RANKING MEMBER CORREA DELIVERS OPENING STATEMENT IN JOINT SUBCOMMITTEE HEARING: “Trafficked, Exploited, and Missing: Migrant Children Victims of the Biden-Harris Administration”
Watch Today’s Hearing HERE
WASHINGTON — Today, Ranking Member Lou Correa (CA-46), the top Democrat on the House Border Security and Enforcement Subcommittee, led his Democratic colleagues during a joint hearing with the Subcommittee on Oversight, Accountability, and Investigations entitled, “Trafficked, Exploited, and Missing: Migrant Children Victims of the Biden-Harris Administration.” You can watch today’s hearing HERE.
You will find below Ranking Member Correa’s opening statement, as prepared for delivery:
Good afternoon. Thank you to Chairman Higgins and Chairman Bishop for holding this most important hearing today on unaccompanied children. And I'll thank our witnesses again for being here. Thank you for your time and interest.
I am going to listen to your testimony from you, the witnesses, very closely — not just as a Ranking Member of this Committee but as a father, as an individual that thinks all of us in this country cares about children. I want to find some good solutions to these challenges.
I hope that this hearing will generate some good bipartisan solutions that all of us can work on moving forward.
Let me be clear at the onset that it is everyone's responsibility to make sure all our children, as many children as we can put in safety, that we put them there.
That means ensuring the children are protected and cared for at all stages of the immigration process. This includes when they are encountered and held by Border Patrol, transferred to the Department of Health and Human Services, and sent to what we hope is a thoroughly vetted sponsor.
All of us want to stop human trafficking, child trafficking, and other horrible unspeakable crimes against children. But again, I’m interested in hearing solutions today from our witnesses, and how you believe we can implement those solutions.
And of course, Mr. Chairman, we all need to address the root causes of this problem, of migrants approaching our border.
So, we have to ask ourselves what is it that prompted these individuals to undertake this journey. A lot of young children I have spoken to in other countries have said, either I leave, or I join a gang. One way or another, I’m probably going to die.
Others come from families who have nothing to eat.
We need to investigate those individuals who are making a lot of money from dropping kids over our wall, as well as those individuals in the United States that make a buck by looking the other way and hire children to do adult work.
We also need to make it easier for victims who are trafficked to come forward and ask for help.
I’ve worked closely with my Republican colleagues to counter a lot of human trafficking and child exploitation. I’ve also spoken to special agents with Homeland Security Investigations to hear about their investigations, what they are doing, and what tools they need to be more effective.
As a Committee, we’ve spoken to CBP about the ways they work to identify human trafficking at the border, and we’ve heard from the Department of Health and Human Services on their efforts to improve outreach to unaccompanied minors, expand access to post-release services, and improve the vetting process.
Last year, Chairman Higgins and I introduced H.R. 4574, the Cooperation on Combating Human Smuggling and Trafficking Act.
This bill would enhance Homeland Security’s transnational criminal investigative units which help stop trafficking in the home countries before children undertake the long journey.
I’m glad that this bill has passed out of our Committee and is being marked up in the Senate this week. Hopefully we can get it over to the President's desk for a signature.
But so much more is left to be done. That’s where all of you come in.
Of course we know, we need more agents dedicated to investigating these cases, preventing child trafficking and exploitation.
We also need more legal services available for children, so that toddlers aren’t defending themselves in a courtroom.
And we also need the resources for more home visits of those sponsoring unaccompanied minors, we need to make sure those children, after they are placed, are actually in safe living conditions.
These are just a few things we could do—a lot of work we have to do across the aisle.
Finally, Mr. Carrell, I saw your prepared remarks and they do not conform to the rules of the committee. Here in Congress, we do not accuse a sitting President, Vice President, or Members of Congress of treason.
But you were invited by the Chairmen. I’ll respect that, and I'll make sure we move ahead and hear your testimony, Sir. We want to be productive here and move forward.
Thank you again to all of our witnesses for being here, and I yield back.
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