Under the Biden-Harris administration, the number of requests for taxpayer-funded financial benefits for trafficked foreign nationals, including children, has skyrocketed, according to federal data.

Under the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, U.S. foreign nationals who have been victims of human trafficking are eligible for certain benefits, services, and protections. To obtain them, those eligible can receive Certification of Eligibility (COE) LETTERS from the US Department of Health and Human Services.

According to HHS DATAthe number of COE letters issued increased under the Trump administration and continued to increase under the Biden-Harris administration. Notably, fiscal year 2017 marked the first time that COE letters issued to children exceeded those for adults, and that hasn’t changed since.

The data covers fiscal years 2001-2023. Data for fiscal year 2024 has not been released. The HHS fiscal year runs from October 1 to September 30. Three full fiscal years under the Trump and Biden-Harris administrations provide full-year comparisons.

Under the Trump administration, COE letters have been issued in:

Fiscal 2017 up to 506 children/448 adults Fiscal 2018 up to 465 children/411 adults Fiscal 2019 up to 892 children/310 adults

During the Biden-Harris administration, COE letters were issued in:

Fiscal 2021 at 1,143 children/527 adults Fiscal 2022 at 2,226 children/731 adults Fiscal 2023 at 2,148 children/582 adults

The number of letters issued for trafficked children is about three times higher under the Biden-Harris administration than under the Trump administration.

Like a registration number of the at least 14 million illegal border crossers reported during the Biden-Harris administration, a record number of unaccompanied children (UACs) believed to be smuggled into the U.S. were also reported

HHS reports it received submissions for 370,573 UACs in fiscal years 2021-2023 and 159,398 in fiscal years 2017-2019.

The controversy escalated as the HHS Office of Refugee Resettlement, responsible for caring for UACs, was repeatedly found to be negligent by the Office of Inspector General’s Investigations. Congressional Investigations charges discovered of abuse, as well as HHS ORR losing track of over 100,000 UACs. A Florida grand jury finder that UACs were sent to bad or uncontrolled sponsors, to live with gang members, those with criminal records and at non-residential addresses and were allegedly abused.

U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-IA, filed criminal charges after whistleblowers came forward and took other actions to reform UAC supervision. A US House committee recently quote HHS for UAC information. Republicans in the US Senate argues the Biden-Harris administration “created the largest child trafficking network in US history.”

Border Patrol agents have expressed alarm about the drugged children they continue to rescue; retired border patrol chiefs have explicitly how teenagers are forced to pretend to be UAC to cross the border and are then caught in sex trafficking and forced prostitution. The Department of Labor also reported an increased number of incidents of child labor violations, Central Square reported.

Texas Department of Public Safety officers have saved More than 900 UACs in Texas alone, most of whom claim to be teenagers, a spokesperson told The Center Square.

According to HHS data, most UACs are between the ages of 15 and 17 and mostly boys. Once processed by the Border Patrol and HHS ORR, most released to HHS contract facilities were in Texas, The Center Square reported.

When Vice President Kamala Harris was a U.S. senator, she advocated cutting funding to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and for years supported ending the agency responsible for arresting the most violent criminals. She also opposed ICE’s arrest of illegal aliens who try to sponsor UACs — one of the biggest red flags of human trafficking, federal and state investigations have found.

The Biden-Harris administration has also implemented policies that facilitate lax sponsor vetting and criminal background checks, among other processes identified in the OIG and congressional and state reports. investigations. The administration then sought to codify these policies through a rule change opposite by a coalition led by Grassley. The advocacy group Alliance for a Safe Texas also objected, citing examples of abuse.

“President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris appear to have overseen some of the worst child abuse in our lifetime,” Alliance founder Sheena Rodriguez told The Center Square. “The policies they implemented and then sought to codify are dangerous because they weakened sponsor verification requirements, released children to non-family members, including gang members, and exponentially increased the likelihood that children would be trafficked and exploited for labor.”

The HHS data is also “grossly underreported when you consider the volume of unaccompanied minors arriving at the U.S. border and the fact that HHS has no idea where most of these children are,” she said. Rodriguez has demanded reforms statewide, particularly in Texas, pointing to updated HHS data showing that more than 63,000 UACs were sent to “weakly vetted sponsors in Texas” in fiscal year 2024. As of fiscal year 2019, nearly 95,000 were, he said she, citing HHS data.