Congress must take bipartisan action to protect migrant children

More than 250,000 unaccompanied migrant children have entered the United States since October 2020. Based on congressional investigations and media reporting, we know that many of them work in the shadows in forced labor. It is a shameful consequence of failed immigration policy.

Recent media coverage of the exploitation of these children has called new attention to the problem, but the issue is not new. Over the last seven years, as the chairman of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations and counsel to that subcommittee, we investigated the federal government’s failure to care for these children.