Child Labor and the Broken Border

Introduction

It sounds like something out of an earlier century. Tens of thousands of children in the U.S., spanning all 50 states, work full time, often on overnight shifts and in dangerous jobs. The adults in their communities — including executives at major companies like Perdue Farms and Tyson Foods, whose slaughterhouses are cleaned by the young teenagers — look the other way. Government officials, in state capitals and in Washington, allow it to happen.

The Human Costs

For the past year and a half, my colleague Hannah Dreier has been reporting on the explosion of child labor among young migrants who have recently arrived in this country. Her latest story, which tells the story of Marcos Cux, a 15-year-old who was maimed last year in a chicken plant in rural Virginia run by Perdue, has just published in The Times Magazine.

The story exposes the human costs of this country’s broken immigration system. Over the past 15 years, entering the U.S. without legal permission has become easier, especially for children. A 2008 law, intended to protect children from harm on the Mexican side of the border, has meant that children can usually enter the country without documentation. As Hannah writes, “In the 15 years since, the carveout has become widely known in Central America, where it shapes the calculations of destitute families.”

Likewise, a 2015 ruling by a federal judge made it easier for children to enter the country with their families, as a recent New Yorker story by Dexter Filkins explained.

An Open Secret

Whatever the causes, migrant children are arriving in a country that’s often unable, or at least unwilling, to protect them.

After unaccompanied children come to the U.S., authorities place them with so-called sponsors, adults who are supposed to care for the children and ensure they attend school. Frequently, though, the sponsors allow the children to work full time, knowing that their parents need the money that working children can wire home. The children use false documents to get the jobs, and employers accept them even when they’re obviously incorrect. In many communities, child labor has become an open secret.

The Consequences

Yet this modern version of child labor brings the same terrible costs that led this country to ban the practice in the early 20th century. Children are exhausted. Many never graduate from high school and learn the skills necessary to find decent-paying work as adults. Some, like Marcos, suffer gruesome injuries while working jobs intended for adults.

Response and Recommendations

In response to Hannah’s reporting, companies like Perdue and Tyson have said they do not tolerate child labor, but their actions suggest otherwise. And although the Biden administration responded to her initial story by increasing enforcement, it has so far fined only subcontractors for employing children, rather than brand-name companies.

I recommend you find the time this week to read Hannah’s story. It is wrenching, but it offers some reason for hope about Marcos’s future. It’s also part of a larger problem: The U.S. has allowed millions of people to enter the country in recent years and is failing to care for many of them.