It’s no revelation to observe that the American immigration system is broken, but a recent retraction from NBC News demonstrates that even its critics are understating the true depth of the ongoing crisis at the southern border.

On April 12, NBC and Noticias Telemundo reported that Packers Sanitation Services Inc. had hired a 16-year-old migrant to work at a meat processing plant, even though federal law prohibits employing minors at such facilities.

But days later, PSSI sent NBC a taped interview during which the migrant stated that he was not a minor. When confronted about this discrepancy, the migrant said it would be “hard for me to explain.” NBC subsequently obtained documentation from his home country of Guatemala showing that he is actually 21 years old.

From NBC’s retraction:

Presenting as a minor at the border made it easier for Pedro to enter the country under current U.S. immigration policies. The U.S. government issued him documentation based on that false information.

Also:

He spent three months in a Health and Human Services shelter for underage migrants in Chicago. He attended a high school in Kansas. And a U.S. official says he continues to have an active case, based on the information he provided to cross the border, with HHS.

So, in summary: An adult male presented as a child at the United States’ southern border because he knew that he would be more likely to enter and stay in the country if authorities believed him to be an unaccompanied minor. Under U.S. law, most unaccompanied minors must be transferred to the Office of Refugee Resettlement with the Department of Health and Human Services, which places them with “sponsors,” oftentimes family members, already in the country.

In this instance, the migrant received official papers from the federal government denoting that he was a child and spent time in two spaces that placed him in close proximity with actual children before going on attain employment and eventually lie, yet again, about his age to NBC News (which, by the way, is the only reason we’re aware of this particular, easily replicable abuse of the system.)

Can you imagine a more stark exhibition of the faulty processes and bad incentives?

Migrants of all ages have reason to simply show up at the porous border where they may well be able to avoid authorities. Families have reason to send minors to the border by themselves, where they’re likely to be able to gain entry to the United States, but are also vulnerable to exploitation by drug cartels and human traffickers. Young adults have reason to lie about their age to enjoy the same advantages. U.S. authorities will hand those who do lie — and those about whom authorities evidently know next to nothing — official documents reflecting that lie and place them in close proximity to minors.

In fiscal year 2021, authorities tallied up 1,734,686 encounters with migrants at the southern border. In 2022, number ballooned to 2,378,944 in 2022. 2023 is on track to surpass even that.

As damning as those figures are, the true depth of the crisis at the border can only be fully grasped when you consider how it’s taken advantage of, as well as its disastrous consequences.

The post True Depth of Border Crisis Inadvertently Exposed in NBC’s Bombshell Retraction on Migrant Pretending to Be a Minor first appeared on Mediaite.

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