Federal authorities arrested two illegal immigrants accused of raping and torturing a young girl for years after the federal government released her in 2014 to a man who falsely claimed to be her great-uncle, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) reported Nov. 17.
DHS officials said the girl entered the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) system under the Obama administration when she was just 15 months old. ORR processed her and her mother under a federal policy that classified both as unaccompanied children, according to the DHS.
Within weeks, the pair was released to 49-year-old Honduran national Felix Bustillo Diaz, who said he was the child’s great-uncle.
Authorities said Diaz 45-year-old Salvadoran national Jose Gerber-Rivera, who were both in the country illegally, repeatedly raped and abused the girl for years. She eventually escaped, but two Houston-area women allegedly exploited her again, falsely claiming they were rescuing her, the DHS said.
DHS officials said the case underscores why the agency, under the Trump administration, has moved to tighten vetting requirements for sponsors by making background checks, criminal history screening, and verification of family relationships more robust.
Nearly half a million unaccompanied minors were released to sponsors during the Biden administration, under what the DHS described as “dangerously inadequate vetting procedures.”
During that period, “sponsors merely had to claim they were family of a UAC in order for a child to be released to them; DNA checks were not required,” the department wrote. “This reckless approach may have created countless opportunities for predators and traffickers to exploit vulnerable children.”
CatholicVote Director of Government Affairs Tom McClusky said the case illustrates how a lack of meaningful immigration enforcement leaves children vulnerable to exploitation.
“The current system regarding child immigration, abused horrifically during the Biden administration, highlights how an unregulated immigration system does not create hope, but chaos and abuse, with children being mere commodities to be trafficked,” McClusky said.
He pointed to a separate case in Louisiana this month in which a previously deported husband and wife, who each had prior convictions, allegedly ran a “barbaric” sex-trafficking ring after illegally re-entering the country. The Daily Caller reported that federal officers rescued multiple victims and arrested the couple.
In a recent First Things article, CatholicVote President Kelsey Reinhardt argued that safeguarding the dignity of immigrants requires protecting the laws that safeguard them.
“A border that exists merely in theory is not an instrument of mercy,” she said.
“When millions enter the country outside legal processes, the basic juridical relationship between the newcomer and the political community is never formally established,” Reinhardt added. “Charity is asked to substitute for justice, and the result is neither.”
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