Photo taken from the recorded video of the Nov. 19 joint hearing by the Subcommittee on Border Security and Enforcement and Subcommittee on Oversight, Accountability, and Investigations

Today counter-trafficking and policy expert Ali Hopper shared a chilling testimony about the plight of child migrants during a joint hearing hosted by the Subcommittee on Border Security and Enforcement and Subcommittee on Oversight, Accountability, and Investigations.

The hearing was titled “Trafficked, Exploited, and Missing: Migrant Children Victims of the Biden-Harris Administration” and was focused on examining the consequences of the Biden-Harris Administration’s border policies on the child-trafficking crisis.

Following an introduction by Chairman of the Border Security and Enforcement Committee and Congressman Clay Higgins, Hopper took to the microphone to share her testimony on the child-trafficking crisis.

Hopper set the stage by defining human trafficking as the “greatest humanitarian crisis of our lifetime.”

She explained how, being a Hispanic mother, the issue of migrant child-trafficking is personal to her.

During an interview Hopper conducted with a resident whose property sits on the U.S.-Mexico border, she gained an intimate understanding of the horrors that await women and children attempting to cross the border.

According to Hopper, the resident described the screams he could hear from his property of women and children presumably falling prey to cartel assaults.

When Hopper went to do her own investigating, she walked the same paths those women and children would have walked and says she found horrific remnants of their journeys.

“I walked these very paths, and I found discarded clothing, personal belongings, and chilling evidence of brutal assaults,” said Hopper.

Hopper explained how these assaults are primarily conducted by “ruthless cartels like the Jalisco New Generation Cartel” who, for all intents and purposes, control border crossings.

“No one passes through without their approval,” she said.

Among the items Hopper found along the path were children’s identifications, both forged and real.

Hopper held up one of the passports she found for the committee members to see as she explained that it belonged to a 5-year-old Columbian girl, “a haunting reminder of the dangers these children face.”

Hopper continued on to explain the dangers migrant children face once they enter the United States.

She stated that the Biden-Harris administration’s border policies are putting children at greater risk of being exploited for sex or labor by prioritizing efficiency over safety with regard to sponsor placement.

“Policies from the Biden-Harris administration prioritizing speed over safety have placed children with unvetted sponsors, increasing their risk. Furthermore, this administration’s decision to eliminate DNA testing to verify familial relationships has created dangerous loopholes which traffickers are now currently aware of and now actively exploiting,” said Hopper.

The NGOs responsible for sheltering migrant children as they await placement with a sponsor are also often dangerous environments for children, according to Hopper.

These NGOs lack oversight and are able to “mask abuse, neglect, and trafficking,” with sexual abuse often happening within the shelters themselves, she says.

While trafficking is most widely understood to include sex-trafficking and forced labor, Hopper details the presence of organ harvesting as an apparent threat to migrant children as well.

“During a recent interview I conducted in a Central American prison, the convicted trafficker described organs being harvested in places like veterinary clinics in Merida, Mexico, recounting the removal of three livers often sold to U.S. buyers. Another trafficker revealed that migrant children are the frequent targets.”

According to Hopper, this humanitarian disaster requires several critical responses if it is going to be mitigated.

“We need rigorous oversight, strong accountability, and where necessary, criminal prosecution of those who fail to protect these children. We must designate cartels as terrorist organizations, reinstate DNA testing, and demand accountabilities from NGOs and government agencies responsible for these children,” said Hopper.

During Chairman Higgins’ opening remarks, he stated that unaccompanied children are regularly showing up at the U.S. border who appear to be drugged, with addresses and phone numbers written on their arms.

According to information Higgins said was leaked during a meeting, between 2021 and 2023, 85,000 of these children essentially disappeared within the U.S. with no way for the government to track where they are, who they are with, or how they are doing.

Chairman for the Oversight, Investigations, and Accountability Subcommittee and Congressman Dan Bishop also stated prior to Hopper’s testimony that the Biden-Harris administration’s policies expedited the release of migrant children into the hands of sponsors who had red flags.

This quick release policy placed “children at obvious risk of exploitation that has played out in exactly the exploitation that would have been anticipated,” Bishop expressed.

“The federal government has precipitated and is facilitating this humanitarian catastrophe. The unaccompanied children are released from the HHS [Health and Human Services] shelters right into the hands of these sponsors despite multiple warnings from staffers within the agency that the vetting process was failing to protect children. The Biden administration was so focused on moving people through the system as fast as possible that they failed to ensure the safety of the children they were releasing. Many of these children already suffered at the hands of criminal cartels on that treacherous journey to the border only to find themselves exploited again after leaving government custody. The human cost of this impossible-to-understand bad judgment is simply heartbreaking and tragic,” said Bishop.

Retired Deputy Patrol Agent in Charge for the U.S. Border Patrol J.J. Carrell, Director of Education, Workforce, and Income Security for the United States Government Accountability Office Kathy Lauren, and former Deputy to the Director of the Federal Case Management Team for HHS Tara Rodas also served as witnesses for the hearing.