Cristian, 14, has been working in construction in North Miami for two years instead of going to school. Federal law bars minors from a long list of such jobs.Credit…Kirsten Luce for The New York Times
A BIG secret?
Businesses do NOT support closed US border’s…
Why?
MONEY$$$
America has ALWAYS has a way to operate with ‘cheap’ (migrant) labor from the poor and disadvantaged….
Good for the Economy?
These kids are NOT stealling jobs from American’s who won’t work them….
Check your history books…
It IS the America WAY…..
But these days we are talking about kids that be just going to school….
These workers are part of a new economy of exploitation: Migrant children, who have been coming into the United States without their parents in record numbers, are ending up in some of the most punishing jobs in the country, a New York Times investigation found. This shadow work force extends across industries in every state, flouting child labor laws that have been in place for nearly a century. Twelve-year-old roofers in Florida and Tennessee. Underage slaughterhouse workers in Delaware, Mississippi and North Carolina. Children sawing planks of wood on overnight shifts in South Dakota.
Largely from Central America, the children are driven by economic desperation that was worsened by the pandemic. This labor force has been slowly growing for almost a decade, but it has exploded since 2021, while the systems meant to protect children have broken down.
The Times spoke with more than 100 migrant child workers in 20 states who described jobs that were grinding them into exhaustion, and fears that they had become trapped in circumstances they never could have imagined. The Times examination also drew on court and inspection records and interviews with hundreds of lawyers, social workers, educators and law enforcement officials.
In town after town, children scrub dishes late at night. They run milking machines in Vermont and deliver meals in New York City. They harvest coffee and build lava rock walls around vacation homes in Hawaii. Girls as young as 13 wash hotel sheets in Virginia.
In many parts of the country, middle and high school teachers in English-language learner programs say it is now common for nearly all their students to rush off to long shifts after their classes end.
“They should not be working 12-hour days, but it’s happening here,” said Valeria Lindsay, a language arts teacher at Homestead Middle School near Miami. For the past three years, she said, almost every eighth grader in her English learner program of about 100 students was also carrying an adult workload.
Migrant child labor benefits both under-the-table operations and global corporations, The Times found. In Los Angeles, children stitch “Made in America” tags into J. Crew shirts. They bake dinner rolls sold at Walmart and Target, process milk used in Ben & Jerry’s ice cream and help debone chicken sold at Whole Foods. As recently as the fall, middle-schoolers made Fruit of the Loom socks in Alabama. In Michigan, children make auto parts for Ford and General Motors.
The number of unaccompanied minors entering the United States climbed to a high of 130,000 last year — three times what it was five years earlier — and this summer is expected to bring another wave….
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The growth of migrant child labor in the United States over the past several years is a result of a chain of willful ignorance. Companies ignore the young faces in their back rooms and on their factory floors. Schools often decline to report apparent labor violations, believing it will hurt children more than help. And H.H.S. behaves as if the migrant children who melt unseen into the country are doing just fine.
“As the government, we’ve turned a blind eye to their trafficking,” said Doug Gilmer, the head of the Birmingham, Ala., office of Homeland Security Investigations, a federal agency that often becomes involved with immigration cases.
Mr. Gilmer teared up as he recalled finding 13-year-olds working in meat plants; 12-year-olds working at suppliers for Hyundai and Kia, as documented last year by a Reuters investigation; and children who should have been in middle school working at commercial bakeries….
Carolina Yoc, back right, worked on math problems after a night shift at a Grand Rapids food plant. The 13-year-old girl sitting next to her said she also worked nights at a factory.Credit…Kirsten Luce for The New York Times
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Cristian had given his uncle some of the money he earned making Chewy bars, but his uncle believed it was not enough. He had said he would like Jennifer to start working at the factory as well, and offered to take her to apply himself.
Cristian said he had recently called the H.H.S. hotline. He hoped the government would send someone to check on him and his sister, but he had not heard back. He did not think he would call again….
Note…
Do NOT fool yourself….
If for one minute ALL the migrants, immigrants and asylum seekers disappeared?
The Americxan economy would SHUT DOWN…..