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susan rice
'Heartbreaking and Unconscionable': Biden Admin Ignored Warnings of Migrant Child Labor
"I feel like short of protesting in the streets, I did everything I could to warn them," said one former official. "They just didn't want to hear it."
Apr 18, 2023
The Biden administration received repeated warnings from both within and outside of the federal government in recent years about a rise in the exploitation of migrant children for child labor, but ignored the evidence it was presented with and in some cases retaliated against whistleblowers, an extensive report by The New York Times showed late Monday.
According to the report, officials in the Biden administration including Susan Rice, director of the U.S. Domestic Policy Council, oversaw the loosening of restrictions on vetting potential sponsors for unaccompanied migrants under the age of 18 as emergency shelters that were set up to house the minors struggled to meet demand in 2021. Reports of the problem also reached Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra.
At least five staffers at the the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) told the newspaper that they raised concerns about the welfare of children who were sent to live with improperly vetted sponsors, and that they were retaliated against by officials who were growing "exasperated" with employees who insisted the department take steps to protect the minors in its care.
The report includes accounts from a former official at HHS who oversaw the government's program for unaccompanied migrants under the age of 18, a senior employee at an immigrant rights advocacy group, and an immigration lawyer who worked in 2021 vetting prospective sponsors for unaccompanied minors.
The attorney, Linda Brandmiller, told the Times that she immediately flagged at least two suspicious potential sponsors who had contacted HHS to offer to take in some of the unaccompanied minors, allowing them to leave the emergency shelters that had been set up for an influx of young migrants over the U.S.-Mexico border.
One person explicitly said they planned to employ three underage boys at a construction company, and another said they could take in two children who would then have to work off the cost of their travel.
Brandmiller told the shelter she was working at in Texas that no children should be sent to the sponsors and warned that a 14-year-old boy had already been sent to one of the people, as well as emailing HHS supervisors and saying, "This is urgent."
At least one boy was sent to one of the sponsors despite Brandmiller's warnings, and she was abruptly fired from her job with no explanation a few days later.
As such instances of retaliation have been taking place, said Times reporter Hannah Dreier, "the number of children being trafficked or exploited has skyrocketed."
\u201cSenior staff at HHS risked their jobs to warn the Biden administration that the rush to send migrant children to sponsors was putting kids in danger.\n\nSeveral say they were pushed out in retaliation. Meanwhile, the number of children being trafficked or exploited has skyrocketed.\u201d— Hannah Dreier (@Hannah Dreier) 1681756181
As Common Dreams has reported, companies including Packers Sanitation Services Inc. and Hyundai have been found in recent months to rely on the labor of migrants under the age of 18, in violation of child labor laws. According to the Times, Rice's team was briefed regularly for several months on Packers' employment of more than 100 Spanish-speaking children in meatpacking facilities where they operated the industrial cleaning company's equipment and in some cases were injured while using Packers' sanitation chemicals.
Former U.S. Labor Secretary Martin Walsh told the Times that his department frequently included data about skyrocketing levels of child labor in weekly cabinet-level meetings at the White House, and the agency updated its official data in December to show that child labor law violations had soared by 69% since 2018.
"We sent reports to the White House, so they knew we were working on this stuff," Walsh told the Times.
According to the Times, officials at the Labor Department and HHS each said that the other department was responsible for ensuring that unaccompanied minors were not being exploited for child labor.
Jallyn Sualog, a former career HHS employee who helped oversee the division responsible for migrant children, warned her superiors in 2021 that she had heard reports of children who had been sent to sponsors who'd lied about their identities or who planned to exploit them.
"If nothing continues to be done, there will be a catastrophic event," Sualog told her supervisors, before filing a complaint with the HHS Office of the Inspector General—after which she was removed from her position.
"I feel like short of protesting in the streets, I did everything I could to warn them," Sualog told the Times. "They just didn't want to hear it."
The result of the administration's refusal to listen to whistleblowers including Sualog and Brandmiller was called "heartbreaking and unconscionable" by the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP), an economic justice nonprofit group.
\u201cDisturbing report on migrant child labor under Biden administration highlights the urgent need for comprehensive immigration reform and protection of human rights. \n\nTruly heartbreaking and unconscionable.\n\nReporting via @hannahdreier\nhttps://t.co/lJlE7yC9Y7\u201d— CLASP (@CLASP) 1681767241
Former U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro decried the "stunning lack of oversight and accountability by the Biden administration."
\u201cStunning lack of oversight and accountability by the Biden administration despite repeated direct warnings by staff about the exploitation of migrant children. This story keeps getting worse.\u201d— Juli\u00e1n Castro (@Juli\u00e1n Castro) 1681772567
"Imagine if our government spent its time and energy protecting immigrant children from being exploited through child labor," said progressive policy group Justice Democrats, "instead of on separating families and putting immigrants in cages."
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Coalition Urges Biden Admin. to Consider Creating US Human Rights Body
"The United States is lagging behind other nations in translating its global human rights obligations into domestic policies," said the director of the ACLU's Human Rights Program.
Dec 15, 2022
U.S. President Joe Biden declared during a speech last year that the United States must demonstrate that "our commitment to human rights begins at home."
That's how dozens of human rights experts and groups began a Thursday letter to Ambassador Susan Rice, director of the Domestic Policy Council, which "drives the development and implementation of the president's domestic policy agenda in the White House and across the federal government."
The coalition of 84 organizations and 37 individuals wrote that they "strongly support that sentiment and believe that this principle--that human rights begin at home--should be the basis for a bold approach to ensuring that everyone in the United States enjoys the rights and freedoms guaranteed by international human rights law."
\u201cNew: Broad coalition of 84 civil and human rights groups and academic partners urge the White House to establish a presidential commission to explore the creation of a national human rights body. https://t.co/238KEhzNfZ @ACLU @davidakaye @civilrightsorg\u201d— Jamil Dakwar (@Jamil Dakwar) 1671138139
As the letter details:
The United States has been a historic leader in the global effort to establish universal standards of human rights protection, beginning with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. At the same time, while state and local authorities have increasingly looked to human rights standards to improve the lives of people, the federal government has not comprehensively integrated the United States' human rights obligations into domestic law and policy and has resisted efforts to create domestic human rights monitoring, enforcement, and accountability mechanisms. Thus, as we mark the adoption of the Universal Declaration 74 years ago this month, we urge the Biden administration to make good on the president's words by reinvigorating that leadership and starting the process of establishing a national human rights institution ("NHRI").
In particular, we propose that the Biden administration establish a national committee of experts to study the creation of an American NHRI, with robust civil society participation, and make recommendations within a year of its establishment.
"When properly constituted and mandated, national human rights bodies can provide valuable oversight and means of implementing a country's international human rights obligations," said Felice Gaer, director of the Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights at the American Jewish Committee, which signed the letter.
"An American NHRI can offer a meaningful path to encourage U.S. institutions, buoyed by civil society, to adhere to human rights commitments that our government has made and to which we routinely call on other countries to adhere," added Gaer, also a longtime former member of the U.N. Committee Against Torture.
The letter says the coalition stands "ready to support you in your efforts to launch such a process and take the first steps toward bringing human rights home," and directs the Biden administration to reach out to Jamil Dakwar, director of the ACLU's Human Rights Program, and David Kaye, a professor at the University of California, Irvine, School of Law and a former United Nations special rapporteur on freedom of expression.
\u201cthe @POTUS @JoeBiden has said that 'human rights begins at home'. this is an opportunity to transform that idea into a real thing. thanks to @jdakwar @ACLU & many others who signed our letter to the White House's Susan Rice for helping move this agenda forward.\u201d— David Kaye (@David Kaye) 1671145465
"Nearly all of the United States' democratic partners worldwide have national institutions to help them meet their human rights commitments," Kaye noted, echoing the letter. "But the United States stands as an exception; it has adopted treaties but done very little to implement them domestically. It's time to make human rights not just a foreign policy issue, as important as that is, but also a question of America's domestic practice."
Dakwar similarly asserted that "the United States is lagging behind other nations in translating its global human rights obligations into domestic policies, and an independent national human rights institution would help advance this goal."
"But such an institution must do more than monitor and implement U.S. human rights commitments," Dakwar continued. "It can educate and make human rights more visible. It can provide a platform for marginalized communities to uphold their human rights. And it can, in a near-term sense, reinforce the Biden administration's own priorities, especially under its Summit for Democracy and National Strategy on Gender Equity and Equality."
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From "Day One" to We Will "Need Time," Team Biden Walks Back Vow to End Trump Attack on Asylum Seekers
"It appears that the inclusion of a policy in a campaign platform, or a promise by a candidate trying to win votes, doesn't actually mean that's what will be done once the person is in power."
Dec 21, 2020
Two of President-elect Joe Biden's top incoming advisers on Tuesday appeared intent on lowering expectations about Biden's plans to roll back President Donald Trump's anti-immigration rules, which have been condemned internationally as violating human rights.
Susan Rice, who Biden has named as his domestic policy adviser, and incoming national security adviser Jake Sullivan told Spanish wire service EFE that policies including "Remain in Mexico," officially known as Migration Protection Protocols (MPP), will not be immediately suspended, contrary to Biden's campaign promise to "end the MPP program" on "day one" of his presidency.
\u201cDonald Trump has slammed the door shut in the face of families fleeing persecution and violence. On day one, I will eliminate President Trump\u2019s decision to limit asylum and end the MPP program. #RestoreAsylumNOW\u201d— Joe Biden (@Joe Biden) 1580347463
Saying Biden will "need time" to undo Trump's immigration policies, Sullivan acknowledged that the Remain in Mexico policy--under which more than 66,000 asylum-seekers have been turned away at the U.S.-Mexico border and forced to live in tent cities without access to sufficient medical care, suitable shelter, or legal aid--"has led to a humanitarian crisis in northern Mexico" as people wait for their asylum claims to be processed in U.S. courts.
"But putting the new policy into practice will take time," he added, saying Biden will end the program "early in his administration."
Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) accused the incoming administration of "a classic bait and switch."
\u201cThis is a classic bait and switch. It perpetuates Trump\u2019s dehumanization of migrants and breaks a core campaign promise. Democrats lose big when administrations won\u2019t fulfill their promise. I urge the Biden transition team to reconsider this position.\u201d— Ilhan Omar (@Ilhan Omar) 1608660691
The interview came days after national advocacy group Mi Familia Vota tweeted that Biden must prioritize his commitments to the immigrant and Latinx communities.
\u201cJoe Biden promised a 100-day moratorium on deportations, to send a comprehensive immigration bill to Congress, & reverse Trump's harmful immigration policies on Day one. We will hold him accountable for his promises to our community. #Prioridades\n\nhttps://t.co/Y00ZB6EyD7\u201d— Mi Familia Vota (@Mi Familia Vota) 1608141642
Journalist Glenn Greenwald tweeted Tuesday that Sullivan and Rice's statements confirm the president-elect's pledges regarding immigration policy, including specific statements about what will be done immediately after he takes office, "doesn't actually mean that's what will be done once [Biden] is in power."
\u201cIt appears that the inclusion of a policy in a campaign platform, or a promise by a candidate trying to win votes, doesn't actually mean that's what will be done once the person is in power.\n\nhttps://t.co/7ASHF6pFr0\u201d— Glenn Greenwald (@Glenn Greenwald) 1608654233
Rice cited public health concerns in explaining why the policy will continue for an unspecified period of time under the Biden administration, but on Monday public health experts issued a statement urging the incoming Biden administration to use "effective, evidence-based public health measures" to mitigate the spread of Covid-19 at the southern border--not "bans, expulsions, and asylum denials."
"The Trump administration has misused public health authority as a ploy to attempt to justify expulsions that endanger human lives. The Biden administration should end this abuse of public health authority."
--Monette Zard, Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health
"The Trump administration has misused public health authority as a ploy to attempt to justify expulsions that endanger human lives," said Monette Zard, associate professor and director of the Program on Forced Migration and Health at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. "The Biden administration should end this abuse of public health authority, ensure public health decisions are made by public health officials without pressure to advance migration policy or other political objectives and use public health measures to safely process the cases of families, adults and children seeking protection at our borders."
Human rights organizations have also denounced the Trump administration's claims this year that asylum-seekers should be turned away at the border due to the coronavirus pandemic. In May, Human Rights First accused Trump of using the "pandemic as pretext" in order to carry out "its long-held ambition to eliminate humanitarian protections for asylum-seekers."
"Remain in Mexico and CDC expulsions join a long list of other illegal and dangerous Trump administration policies aimed at curtailing asylum," said the group. "These policies are both immoral and illegal. Not only do they spurn the country's tradition of providing safe haven to refugees, they violate U.S. asylum, immigration, and anti-trafficking laws, due process protections, and binding treaty obligations."
In July, the International Rescue Committee issued its own report saying the administration was using the pandemic as an excuse to turn away asylum seekers, and wrote that the U.S. government is capable of meeting its humanitarian obligations while mitigating the risk of spreading Covid-19.
"The administration can and should implement public health measures, including screenings carried out by public health officials, to mitigate risks to asylum seekers, and must increase access to health facilities at the border. But current policies merely compound the danger both at home and abroad," said the group.
That report was released soon after the Trump administration issued a new proposal called "Security Bars and Processing," under which the Department of Homeland Security could turn away asylum seekers whose entry "would pose a risk of further spreading infectious or highly contagious illnesses or diseases," such as nurses, doctors, and other frontline workers who have come into contact with Covid-19 patients, or people coming from a country where Covid-19 is prevalent.
According to Aaron Reichlin-Melnick of the American Immigration Council, the Department of Justice sent the regulation to the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs last week to be finalized.
Rice and Sullivan's interview with EFE did not address Biden's plans for continuing or ending the Security Bars and Processing rule.
Rice indicated that the Biden administration may focus on changing immigration policy through legislative steps rather than executive authority.
While "there are areas that can be addressed administratively, and the president-elect has plans to begin tackling those areas right away," Rice said, "the Biden administration will not be able to fix everything on our own."
"We need legislative changes to make enduring repairs to our immigration system, and the president-elect will share his vision with Congress," she added. "He is committed to working collaboratively with Members of Congress to achieve the needed reform that has long eluded the country."
The Washington Postnoted Tuesday that Biden's immigration reform proposals, including a path to citizenship for 11 million undocumented immigrants currently in the U.S. "will face long odds in a divided Congress."
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