A disturbing new report reveals that the Biden administration knowingly placed unaccompanied migrant children in suspicious homes despite warnings from lower-level officials, according to the Wall Street Journal. This careless governance put thousands of children at serious risk of abuse and represents the amoral nature of open borders.
A sudden increase in border crossings in 2021 caused the Department of Health and Human Services to create 14 “makeshift” shelters around the country to house these children. Upon arrival, caseworkers had only 10 to 14 days to discharge them to “sponsors,” or vetted guardians.
The inspector general for HHS found in a report that “16% of records for children who were released to sponsors in the months of March and April 2021 lacked evidence that a required safety check was conducted.” At a facility in Pomona, California, over 100 children were sent to temporary guardians who had been denied earlier in the process by case coordinators. Some of the home addresses in question were tied to histories of criminal behavior.
The Biden administration’s ineptitude is mostly to blame, but a recent trend in academia also helps to explain the root cause of this blatant incompetence. There’s an increasingly accepted notion within political philosophy that “open borders” are not just justifiable but necessary.
There are two main arguments for allowing unrestricted migration.
The first is that migration benefits the economy by increasing output and spurring productivity. This point has some truth to it, but it fails to consider that legal immigration can and should solely lead to such gains. It is entirely possible to support qualifying migrants who cross through the port of entry while at the same time rejecting the drug and human traffickers who are flooding our cities. The adage that “everything is good in moderation” is foreign to these academics and public officials who indirectly endangered myriad children. The economic benefits of migration should be attained through a legal, formalized system that properly vets those looking to enter the country.
Meanwhile, the most common moral arguments for open borders involve normative ethical frameworks that are suspicious at best. They’re centered on a theoretical freedom of movement, the pursuit of global equality, and compassion for those fleeing persecution and economic disadvantage. These arguments stem from a desire to be moral, surely, and some do have ethical value. But when as many as 18,700 unaccompanied minors have crossed the southern border in a single month, it’s clear that a more nuanced perspective of morality is required.
To compromise the safety of thousands of children in the name of protecting one’s “right to freedom of movement” is borderline absurd. Children are the most vulnerable among us, and no political initiative that jeopardizes their health and happiness should even be considered.
Some of the anecdotes from the Wall Street Journal are objectively worrisome. One caseworker cited a child who was sent to a “hostel-like home in Florida with at least three adults.” Some sponsors attempted to adopt a half-dozen children, which is a common indicator of labor trafficking. A caseworker in Michigan was concerned after learning that a sponsor’s address was in fact a large field, and upon calling the number, the worker heard a cry for help in the background.
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The carelessness with which these children were sent to sponsors around the country is best summarized by a caseworker who claimed, “They never said, ‘Guys, be careful with this precious cargo- we have to make sure they’re going into the right hands.’”
Highly theoretical ideologies and their political applications should never manifest themselves in a child being sent to an unsafe home. Those in support of “open borders” take the moral high ground, yet their version of ethics exists in a world devoid of common sense.