ICYMI: Grassley Recognized for Work to Combat Sex-Trafficking Crisis: ‘The Only Person in a Position of Power Who Cares’

10.16.2024

Inside America's Fastest-Growing Criminal Enterprise: Sex Trafficking

'Washington's lack of interest in the sex-trafficking crisis is stunning. Sometimes it seems as though the only person in a position of power who cares about the issue is 91-year-old Senator Grassley.'

By Madeleine Rowley

October 14, 2024

The Free Press

There is no question that the border crisis is the primary reason for the increase in the sex trafficking of migrants…

In July, Republican senator Chuck Grassley hosted a roundtable on the trafficking crisis at the border. Tara Rodas, 55, a federal employee who in 2021 worked at an emergency intake shelter in California, testified that while she was there, a 13-year-old girl from El Salvador was released to a sponsor in Ohio who was affiliated with the MS-13 gang.

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Washington's lack of interest in the sex-trafficking crisis is stunning. Sometimes it seems as though the only person in a position of power who cares about the issue is 91-year-old Senator Grassley…

"I've been trying to protect unaccompanied children that are put in dangerous environments," he told me in an interview. "These are the most vulnerable people, and somebody's got to look out for them, and that's me."

As far back as 2014, when "just" 57,000 unaccompanied children crossed the border-less than half the current number-Grassley sounded the alarm that the Office of Refugee Resettlement was having trouble accommodating so many migrant children.

The next year, he wrote a letter to the Department of Homeland Security, saying that up to 3,400 unaccompanied children's sponsors had criminal histories. Two years later, he urged the ORR to take responsibility for unaccompanied children who had ties to the gang. "Your agencies repeatedly pass the buck to each other. As a result, children are allowed to disappear. When these children disappear without any supervision, they are vulnerable to join dangerous gangs like MS-13," he said.

Grassley reached across the aisle in 2019 and 2021, working with Democratic senators Dianne Feinstein and Ron Wyden, respectively, regarding allegations of sexual abuse and employee misconduct at ORR-funded shelters. Grassley and Wyden's investigation found that between 2016 and 2020, ORR received nearly 7,500 reports of sexual misconduct involving an unaccompanied child staying at a shelter…

With the election of Joe Biden-and the border crisis that ensued-other Republicans have jumped on the trafficking bandwagon, but Grassley has continued to lead the charge, using his staff to conduct significant investigations. In January, for instance, he sent a detailed letter to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and FBI Director Christopher Wray, detailing evidence his staff had uncovered of unaccompanied children who were suspected of being in the hands of traffickers.

Democrats have been shamefully silent on the trafficking issue. At the roundtable Grassley held in July, not a single Democrat attended. Neither did Mayorkas. "Democrats didn't come because they're just too embarrassed to talk about the shortcomings of this administration on immigration," Grassley told me. "Especially when you have HHS sending kids to MS-13 gang-related sponsors in Ohio. It's hard to explain that."

As for theOffice of Refugee Resettlement… It has yet to do anything to reduce the sex trafficking that is taking place under its nose. On the contrary, it has lately been pushing through rules that will minimize the vetting of sponsors…This, of course, will allow the NGOs to push migrant children through the system even faster. But it will also make it easier for gangs and criminals to "sponsor" migrant girls after they've crossed the border. Grassley is trying to stop that from happening…

Read the full piece HERE.

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