Illegal Immigration Crisis

Josh Hawley Tears Congress Apart For 'Refusal' To Address Immigration Crisis, Child Smuggling Rings - Daily Caller

Missouri Republican Sen. Josh Hawley vehemently criticized lawmakers for failing to address one of the darkest results to emerge from the current immigration crisis: child smuggling rings. "It seems to me that the exploitation of children by cartels, human smugglers on the scale that you're describing is absolutely unbelievable, and quite frankly, the refusal of this Congress to act to do something about this humanitarian crisis is absolutely unbelievable and absolutely indefensible," Hawley said during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Tuesday.

The hearing featured testimony from Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Kevin McAleenan. The DHS chief said his agency has uncovered three "significant" child smuggling operations recently. The same children are used numerous times by smugglers to bring in different migrants.

In one child smuggling ring, eight children were used to bring 36 different adults into the U.S. "We've heard it said that crossing the southern border is an 'act of love,' but for the cartels, it's an opportunity for exploitation of children. It's an opportunity to cash in,"