End Child Trafficking Now Act

Madam President, last month alone, more than 100,000 migrants crossed our southern border. Our ports of entry are overrun; holding facilities are packed; and, yes, our Border Patrol agents are absolutely exhausted. They are exhausted. This isn't just a logistical challenge; it is a tragedy made worse by the Biden administration's disastrous open borders policies.

The crisis is escalating, especially for the tens of thousands of children who have arrived in this country very much alone. Unaccompanied minors accounted for nearly 10 percent of all migrants who crossed our border last month. That is roughly 10,000 children a month walking into chaos.

Anyone paying a bit of attention knows what is going on here. Customs and Border Protection has been sounding the alarm on the connection between children and human trafficking for years. The coyotes, the cartels, and the gangs use children as drug mules. They use them as sex slaves. If you don't believe me, ask anyone with the CBP why they administer pregnancy tests to little girls as young as 13 as soon as they arrive at the border.

This is a heartbreaking situation. These children are living in hell, and it is getting worse. False claims of family ties have fueled a rise in fraudulent asylum claims and in human trafficking. Adult migrants are making arrangements with cartels and smugglers to borrow children. They claim kinship and use that relationship to bolster a fraudulent asylum claim. And what do they do when they have gotten what they want? They send the child back across the border to start the entire nightmarish process with another stranger. That is correct. This is called child recycling, but I think ``recycling'' is an odd choice of words to describe one human being treating another human being like a piece of garbage. Again, this is heartbreaking.

If you want to get an idea of how big a problem we have, consider that the Department of Homeland Security says that, over the past decade, they have seen a 1,675-percent increase in asylum cases.

In 2019, Immigration and Customs Enforcement implemented a pilot DNA testing program to try to stop this rampant exploitation. They found that 20 percent of all kinship claims they were able to screen were lies--20 percent.

This is a humanitarian crisis, an environmental crisis, and a health and safety crisis. The Biden administration has lost control of this situation, but there are things we can do right now to protect these children and put the smugglers in check.

This week, I introduced the End Child Trafficking Now Act, which would require our border agents to administer DNA tests to adult migrants claiming kinship with a minor without migrants' having the legal documentation to prove it.

If the adult refuses, they will be immediately deported. Furthermore, the bill mandates a 10-year penalty for all alien adults who lie about their relationship with a minor.

The test is simple. It takes about 90 minutes. Ninety minutes could mean the difference between that child finding safety in the United States and that child being dragged back to a cartel.

We are on pace to see 17,000 more unaccompanied minors arrive this month. ICE proved this testing strategy can help protect them. There is no valid, fact-based reason not to do it.

Madam President, as if in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Judiciary Committee be discharged from further consideration of S. 903 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration. Further, I ask unanimous consent that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Madam President, I think my colleague understands that this bill would apply to individuals, to adults who cannot show kinship and do not have legal documentation.

We know that human trafficking, sex trafficking, and child trafficking have become a major industry. We know that child recycling is a practice that is used by the cartels. We know that they are using this to move adults into the country; thereby, this is something that would put the cartels in check and show that we are not going to stand for them recycling children, claiming kinship to children who are not theirs, and trying to move drug smugglers and cartel members into this country.

Reserving the right to object, Madam President, I share my colleague's desire to prevent child trafficking. Trust me, as a parent, I know it is a laudable goal. But as drafted--as drafted--this bill would create enormous and instant chaos at airports around the country and every other port of entry.

As written, it would require every foreign family who seeks admission to the United States, even just for a family vacation, to have a third party witness a test to their affiliation or else submit to a DNA test. I can't imagine any of our airports have the resources to implement this. It would simply lead to the same chaos we saw after the implementation of President Trump's Muslim ban, or worse, it would overwhelm our law enforcement officials and create bottlenecks at customs for citizens and noncitizens alike, not to mention the many legal and ethical questions as it pertains to genetic privacy and the storage of that information.

I would be more than happy to sit down with my colleague from Tennessee in the context of a larger discussion about immigration reform to see how we can ensure that we include provisions to prevent child trafficking, but I don't think this bill as drafted will actually accomplish that goal, and so I object.

Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.