WASHINGTON, D.C. - U.S. Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC) and nine of his Senate Judiciary Committee colleagues sent a letter urging Chairman Dick Durbin (D-IL) to ask Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, former Labor Secretary Marty Walsh, and White House Domestic Policy Advisor Susan Rice to testify before the Committee on the Biden Administration’s placement of unaccompanied migrant children with exploitative sponsors, including those engaged in child labor trafficking. This follows a recent investigation alleging that the Biden Administration ignored reports of labor trafficking involving thousands of migrant children.

The senators wrote, “The Senate Judiciary Committee should exercise its jurisdiction to come to a better understanding of how senior leadership in both HHS and the White House failed to act on credible reports that children were being placed into exploitative situations, and in fact adopted the very policies that contributed to these placements.”

“The White House denied being made aware of the issue in the same report in which a spokeswoman for the Department of Labor affirmed that the White House was informed of the rise in child labor,” the senators continued. “And President Biden’s former senior adviser for migration claimed that the White House ‘deferred to the agencies to let us know when things were really a problem.’”

“We should invite Secretary Becerra, former Secretary Walsh, and Domestic Policy Advisor Rice to testify before the Committee and help us come to an understanding of exactly why sponsor vetting requirements were reduced, who made these decisions, and how HHS and the White House failed to take meaningful action when presented with the obvious consequences,” the senators concluded.

The full text of the letter is here.

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