Illegal migrants living in the U.S. are reportedly paying smugglers to drug and transport their children across the southern border.
Parents are paying $10,000 each to have their children smuggled into the U.S., The Washington Times reported.
Melatonin gummies and cold medicines are used to keep the children asleep in the hope border officers will wave through the vehicle without trying to verify the relationships of those inside.
Often when officers can wake the children, the youngsters state their real names, which do not match the documents the smugglers have. The smugglers usually then admit to the fraud.
"These smugglers care nothing about the kids," the Center for Immigration Studies Director of Policy Studies Jessica Vaughan said.
"They're just a commodity that they are making money off of. If something goes wrong, things could turn ugly for the kids."
House Republicans are pushing the Biden administration for information on the number of potentially dangerous adult migrants who applied to take custody of unaccompanied children in government custody after crossing the U.S.-Mexico border alone, the Examiner reported.
Senior GOP members on the House Homeland Security Committee wrote the Department of Health and Human Services to request data from its Office of Refugee Resettlement, which is responsible for caring for the more than 430,000 children in federal custody at the border and screening the adult sponsors.
The government refers to the young migrants as unaccompanied alien children.
Sometimes, smugglers are caught, and the government delivers the children to their parents.
Vaughan said children from countries outside North America, under U.S. law, usually are quickly processed and turned over to their parents living in the country illegally or to sponsors.
However, that law does not apply to children from Canada and Mexico.
The Times reported that none of the cases it reviewed indicated children needed hospitalization because of the sleep medications.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention earlier this year estimated that 11,000 children were treated in emergency rooms for melatonin use from 2019 through 2022.
"There is a substantial likelihood that that minor could have overdosed," U.S. District Judge Linda Lopez told a smuggler after a 2022 attempt to smuggle a Mexican boy through the San Ysidro border crossing, the Times reported.
Charlie McCarthy ✉
Charlie McCarthy, a writer/editor at Newsmax, has nearly 40 years of experience covering news, sports, and politics.
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