The Daily Signal - INTERVIEW | What We Know About Unaccompanied Children Arriving at Southern Border

Episode Date: May 8, 2023

A 10-year-old girl from Honduras arrived at the southern border unaccompanied by adults. She told Sheena Rodriguez that she hoped to stay in America, and wanted to “color and get to know my father.���  The Honduras girl is like so many other unaccompanied alien children, says Rodriguez, founder and president of Alliance for a Safe Texas. These kids arrive at the border with “pieces of paper with handwritten numbers on it," she says, "and these children are going to people that they have never even spoken to." About 85,000 migrant children have entered the U.S. and been placed with a sponsor, but the federal U.S. government now doesn't know the children's location or status. Through her work at Alliance for a Safe Texas, Rodriguez seeks to raise awareness about how the border crisis has led to the exploitation of children, and to offer solutions to lawmakers who are trying to fix policies that led to the current situation.  Rodriguez’s desire to find out what was really going on at the southern border began about three years ago. She says she needed to see the situation for herself, so she planned a trip. Rodriguez left her home in North Texas and arrived around midnight in Laredo, about 160 miles south of San Antonio on the Mexican border.  “We encountered about 60 different men, all young men, to the one Border Patrol agent,” Rodriguez says, adding: “And he looked at me, didn't know me from anywhere, and said, ‘I need help. We're being invaded.’" At that moment, Rodriguez says she committed to doing something to address the border crisis.  Since that first trip, Rodriguez says, she has taken nearly three dozen trips to the border and spoken with many illegal aliens, including unaccompanied migrant children.  Rodriguez joins "The Daily Signal Podcast" to share stories of these unaccompanied children and explain what we know about how minors are arriving alone at the border.  Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The very first encounter that I had down there in Laredo, and there was one border patrol agent to 60 different men. And he looked at me, didn't know me from anywhere and said, I need help. We're being invaded. This is the Daily Signal podcast for Monday, May 8th. I'm Virginia Allen. And that was Sheena Rodriguez, founder and president of Alliance for Safe Texas. Children are being exploited at the southern border. Children are in many ways bearing the brunt of so many of the tragic policies that have been put in place at the southern border that have led to the current crisis. And Sheena, through her work at Alliance for Safe Texas, is working to expose some of the problems and to bring accountability. She joins me on the show today to talk about the work of her organization and what she has learned after nearly three dozen trips to the southern border,

where she has talked to some of those kids and heard their stories about how they wound up unaccompanied at our southern border. Stay tuned for our conversation after this. Looking for quick conservative policy solutions to current issues from America's outpost here in Washington, sign up for Heritage's weekly newsletter, The Agenda. You'll get top conservative research,

a rundown of important events happening here at Heritage that you can watch online and hot takes from our experts. sign up at heritage.org slash agenda or at the link in the show notes. We are joined today by Sheena Rodriguez. Sheena is the founder and president of Alliance for Safe, Texas. Welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me. Well, Sheena, your organization, your mission is really all about raising awareness

about what is going on with our southern border and how the situation at the border is impacting individuals' lives, whether that's American lives or. We're the migrants themselves who are coming across and coming to America. But this is not always the work that you've been doing. How did you come into this kind of work? Yeah. So thank you for asking that question because I could ask it a lot and I think people are a little bit surprised. You know, I'm just a homeschooling mom.

That's it. You know, my education is actually in developmental psychology. I used to work, was a former educator, used to teach fourth grade and, preschool children, but really my heart and my advocacy has always been in the pro-life movement. And so actually for a number of years in North Texas where I live, I was a volunteer counselor for a pro-life center out there and saw in Irving, Texas at the time when we still have that location out there and saw kind of some different elements that people did not, this was years ago when my children were little, may not have been aware of, particularly with immigration

of forced arranged marriages. And so in my family being Puerto Rican, my husband is a first generation Mexican-American, we've always been kind of cognizant of immigration and some of the issues and things that, the different ways that it impacts the communities and individual lives that, like you said, that people may not always connect those dots. So really, I've never fast forward to about three years ago. I was never really in the political realm, if you will. I voted in general elections, thought I was well informed, you know, thought I was doing the right thing,

and always kind of voted what I believed to be my pro-life agenda, right? My pro-life values. And unfortunately found out very quickly that if I wanted to try and save the great state of Texas and our sovereign nation, that really unfortunately politics was where I needed to be. So then I was already advocating in the state of Texas intercapital for kind of all. things conservative. And when I started going down to the border in Texas and seeing for myself what was happening, I began to see very quickly the exploitation of human beings on all levels and the devastation that was being inflicted, like you had said, like on the lives of Texans and American citizens and the migrants themselves coming over. So then started trying to apply because the thing is,

is that when people begin to understand kind of what's going on, they get overwhelmed. That's part of our human nature, right? And it's like, well, what can I do? What can I do? So I started researching and finding ways and getting connected. I've been very blessed to get connected with experts and larger think tanks and trying to find ways that we can try to address these issues on the local city

county and, of course, on the state level. So that's been our major focus. And fast forward, here I am. You know, it's been a wild ride. And like I said, just yesterday I was out here in Austin fighting for our first bill with regards to the facilities. So it's been kind of crazy, but I'm very, very thankful to have the opportunity to try and be at least a singular voice and everyday regular American trying to do something. Yeah. Well, and it's been neat to see that journey that you have been on. a little bit of the backstory of it because just in April, that journey of saying yes to entering

this political space actually brought you to Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., and you testified before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, Integrity, Security, and Enforcement. And that hearing was specifically looking at what is happening at the border in relation to kids and children and how policies are affecting minors who are coming to the border. And you said during your testimony that you have been to the border almost three dozen times within a span of two years. Why did you start taking so many trips to our southern border? So thank you for asking that. Yeah, because prior to that, again, I live in North Texas.

I'm in the DFW area right between Dallas and Fort Worth. So prior to that, I had never really been further south than San Antonio, which if you understand how big Texas is, that's not that. conceivable, right? And so the very first time that I had visited the border, I know it might sound a little strange, but I really felt a calling to go and I couldn't understand why. And I remember then my husband going, oh, but it's just one time, right? And it was Tillerado. And I'm like, yeah, babe, this is totally like, I'm just going to go see for myself because I don't believe, unfortunately, we're in a place in our society currently where we cannot necessarily trust what we're seeing in the news and in the media.

And me being kind of, I've always like trust but verify, I felt driven to go down and see for myself. Most of what I had seen is actually grown adult males. And that's actually the very first encounter that I had down there in Laredo. We got there probably close to about midnight. It was very dark. And there was one Border Patrol agent to pods. We encountered about 60 different men, all young men, to the one border border. patrol agent and he looked at me, didn't know me from anywhere and said, I need help, we're being

invaded. And from that moment on, I'm like, I started praying and I'm like, Lord, like, what do I do? Like, I felt called to go down and I'm going, now what? And just different situations kept on coming up where it kept on driving me to different areas. And so now I had been everywhere from the RGV, the Rio Grande Valley, McAllen, Roma, La Jolla, a few times where I encountered a lot of these younger unaccompanied minors that I testified about. Laredo spent a lot of time concentrating in the Del Rio sector because we're trying again, there were several people like Brent Smith, which is a Kenny County attorney, you know, trying to find ways of how we can try to combat this on the state and local levels up to El Paso and also out there in Yuma. So it's it's really been and then trying to

fill in those gaps from what was happening, what I'm seeing like even with operations, Lone Star in Texas, what am I seeing and encountering and getting information from the locals that live there to the law enforcement that are boots on the ground? And how do I fill in that gap between that what's actually happening in Austin where policies are being driven? So trying to bring that different, unique, if you will, because a lot of it is like top brass, which is great, but it's also important to hear from the boots on the ground. And then also having, like we just saw in the news, the travesty that happened in Cleveland, Texas. I had been there.

I'd been there on an assignment. So that's hundreds of miles away from the border. And then also seeing how it's impacted my respective area, it kind of brings together a different unique perspective of connecting the dots, if you will. Well, and when we talk about unaccompanied miners arriving at the border, obviously I think, you know, everyone can agree this isn't okay.

and you sort of start asking the question of, why are these kids showing up at the border without a parent, without some sort of adult? Did they walk there by themselves? What's going on? In all of your trips down there, what have you learned as to why minors are showing up unaccompanied at the border?

Who is sending them? How did they get there? Yeah, so I really appreciate that question. You know, unaccompanied minors, you'll kind of experience all along the border. border in different areas. But one of the reasons why I was also attracted to the Roma and La Jolla areas, because that's where you generally see some of the younger children coming over, because most of the unaccompanied minors are like teenagers, older teens. And I started asking those

questions, like, how does a 10-year-old girl come from Honduras by herself, for example? And several of these children had similar stories. They were just told that they were coming to the United States. This is coming from their mouths. Now, I can't verify of any of their stories, the validity of it, but this is coming from them, right? And kind of correlating with what we were seeing. And that's why in the congressional hearing, it kind of, I felt like gave the whole picture where I had encountered the stories of what they were saying. And Tara Rodas, who was the whistleblower from inside HHS, where she, what happens to the children afterwards? And it was kind of this full circle moment. So what I began saying,

was a lot of these children saying, I was just told I'm coming. People within NGOs, they said, like, women inside these bodegas, which are like warehouses, you know, we're telling them, this is who your sponsor is going to be. When you get there, this is to your mother, this is to your father, this is to your Theo, your aunt, your uncle, that are already here in the United States. And so I would ask them, like, well, have you spoken to them? Are they excited that you're coming? You know, things like that. And they had no idea. I've never spoken to them. My mother, my father, I've never spoken to them. I'm hoping to go, like one girl, the 10-year-old from Honduras, I'm hoping to go in color

and get to know my father. And it's devastating because these pieces of paper with handwritten numbers on it, and these children are going to people that they have never even spoken to, that strangers are telling them who they're, who'd ask for when they arrive. When I asked, well, how did you pay? How did you pay to come? Well, the people paid. They said as long as I was going to the United States, that I would be okay to come.

Shubbed into these warehouses, shoved into the back of 18 wheelers, raped along the way. A good number of them, unfortunately, encountered a lot of violence along the way. Now, some of them, some of the older, I've also encountered some older teenagers around 16 to 17 was what they had claimed. For example, in the Del Rio sector, that were not turning themselves in, that were hiding in the brush. And that's even more concerning, right? Because it's like, why are you trying to hide? And then, of course, we also have the other individuals where we've seen men, grown men coming over with these young children, claiming that their adopted daughters,

their adopted sons, and yet they don't even know their names. They don't even know their date of births. And there's no way, because of the policies to really verify and vet. So there's a wide scope of things that are occurring. And then simultaneously, these types of things. holding these unaccompanied minors are exploding, but exponentially growing all over Texas and the United States. According to ORR, they're up to now 27 states with nearly 300 facilities.

And I expect with Title 42 lifting that that number will grow up higher. So this is literally bringing the issues of these unaccompanied miners being trafficked, potentially in your viewers' backyard, without them even being aware of it. of it. Sheena, I know that this is, it's such a layered issue and there's so many moving parts. And of course, everyone's story is different. For every illegal alien, for every child, they're coming from a different situation.

But like, let's take, for example, you know, the little girl who said she's coming to meet her father and just wants to color. How does that journey begin? I mean, has she been left with like an aunt? in South America, who's now sending her to America in hopes of a better life that, you know, her parents have already come to America, have her parents, you know, sent her alone in hopes of her having a better life, but they're still in South America. Is it both? And I think it's just hard, it's hard to wrap your mind around, you know, family members just sort of shoving their

kids off and saying, I hope for the best. But of course, we know. you know, for I think 99% of parents, they do have good intentions for their kids. They want to see their child have a better life. So is that what's playing out here that parents are being lied to and they're being told, you know, your child, if they come with me, they can have more opportunities. What do we really know? I greatly appreciate that question for so many reasons. Yes, every situation is a little bit different and a little bit unique, right? And again, we can not necessarily verify the validity of their claims. We can only go by what they're saying and what we're experiencing, right? But I've seen everything from, I encountered one woman in a larger

group in the RGV in the Rio Grande Valley that I watched crossover with, at the hands of the coyotes on a raft, and had brought her very tiny baby with her. It turned out that she said that it was a, the baby was born prematurely a day shy of a month old. And the reason I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm saying this for a reason. When they came up and I started asking questions, like why, what would motivate you? Because like you said, I'm a mom. It's very difficult, I think, for Americans and for mothers and for fathers, especially, like, how can you, we can't conceive trying, you know, putting our children in the hands of strangers.

So, and there's very different reasons as to why. And not all of them well-intentioned, unfortunately. So in the case of this woman, when I had asked her, what motivated you to come now, right, with such a perilous journey? She had stated that she was shoved into the back of 18-millers using Facebook to guide them. The group collectively said Facebook helped to guide them on the route along. All of this is documented. She had also stated, again, and many of them chimed in the group in a grant, that they had seen what motivated her to come was because of the policies, essentially. they had seen the news reports on Telemundo saying that individuals that adults with young children under a certain age were being accepted into the United States and that children being sent by themselves were being accepted into the United States.

So they saw that as their way that as long as they were coming crossing with children that they would be accepted in. And I feel like that gives us an insight into what is really the root causes that is driving the use of children. Let's talk a little bit more about those root causes. I think that's a really interesting point. Our heart of compassion is first, wow, family in need, single child alone. They need provision. But how has this played out? What's the backstory, the policies that led to this?

What we're seeing from the Biden administration, how have the Biden administration's policies majorcus's decisions made around border security, border policies. How has that played a role in the sheer number of kids do you think that are showing up at our southern border unaccompanied? So really what we're seeing, as I've understand it, in researching and all of this over the last few years, is that really what started driving the unaccompanied minors began years ago, particularly around the Obama administration with the Florida. settlement. Those shifts and those changes in like the DACA programs, anytime that DACA or asylum is

mentioned comes out of anybody's mouths on mainstream media, there's people coming. And really now what we're seeing more recently since the Biden administration's come in is even more incentivization. For example, the idea that you can claim asylum as long as you are a family unit, that anyone with a child under the age of seven can come in. And that also helps to force self-separation, family self-separation as well. We're like, we'll have a better opportunity to split up as a family. I stay with our little boy or little girl and you as a 15-year-old come in separately as an unaccompanied minor and we will reunify. Well, again, they're putting their children and their children's lives and themselves into the hands of cartel smugglers that use these people as

commodities. There's dollar symbols for every head. They don't care about them. So they're giving their children to criminal cartel organizations and transnational organizations that are known for trafficking, known for sex trafficking, and hoping that they'll be able to reunite on the other side. And this is all driven by those policies. Again, when you incentivize and you you incentivize the separation of families. This is one of the things that people don't talk about. Everyone wants to talk about the separation of families. These policies are incentivizing the separation of families so that they have a better chance to cross in if they have a younger child or an unaccompanied might are coming in by themselves. And again, that's some of the shifts that we've seen.

I'll also mention one other thing quickly. I got some information from a friend of mine that's an agent in the Del Rio sector who said that they're now even seeing an increase of the unaccompanied minors from Mexico, meaning Mexican nationals. There was even a case where a grandmother dropped off, essentially, dropped off a young child, gave the Border Patrol the information, the numbers to the father who supposedly lives here in the United States when asked where the mother was. She stated that the mother's still in Mexico, and then essentially the grandmother self-deported. This is what's happening. We are now at the point where Mexicans are anticipating being allowed in, This is unprecedented.

And this is also driving the numbers of unaccompanied minors even from Mexican origin. So in a situation like that where a child shows up, they have a phone number, what do we know about what happens to those kids a week, a month, a year down the road? We've learned recently the Biden administration has said before Congress that they have have lost. contact. They're not aware of where 85,000 minors are unaccompanied alien children. And that is because the laws are written as such that the sponsors who are taking these children, they're not required to report in. And then the government isn't required to keep on tracking once they're connected with that sponsor. They're not required to keep on tracking their whereabouts of that child. So these kids were connected with sponsors, but we don't actually know if those were legitimate

family members and how they're doing now that they've been connected. Do we have any sort of sense of among those 85,000 children that are somewhere in America, how many are in fact with a legitimate family member versus something much, much worse? Unfortunately, we don't know. I had a. a private and the issues within, again, these policies, even after the children arrive, we just spoke extensively about the policies driving them here, but then even after the children arrive, what happens from there? And that's where it ties in with these facilities blowing up kind of everywhere, explode, like just growing exponentially. But then the policies of there

and after, the vetting of the sponsors is not adequate. It's just simply not. And I even had, I was given the opportunity, which I was very grateful for, to sit down and have a private one-on-one meeting with a rather large NGO, non-government organization operating in the state of Texas. And I asked them some crucial questions, and there was some discrepancies. And I even asked them in the spirit of trying to find some solutions, what would you suggest? So even NGOs that are honest are going, well, we can only follow up with them for 30 days. HHS contracts us an NGO to house these unaccompanied minors while they're being, you know, vetted or finding their sponsors. And then they also contract us for vetting the sponsors that they're being released to.

But then HHS, there's a number of stipulations where the vast majority of the people that are sponsoring these children, even according since 2016 to a congressional investigation, over 60 percent then said that over 60 percent of them were illegal aliens themselves. So think about that. We can't bet, there's no way for us to properly vet people who aren't even here legally. And then when you take away DNA test, when you take away fingerprinting, when you take away the vetting of even the people who are living inside of the home, supposedly, and when you take away the ability to even, which is what HHS has done, has said, you cannot, even as an NGO,

you cannot follow up in person to do an in-person. visit to the home and to the child, even if the local school is saying, hey, this child, this minor is not arriving at school. And then they are not even required. These NGOs are not even required to report these children like falling through the cracks to local and state agencies. So this is where it is an opportunity for the states to step up and to start trying to take some actions to fill in these gaps that so many of these children are following through. because the federal government and the federal agencies have failed for a number of years, but now it's exploding at unprecedented levels, and it's only going to get worse.

It's very disturbing. Well, in your organization Alliance for Safe Texas, that's one of your core missions, is to get that state involvement at a policy level. And that's something that you mentioned earlier. You all have just taken on. You've introduced and are advocating for a bill in Texas. Talk a little bit about that. and what that bill would do.

Thank you so much, yes. So our bill was HB 5,000, Representative Stan Kittsman. He's a freshman. He's one to definitely keep an eye on for all things, conservative moving forward. So thankful for that relationship with him and him working on this with us. He, HB 5,000 just, it's actually very simple. All it states is that if it were passed,

that these HHS contracted facilities are licensed by the state, Texas. Why is that important? Because that would give us an opportunity to have much needed oversight. And at least gives us the chance to get a foot in the door because there's so many issues that even the local cities, a lot of them are rural areas already strapped for resources. It gives us an opportunity as a state to give oversight. Basically puts it under the same mandates and requirements, if you will, as like our state foster care system, right? Which seems simple. It seems like common sense, why aren't we doing this? Florida and South Carolina, especially Florida, have already put in many regulations since 2013. They strengthened them in 2019, and they're strengthening

them even further as far as these facilities. And next, I believe that they're going to start cracking down on the sponsors because they have done an investigation on the state level. I'm asking, finding out what is happening with the children in their state. And that's also Stan Kitsman once again has also come up to the plate. And he also has sponsored our letter asking for the same exact type of state level investigation in the state of Texas. I'm thankful, so thankful to announce that we have bipartisan support from state legislators. Both Democrats and Republicans have signed on to it. And we will be sending that letter shortly here to our AG's office here.

And again, hopefully if a federal level investigation is done, then hopefully these investigations on the state level will help with those types of investigations moving forward as well. And so I want to encourage that if people are overwhelmed like I was, like what can I do? They can try and take what we're trying to do here in Texas and implement it in their respective areas. Well, and for anyone who is listening who wants to hear more about the work that you're doing and the work of Alliance for a safe Texas, You can check out the website, which is Securetheborder.us. And, Chena, I just really want to thank you for your time and for breaking down what can feel like a really overwhelming issue. What is, honestly, a really overwhelming issue and one that is very multifaceted, but is so, so pressing right now. Chena Rodriguez, thank you for your time.

Thank you so much. Thanks so much for joining us on today's show. We're going to leave it there for today. but if you haven't had the chance to check out our evening show right here in this podcast feed, make sure to take a moment today to do so. Every day, our evening show comes out around 5 p.m. And also make sure to subscribe to The Daily Signal wherever you like to listen to podcasts and help us reach more listeners by taking just a moment to leave a five-star rating and review.

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