints of illegal alien children to protect them from potential trafficking by smugglers.
BizPac Review News
Border Patrol starts fingerprinting migrant children and the left goes off https://t.co/JzDj2Wh6sy
— ❌nuuzfeed (@nuuzfeed) April 28, 2019
At the time, then-Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen warned that smugglers were “recycling” illegal alien children by sending them back across the border into dangerous territory so they could be used to help illegal alien adults gain entry.
“We have encountered recycling rings, where innocent young people are used multiple times to help aliens gain illegal entry,” she testified at a House Homeland Security Committee hearing.
“Today’s migrant flows have created a humanitarian catastrophe. In one study, more than 30 percent of women reported sexual assault along the way and 70 percent of all migrants reported experiencing violence,” she continued.
“Smugglers and traffickers are forcing migrants into inhumane conditions, demanding extraordinary sums of money and putting their lives in danger. And vulnerable populations — especially children — are coming into DHS sicker than ever before,” she concluded.
Such “recycling” operations were possible in part because of a disastrous omnibus spending bill signed into law that inadvertently empowered human traffickers like never before in American history.
Section 224(a) of the bill specifically said that none of the money allocated to the Department of Homeland Security could be used to detain or deport “a sponsor, potential sponsor, or member of a household of a sponsor or potential sponsor of an unaccompanied alien child.”
In other words, any migrant who crossed the border illegally with a child in stow couldn’t be touched by the Department of Homeland Security and its sub-agencies, including the CBP.
Cartels ‘recycling’ kids, pregnancy tests for 10-yr-old girls: Sec Nieslen reveals ‘devastating’ state of the border https://t.co/TWpkhmUv83 pic.twitter.com/8GmBPxhR7Y
— BPR (@BIZPACReview) March 7, 2019
According to Anthony Porvaznik, the then-chief patrol agent in Yuma, Arizona, illegal alien children were at the time essentially being “rented” (via the smugglers) by adults seeking entry into the states.
During another portion of Nielsen’s testimony, the then-DHS secretary explained that the abuse faced by illegal alien children was so severe that kids as young as 11 were being given pregnancy tests upon their apprehension by border agents.
“Very unfortunately, because of the increase in violence, at ICE, when we have families with children, we have to give every girl a pregnancy test over 10,” she said.
Part of the problem, she added, was that because of certain laws, ICE could not return illegal alien children from countries other than Mexico or Canada to their home countries.
This, therefore, created even more incentives for illegal alien parents — or at least those not from Mexico or Canada — to place their children into the hands of smugglers.
“We don’t want the smugglers to be able to convince parents to send their children on this perilous journey where they are absolutely victims of violence and abused. … This is not a safe journey. So, I ask again that we change the law, we treat all children the same, and we afford them the opportunity to go back home if they have now legal right to be in the United States,” Nielsen said.
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V. Saxena is a staff writer with a decade of experience as a professional writer, and a lifetime of experience as an avid news junkie. He holds a degree in computer technology from Purdue University. Saxena also contributes to BizPac Review.
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