More than a decade ago, in 2005, a 14-year-old Mexican girl was smuggled into the United States illegally by three family members, chasing the promise of a better life.
Instead, she found a nightmare.
Instead of discovering a hopeful future, better education and a path to achieving the American dream – all beautiful images painted by pro-amnesty propagandists – the young woman was forced into slavery to work off her “debt” to her smugglers, all of whom were also in the U.S. illegally.
Crammed into a small home with six other children, she found herself working temporary odd jobs around Seattle under false documents, and made to turn over all her money to her captors in payment for being brought to the United States. Held against their will and forced into servitude, she and her cousin were repeatedly sexually molested, starved and denied medical care, all under the threat of deportation.
A year later, after finally becoming too physically weak to work, the young girl was deemed useless and sent back to Mexico.
U.S. immigration officials announced late last week that the victim’s uncle, 42-year-old Miguel Arcef-Flores, his brother-in-law, 37-year-old Angel Sandoval Mondragon, and his wife, 38-year-old Marabella Sandoval Mondragon, had all been sentenced after being found guilty of conspiracy to violate U.S. immigration law for financial gain.
Arcef-Flores was sentenced to a mere 40 months in prison; his brother-in-law got 36 months, while his wife ended up with a 34-month term. ICE announced they planned on placing all three in deportation proceedings following their prison sentence.
Shockingly, all three criminal aliens weren’t even arrested for their crimes until December of 2015 – a full decade after the abuse. By then, the three had also smuggled Marabella’s two underage brothers into the United States under similar circumstances back in 2009, forcing the two boys to work to pay off their smuggling debt.
Unfortunately, stories like these highlight the danger inherent to a lax immigration system – one that threatens not only American citizens and legal immigrants, but also underage minors who cross the border illegally under the persuasion of adult criminals and slip through the cracks of a careless government.
The Office of Refugee Resettlement, the agency responsible for shipping unaccompanied alien children to “sponsors” in the United States, openly admitted they only conducted follow-up home studies for about six percent of the child border-crossers they released last year.
The Washington Post documented the story of a Guatemalan child who crossed the border illegally and was released to traffickers, who held him against his will in a trailer filled with cockroaches. He was forced to work 12-hour shifts, six days a week at a local egg farm for a mere $2-per-day wage.
The Los Angeles Times reported back in 2015 that another young girl, this one only 15 years old, had been sent off to live with a relative who kept her out of school, denied her food and forced her to work. Another 16-year-old girl was sent to live with her smuggler and ended up being molested.
All lives. All children that liberal politicians and amnesty proponents claim to value. And all casualties of a government that prioritizes politics over people.