WASHINGTON – Today on the floor, U.S. Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) called out the Biden administration for ignoring the migrant child labor trafficking crisis at the southern border. Excerpts of Sen. Cornyn’s remarks are below, and video can be found here.

“Since President Biden took office, more than 300,000 unaccompanied children have been encountered at the border.”

“We know now that countless children have experienced a new hell right here in the United States.”

“Children are being forced to work in meatpacking plants, food processing facilities, and construction jobs.”

“They’re being treated as indentured servants as they try to pay off the debts they owe to the traffickers who brought them here, and there’s no question the Biden administration understands what’s going on.”

“At least 85,000 of those 300,000 children cannot even be reached within 30 days.”

“The Biden administration can’t tell you where these children are, whether they’re being fed, whether they’re going to school, whether they’re being neglected or abused, or forced into involuntary labor. President Biden’s administration doesn’t know, and I think the sad truth is they don’t care. Because if they did care, this would not be allowed to continue.”

“What’s it going to take? How bad are things going to have to get before this situation registers with enough people of good conscience and goodwill that they’re actually willing to do something about it?”

“There’s a clear need to secure the border and stop the unprecedented migration crisis, but the majority of our Democratic colleagues refuse to address the border crisis unless Congress passes what they call ‘comprehensive immigration reform.’”

“They’re holding these children, they’re holding the rest of the country hostage, in order to achieve a legislative goal, which they know is not possible.”

“We cannot leverage these lives for unrelated and unattainable measures. There’s nothing safe, orderly, or humane about the Biden administration’s response to the border crisis, and until something changes, more people will continue to suffer and die.”