‘Intolerable tragedy’: GOP senator warns of ‘upward trend in exploitative child labor’ — 88% increase since 2019

United States Republican Senator Bill Cassidy from Louisiana warned of an “upward trend in exploitative child labor,” according to two separate letters sent to the Biden administration’s Department of Labor and Department of Health and Human Services on Tuesday, the New York Post reported.

The letters, obtained by the Post, demanded a response from the departments regarding their plans to curb the 88% uptick in child labor violations since 2019. Cassidy also noted a 50% increase since 2022.

The HHS inspector general released a report last month finding that the department failed to conduct safety checks on sponsors of children in 16% of case files.

According to Cassidy, the Biden administration has “relaxed sponsor vetting requirements,” placing unaccompanied migrant minors at risk of being trafficked. HHS’ Office of Refugee Resettlement “is responsible for protecting children from ‘smugglers, traffickers, or others who might seek to victimize or otherwise engage the child in criminal, harmful or exploitative activity,’ which includes working dangerous jobs in exploitative conditions,” Cassidy wrote.

The Republican senator referenced recent reports that migrant children have been injured working in various factories across the United States, including meatpacking facilities where they work overnight shifts cleaning dangerous machinery. Cassidy noted that children as young as 12 are “working in dangerous jobs at all hours of the day and night,” including as roofers and sawmill workers.

“This years-long increase in unaccompanied migrant children crossing the southern border under the Biden administration, and the negative incentive for these children to expose themselves to dangerous working conditions, is an intolerable tragedy for which we must find an immediate and lasting solution,” Cassidy stated in the letter to the DOL’s Wage and Hour Division.

According to Cassidy, it took the DOL six months to notify Congress that a 16-year-old migrant child was killed in July 2023 while cleaning a deboning machine at a chicken plant.

“It is clear that the enforcement actions taken so far against violators have not slowed this upward trend in exploitative child labor,” he added.

The DOL admits that child labor violations have been increasing.

“Wage and Hour Division investigations found a significant increase in children being employed illegally, and in 2023 we launched a National Strategic Enforcement Initiative on Child Labor to put additional emphasis on addressing this critical issue,” the department website states.

The DOL found 5,792 minors illegally employed in the fiscal year 2023, compared to 3,876 in 2022. The department’s new initiative aims to use “data-driven, worker-focused strategies to initiate investigations where child-labor violations are most likely to occur.”

Neither the DOL nor HHS responded to the Post’s request for comment.

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