by WorldTribune Staff, October 15, 2024 Contract With Our Readers

The sex-trafficking of children tripled during the Biden-Harris administration, according to federal data obtained under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

The rising number of youth sex-trafficking cases were posted at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) after TheFreePress.com demanded the data under FOIA. HHS is responsible for checking and issuing Certification and Eligibility Letters to the children and youths who first request aid after escaping sex traffickers.

Under border czar Kamala Harris, HHS issued 1,143 letters in 2021, 2,226 letters in 2022, and 2,148 letters in part of 2023. The agency has not released any data since September 2023.

Support American Journalism

The incomplete data adds up to 5,517 letters since October 2020, or an average of 1,837 letters per year.

Under President Donald Trump, the number of letters averaged 562 per year.

Young migrants are subjected to abuse and prostitution as they become indebted to smugglers and their affiliated trafficking gangs in the United States. If they cannot pay their debts, their families can lose farms and homes to the banks that hold the loans.

TheFreePress.com’s Madeleine Rowley reported on Oct. 14:

Sex-trafficking victims often suffer horrific abuse, as I discovered when I spoke to Landon Dickeson, the 36-year-old executive director for Bob’s House of Hope in Denton, Texas, the only shelter for male sex-trafficking victims ages 18 and up in the country. Dickeson says they’ve seen teens from Central and South America who have been so tortured by their traffickers they can barely function.

Dickeson described caring for teens who have brain damage from being so heavily drugged—teens who have had their fingernails pulled out, and lemon juice poured on wounds. When I asked to interview one of their migrant residents, Dickeson said they simply weren’t in any condition to speak to anyone, much less a reporter. “We think the cartels and gangs use torture as a control method for the males,” said Dickeson. “They’re not going to fight back if they chain their victims to a radiator, beat them up frequently, or drug them.”

There is substantial evidence that many of the 540,000 “Unaccompanied Alien Children” welcomed by the Biden-Harris regime either volunteer for abusive work or are forced into abusive work. At least 50 percent of the UACs are older teenagers or are young men who pretend to be younger than 19.

Federal investigations into sexual trafficking of UACs under President Donald Trump were stymied when then-Sen. Kamala Harris added language to a spending bill that barred information-sharing with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency.

The Biden-Harris administration has done little to stop the sex trafficking, whistleblowers told TheFreePress:

Deborah White, another whistleblower who worked at the same [government-funded] shelter, testified that migrant children were handed over to improperly vetted sponsors who used fraudulent IDs and different addresses to procure numerous unrelated children. “I had multiple cases that I reported on,” said White, meaning she reported suspicious sponsors to her supervisor. “One in particular where we sent 329 children to one address: two garden apartment [buildings] in Houston, Texas.” The supervisor, White told The Free Press in an interview, took no steps to investigate further, but instead told White that she wasn’t moving migrants out of the facility quickly enough.

In September 2023, federal agencies and Houston police announced they had arrested 10 human traffickers: “Numerous young girls will no longer be raped, sexually exploited and beaten by the individuals arrested during this operation thanks to the efforts made by our partners at the Houston Police Department, the U.S. Marshals Service, Homeland Security Investigations and the agencies who make up the Human Trafficking Rescue Alliance,” said FBI Houston acting Special Agent in Charge David Martinez.

“Tragically, hundreds more underage sex trafficking victims won’t be rescued because we do not know about them. Without the public’s help, tormented sex trafficking victims remain in the clutches of manipulative criminals who seek only to enrich themselves at the expense of vulnerable juveniles,” Martinez said.

The arrest of the traffickers received minimal coverage from major media. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) press office did not even announce the arrest. Soon after, however, the DHS media office announced a new service to help migrants apply for benefits.

Don’t Trust AI With the News and Your Children’s Future

  border czar Kamala Harris, HHS data: Child sex-trafficking reports tripled under Biden-Harris, WorldTribune.com