A New York Times investigation found top U.S. brands are relying on the exploitation of migrant children, largely from Central America, to work some of the country’s most grueling jobs.
The COVID-19 pandemic fueled an increase in unaccompanied children who entered the country looking for work to send money back home to their families.
In 2022, the number of unaccompanied children entering the United States reached a high of 130,000, nearly three times what it was in 2017, according to the Times.
Carolina Yoc, 15, came to the U.S. to live with a relative she had never met and works early hours packing Cheerios bags into boxes. The work is fast-paced and there have been instances of workers who have had fingers torn off and a woman whose scalp was ripped open, according to the REPORT.
Girls as young as 13 wash hotel sheets in Virginia, roofers as young as 12 work in Florida and Tennessee and other underage workers are employed by slaughterhouses in Delaware, Mississippi and North Carolina. Even middle schoolers are employed, making Fruit of the Loom socks in Alabama and auto parts used by Ford and General Motors in Michigan.
Valeria Lindsay, a language arts teacher at Homestead Middle School near Miami, told the Times it is common for children to leave school and immediately head off to long night shifts. Lindsay estimates that for the past three years, almost every eighth grader in her English learner program was also carrying an adult workload.
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The report found the federal government is aware that these children are in the country because the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is responsible for ensuring sponsors support, and not exploit them. However, caseworkers told the Times they often rush through the vetting process to find these children sponsors to meet the Biden administration’s requests to move children quickly out of the shelters due to high influxes.
An HHS spokeswoman, Kamara Jones, said the agency was not compromising safety by quickly releasing the children.
"There are numerous places along the process to continually ensure that a placement is in the best interest of the child," Jones told the Times.
HHS does check in on all minors, calling them about a month after they have begun living with their sponsors. However, the Times found over the past two years, the agency could not get in contact with more than 85,000 children.
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Companies that employ migrant child workers often turn a blind eye to their age, instead focusing only on finding workers who can fill the laborious jobs.
Federal law prohibits 14 and 15-year-olds from working in hazardous jobs such as manufacturing, construction, mining and processing and prohibits them from working over 8 hours a day, or, more than three hours on a school day.
Minors are also not allowed to work before 7 am or after 7 pm, according to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
Rick Angstman, a social studies teacher at Union High School in Grand Rapids, told the Times he sees the effects of children working long hours in the classroom. Some often pass out due to exhaustion and others are forced to drop out.
He recalled a former 15-year-old student who was hospitalized twice and passed out from fatigue in his classroom.
"She disappeared into oblivion," Angstman said. "It’s the new child labor. You’re taking children from another country and putting them in almost indentured servitude."
