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When you try to erase history — like the Florida governor wants to do — you are doomed to repeat it.
Over the weekend, The New York Times published a stunning account of more than 100 migrant children, largely from Central America, who, according to the Times’ reporting, were working overnight shifts and dangerous jobs for companies large and small throughout the U.S.
According to the report:
In Los Angeles, children stitch “Made in America” tags into J.Crew shirts. They bake dinner rolls sold at Walmart and Target, process milk used in Ben & Jerry’s ice cream and help debone chicken sold at Whole Foods. As recently as the fall, middle schoolers made Fruit of the Loom socks in Alabama. In Michigan, children make auto parts used by Ford and General Motors.
In other words, nearly all of us are likely buying and using goods fabricated by children’s hands. We’re all implicated in this story. These migrant children, who have traveled thousands of miles, are under intense pressure to send money home to their families or to the people who sponsor them in the United States. Many of them are extorting the children for smuggling fees, rent and living expenses.
These children are ostensibly under the purview of the Department of Health and Human Services, which assigns them caseworkers to make sure they’re cared for while they are in this country.
The New York Times reports that “in interviews with more than 60 caseworkers, most independently estimated that about two-thirds of all unaccompanied migrant children ended up working full time.”
Michigan congresswoman Hillary Scholten, who has one of these factories in her district, is rightly appalled.
To be clear, this is outsourced labor; none of these companies intentionally hire children, as far as the reporting has shown. And when asked by the Times, a number of them said they would investigate the claims or sever ties with the companies who help outsource the…
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