The World and Everything in It: July 31, 2024

PREROLL: The World and Everything in It is made possible by listeners like us. My name is Elizabeth Whitley. I live outside of Detroit, Michigan. I am a wife, a mother of many and a small business owner. I hope you enjoy today's program.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning!

Congress heads out for summer recess… will they be able to fund the government when they return?

FLEISCHMANN: So the sooner, ideally, we can get it passed, the better it is not only for the new president, but also for the country

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: That’s ahead on Washington Wednesday.

Also, World Tour.

And, a veteran finds healing through podcasting.

HUNT: It’s helped me because it’s getting me to talk. It’s getting me to communicate to another person.

MAST: And how bad border policy harms young people.

REICHARD: It’s Wednesday, July 31st. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

MAST: And I’m Lindsay Mast. Good morning!

REICHARD: Up next, Kent Covington with today’s news.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Acting Secret Service director speaks on Trump failure » A fiery hearing on Capitol Hill today, as senators grilled the Acting Director of the Secret Service … about the failures that almost led to the assassination of Donald Trump. GOP Sen. Josh Hawley:

GOP Sen. Josh Hawley:

ROWE:  I acknowledge this was a failure of …
HAWLEY: Is it not prima facie that somebody has failed? The former president was shot. Sir, this could have been our Texas school book depository. I have lost sleep over that for the last 17 days. Just like you have. Then fire somebody and I will hold them accountable.

Acting Director Ronald Rowe vowed that people will be held accountable … but Republicans say that accountability is already overdue.

Rowe testified that he visited the scene of the crime … and laid on the exact same rooftop … where the would-be assassin took aim at Trump.

ROWE:  When I laid in that position, I could not and I will not and I cannot understand why there was not better coverage or at least somebody looking at that roof line when that's where they were posted.

It was Rowe in the hot seat today after now-former Director Kimberly Cheatle resigned in the wake of the shooting.

Senate online safety bill » And on the Senate floor Tuesday, lawmakers overwhelmingly passed legislation aimed at better protecting kids online. Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal is one of the co-authors of the Kids Online Safety Act and the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act.

BLUMENTHAL:  Social media platforms will be bound by a duty of care, legally required to exercise reasonable care to prevent their products from causing self harm, suicide, eating disorders, substance abuse, and other harmful impacts.

Only three senators voted no.

The fate of the legislation is uncertain in the House, but Speaker Mike Johnson has expressed an openness to considering the Senate bill.

UK Puberty blockers  »  Meantime, protections for kids against puberty blockers in the U.K. … are staying in place after a high court ruling. WORLD’s Mary Muncy has more:

MUNCY: Justice Beverly Lang on Monday upheld the government’s emergency ban on the drugs … finding that the restrictions are lawful.

She pointed to a study that prompted the restrictions … which put forth strong evidence that puberty blockers are potentially harmful … with very narrow benefits.

A former UK health secretary introduced emergency legislation in May … to immediately ban the prescription of puberty blockers to children who were not already taking them.

A transgender activist group promptly sued, arguing that the emergency process had been misused.

The organization says it may appeal this week’s ruling.
For WORLD, I’m Mary Muncy.

Venezuela election reax » Demonstrators in the streets of Venezuela … protesting an election they believe was stolen by the ruling regime … of disputed President Nicolas Maduro.

And President Biden and Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva are now calling on Venezuela’s government … to release detailed voting data from the presidential election.

State Dept Deputy spokesman Vadent Patel told reporters:

PATEL:  Maduro and his representatives declared themselves the winner of what we believe is a national election that was undermined by anti democratic actions, political repression, and electoral manipulation.

The opposition says their candidate, Edmundo González, secured more than twice as many votes in Sunday’s election.

In a joint statement Biden and Brazil’s Lula, who is an ally of Maduro … said they “agreed on the need for immediate release of full, transparent, and detailed voting data.”

Vermont flooding » In northeastern Vermont … heavy rain has caved in roads, forced some homes off their foundations and forced dozens of high-water rescues.

One local resident said he was able to get himself and a few neighbors to safety just in time.

MOS: I woke up to boulders rolling down the road, more or less. Barely able to get these people out and what they needed medication-wise before the house broke off.

This comes nearly three weeks after many farmers and residents in the state were slammed by flooding from the remnants of Hurricane Beryl.

The National Weather Service in Burlington says some areas got 6 to more than 8 inches of rain starting late Monday … triggering flash floods.

Most of the rain fell to the northeast of the state capital of Montpelier.

And more rain is in the forecast for the region today.

Stop Woke Act injunction »  A federal judge has shot down a section of Florida law … that allowed workers to opt out of race-related workplace training … that could be seen as discriminatory.

The law is called the Individual Freedom Act … unofficially known as the Stop Woke Act.

Governor Ron DeSantis championed the law…

DeSantis: We have every right as a state to provide protections for employees and businesses to say, if they are doing woke training–which is basically discriminating against folks on the basis of race–You have the right to opt out of that.

The judge said the parts of the law aimed at shielding workers from discriminatory racially-based training … was too vague to enforce and violated the free speech of employers.

I’m Kent Covington.

Straight ahead: Government funding, and Supreme Court ethics…on Washington Wednesday.

Plus, World Tour.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s Wednesday the 31st of July.

Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Mary Reichard.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: And I’m Lindsay Mast.

Time now for Washington Wednesday.

Today, Republican priorities for government funding.

But first, a quick look at the Biden administration’s proposal for altering the Supreme Court.

REICHARD: Senator Joe Biden was against changing the high court. Here he is in 1983, referencing President Franklin Roosevelt’s attempt to pack the court:

BIDEN: But it was a bone head idea. It was a terrible, terrible mistake to make and it put in question for an entire decade the independence of the most significant body including the Congress in my view, in this country, the Supreme Court of the United States of America.

REICHARD: Presidential candidate Biden changed his message in 2020…when he promised to put together a commission to study changes to the high court. The resulting report went nowhere…but now he’s gone a step further.

MAST: On Monday, President Biden laid out his three-point plan to overhaul the Supreme Court in an op-ed in the Washington Post.

Point one, 18 year term limits for justices. Point two, a code of ethics. Point three, amend the constitution to limit presidential immunity.

REICHARD: I called constitutional scholar Ilya Shapiro at the Manhattan Institute for analysis. (I note that he happened to be at a tennis tournament, so you’ll need to listen closely.)

First, term limits. Article III of the Constitution gives justices lifetime tenure. While possible to make the change, Shapiro doubts the process:

SHAPIRO: …but the devil is in the detail. How do you get from here to there? Are you saying that Clarence Thomas has served more than 30 years has to come off this year, and Robert and Alito all served more than these 18 years. If that's the case, then it's the same thing as court packing.

MAST: Second, a code of ethics may mandate when a justice must recuse from a case. Shapiro says it’s one thing to clean house across government and say no public official can take any gift whatsoever. But he adds that’s different from Biden’s proposal:

SHAPIRO: You know, judges should be ethical, of course, but there are no credible allegations of corruption going on. I mean, the biggest conflict I've seen is Justice Sotomayor didn't recuse from a case that one of her book publishers was involved with. But some of the other things, you know, it's not a crime. It's not unethical to have rich friends.

REICHARD: The third proposed reform is a constitutional limit to presidential immunity. This after the Supreme Court sent former President Donald Trump’s immunity case back to lower court to sort out action by action what has immunity and what does not. President Obama sending a drone to kill a terrorist abroad? Immunity. A president shooting someone on Fifth Avenue? No immunity.

SHAPIRO: But there's a vast gray area in the middle which lower courts will sort through. That seems eminently reasonable to me. You know, this, like the other elements of the plan, I think, are political messaging that they hope to go into the election with.

REICHARD: These proposals aren’t likely to have the support in this Congress, and that is a prerequisite to enact any of these reforms. So for now, President Biden’s court overhaul remains a suggestion.

MAST: Alright, turning now to government appropriations. Last year, California Congressman Kevin McCarthy was ousted from the Speaker’s chair by Republicans over concerns about spending. His successor, Mike Johnson, stared down similar threats this Spring.

REICHARD: But as Congress heads into Summer recess, what have House Republicans accomplished in their efforts to put Capitol Hill on a budget?

WORLD’s Washington Bureau reporter Leo Briceno.

LEO BRICENO, REPORTER: The government’s fiscal year begins on October 1. That means Congress has up until September 30 to pass its spending bills.

Last year, former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy had promised to fund the government through 12 single-subject appropriations bills—instead of through an omnibus package.

MCCARTHY: We’re going to get the appropriations bills done and we’re going to go into conference with the Senate and we’re going to make sure that we get our border secure, we get our streets safe, we get the funding prioritized, but we also stop this runaway spending.

But by mid-September, he had only passed one bill.

Eventually, the lack of progress caught up with McCarthy. On October 3rd, eight frustrated Republicans forced a vote to remove him as Speaker.

Now almost a year later, Republicans are again facing down the familiar spending headache. They’re struggling to find consensus on the 12 bills and that, in turn, is causing slowdowns in the process overall.

Earlier this month I spoke with Tennessee Rep. Chuck Fleischmann, one of the 12 Republican Cardinals tasked with shepherding the bills through Congress. He’s in charge of the energy and water bill.

FLEISCHMANN: So the sooner, ideally, we can get it passed, hopefully, before the end of the year, the entire process, the better it is not only for the new president, but also for the country.”

Fleischmann’s bill made it through committee, but when it came time to bring the bill to a vote, Republican leadership abruptly took it off the floor. They knew it wouldn’t pass…not just because Democrats would oppose it, but because Republicans need near unanimous support to pass bills in their slim, two-seat majority. And a number of the other appropriations bills had already been shot down by Republicans.

Rep. John Duarte of California believes that most of the hang ups have to do with specific elements in the bills. In Fleischmann’s bill, for instance, Duarte said the finer points still needed to be ironed out.

DUARTE: “These aren’t the big theological battles. These are some policy priorities that some of the, one of the conferences out of Georgia had. They want to get some water projects done; they want it in there. They believe that the water bill is prepared, the authorization is ready, and they want to work it out. So they’re working it out.”

Jared Pincin, Associate Professor of Economics at Cedarville University, says that some of those particulars are legitimate negotiations that have to be dealt with in the specific appropriations bills. Others, however, have little to do with the necessary components of funding the government.

PINCIN: “I mean if you look at almost any bill that’s passed and you work through the legislation, so much of it is just stuff that is not directly related to that bill. And they might not be called policy riders in those bills, but it’s the same process. There’s going to be spending that goes to place X that doesn’t need to be there at all to achieve the end goal of whatever that legislation is… So if you want to get additional border funding for example, that could be part of the appropriations, or it could be part of the authorization of where the money is spent. So I just think there are other ways to do it. Too often these are more poison pills than anything.”

Rep. Michael Cloud of Texas also sits on the House Appropriations committee. He acknowledged that the hold ups were keeping Republicans from where they wanted to be but didn’t seem overly concerned about the Republican dissenters that had stalled the bills.

CLOUD: “Of course ideally, we want to get all 12 bills passed every single time but if you look at the context of where we’ve been, we hadn’t been passing appropriations bills in a long, long time. And so, maybe we didn't get where we wanted to, but we have turned a corner in the sense that we’re passing appropriations bills, people are able to offer amendments once again. And so, the process is improving.”

Despite his bill getting punted, Fleischmann isn’t holding the delay against his Republican colleagues.

FLEISCHMANN: “Appropriations is a difficult process when you look at it, and I’ve been an appropriator for now, what, 12 years ... Somebody asked me the other day ‘is this a function of dysfunction?’ I said ‘no! It’s a function of the process working’ because any member can come forth and say that they’re pleased or not pleased with certain portions of a bill and want to get certain things done. We’ve had a good open amendment process. Some amendments have made it, come have not…”

I asked Fleischmann if he intends to continue negotiating the bill out over the August recess with his counterparts in the Senate. You’ll hear some Republicans cheering Fleishmann on as they walk past our conversation in the background.

FLEISCHMANN: “Yes, I’ve offered that and we will see what happens. I keep an open door with everybody — but uh, I keep an open door with my Republican and Senate Democrat counterparts… [4:51] I can play with the cards that we’ve dealt with the bill we passed out of committee. It’s a rock-solid bill but I always want the strongest hand I can go to the table with.”

Last Thursday, the House of Representatives went on summer recess…and will return on September 9th. With six of the twelve bills passed through the House and none through the Senate, that means Congress will have just three weeks to pass their remaining bills or risk a government shutdown.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Leo Briceno.

LINDSAY MAST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It:

World Tour.

Last week, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations announced a $60 million aid package to feed and protect people in Haiti. That’s on top of U.S.-funded troops arriving from Kenya in recent weeks. Those troops are supposed to quell a worsening gang problem in the country and give the government time to form a democracy.

MARY REICHARD: But this isn’t the first time peacekeeping forces have been deployed in Haiti… and the last time it didn’t go so well.

So after more than a month on the ground, what are these peacekeeping forces doing and are they helping Haitians?

WORLD’s correspondent in Africa is on vacation this week, so WORLD Radio’s Mary Muncy reports.

MARY MUNCY, REPORTER: Vorb Charles lives in a neighborhood bordering the international airport in Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince. Gangs started invading his neighborhood in January.

VORB CHARLES: They got up on the houses and they started shooting inside the airport.

By March, gangs had shut down the airport and were constantly coming in and out of Charles’ neighborhood. His daughters would play in the yard, but they knew to come inside if they heard gunshots.

CHARLES: We do not know where the bullets are coming from… We find out, let's say some place at the house we think that it is, safer for them. And then we taught them to lay down to lay down on the ground.

But after a few weeks, it got too stressful and the girls went to a different city with their mom while Charles stayed and worked. Then, in April, the government started demolishing the houses bordering the airport so gang members couldn’t shoot from them. Charles says they demolished the church his family attends but have so far spared his house.

CHARLES: I know people that were living in this neighborhood for for more than 30 years, they left their houses and now they did not have any anywhere to to stay.

The government is compensating people for lost buildings. But Charles says it isn’t enough to rebuild their church… much less buy new land to build on.

The airport reopened in May… but gangs still control most of the capital.

CHARLES: We do need help. We have too many gang members, and we do not, we do not really have enough police officers to clear the situation. And we do need help.

The government agrees. Two years ago, the Haitian government asked for UN peacekeeping forces… and last year, Kenya agreed to lead a mission of 2,500 officers. The first rounds arrived last month and so far, about 600 officers have arrived.

Charles thought with their arrival, maybe things would start to change in Haiti… but he lost some faith in the mission after the officers were dancing when they got off the plane.

CHARLES: If you are serious, you are not dancing. If you're dancing, you're not serious.

He also hasn’t heard anything about what they plan to do or whether they’ve done anything… and he’s not alone.

BRIAN CONCANNON: There's been no concrete plans or actions, which is deeply disturbing.

Brian Concannon is the executive director of the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti. He points out that the last time the United Nations sent peacekeeping forces to Haiti… they committed widespread sexual exploitation and started a cholera outbreak… though the UN hasn’t taken responsability for that.

CONCANNON: When the UN Security Council authorized the mission in October of 2023, the UN Security Council said there needs to be robust mechanisms for accountability. That was October. We're now in July. There has been not even any publicly proposed mechanism for accountability.

The UN is not running or taking responsibility for this peacekeeping mission.

The body previously asked the United States, Canada, Brazil, and a host of other South American countries to send forces to Haiti. All of them declined. Concannon says that’s because it could be seen as propping up a corrupt government.

CONCANNON: Kenya is taking on this mission because it needs the money.

So are these forces the right move to bring peace?

FRANCOIS PIERRE-LOU: It's a total waste of money for the international community to go into Kenya, and ask the Kenyans to settle the situation.

Francois Pierre-Louis is a professor of political science at the City University of New York, Queens College.

PIERRE-LOUIS: It is estimated that's going to be $600 million to spend on the forces in Haiti. So why can't the international community spend that money on building up the local police force, reinforcing them, instead of bringing foreigners to Haiti on the on the hope that they're going to solve the situation.

Pierre-Louis says helping Haiti would require restoring the rule of law and get corruption out of the government… and both will require holding people in the Haitian government accountable.

PIERRE-LOUIS: The international community should consult with the Haitians to how they can best help.

Pierre Louis says it would be unwise for the international community to pull out completely.

But no matter who does the work, Concannon says, something has to change for Haitians.

CONCANNON: When you're walking to school, when you're going to work, when you're sleeping in your house, you spend your whole life worrying that you or or your family members are going to be kidnapped or killed.

Vorb Charles’ wife and children eventually came back home. But not without some serious consequences. During the worst of it, his wife could hardly eat and eventually had a stroke.

CHARLES: Praise God, she does not have any, any damage. But they say that she should live— She should be living away from stress or stuff like that so that. But how can somebody live here in Haiti without stress?

The government says it may destroy another round of houses in Charles’ neighborhood… and Charles isn’t sure if his home will be part of it.

CHARLES: Every Haitian, we are tired… We are tired of not being able to leave home whenever we want. Not being able to go to the beach… We are tired of being in prison.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Mary Muncy filling in for Onize Ohikere.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Sometimes life delivers those “rise to the moment” occasions…and this week, a gymnast on Team USA, Stephen Nedoroscik [Ned-or-OH-zik] rose to the occasion!

He’s a pommel horse specialist. It’s his only event, and the team needed him if they had any hope of making it to the podium.

Lots of buzz around this because the 25-year-old looks…shall we say…a bit nerdy…after all, he’s also known as the Rubik’s Cube guy…with curly hair and glasses that he rips off just like Clark Kent just before it’s time to compete.

All that focus skill really honed his pommel horse maneuvers, too. A score of 14.866, bringing home the bronze for the team.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: Yay!

REICHARD: Yay! It’s The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Wednesday, July 31st.

Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Mary Reichard.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: And I’m Lindsay Mast.

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: giving veterans a voice.

The September 11th terrorist attacks led the United States into two wars: Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq less than two years later.

Those wars meant nearly 300,000 troops combined were stationed in those two countries.

REICHARD: Some died in service to their country. Many more returned and lived normal lives. 

Yet there’s a third category of post-9/11 veterans: those who came home and found themselves between life and death.

MAST: WORLD Correspondent Jeff Palomino brings us the story of one veteran who has found the best rehabilitation, through the voice of another veteran.

MUSIC: So, welcome to my house, these are my people]

AUDIO: Hey! Welcome to the Big Grizz show. It’s red Friday you guys - remember everybody deployed…

JEFF PALOMINO: What you’re hearing is Military Broadcast Radio and the voice of Jordan Adams—aka Big Grizz.

ADAMS: I got the nickname Big Grizz from my size from when I was in the military.

Adams looks exactly like you’d expect. He has a big, brown beard, wears a t-shirt, and a baseball cap. The cap has a military ribbon on it and says “United States Veteran.”

ADAMS: So, I enlisted in the Army in 99. I actually went to basic, I turned 18 in basic.

Adams deployed to Iraq in 2008. On a convoy, a roadside bomb exploded under him. At first, doctors said they’d have to amputate his right leg, but they ended up saving it. Still, the Army wouldn’t let Adams stay with that injury. A year later he was out.

ADAMS: Then July 24 2021, I had two massive strokes, and it took most of my vision.

Adams learned the strokes were caused by a traumatic brain injury - or TBI. He got that from the explosion in Iraq.

ADAMS: And since then, I struggled. I was angry at the world. And I couldn't understand why I couldn't make it through everything I made it through and then this happens and I can't drive and I can't work and I can't support my family. So I was mad.

That year—2021—there were 17.5 suicides per day among veterans. Conditions were right for Adams to join that statistic. He needed help. He’d eventually find it in the power of his own voice, a voice he’d soon learn could also help others and, in the process, bring healing to himself.

JOEL HUNT: I come down here at 4 a.m. every day.

Joel Hunt didn’t know Adams in 2021, but if he did he would have known exactly what Adams was going through. Hunt served in the Army too, around the same time as Adams. Hunt was also hit by a roadside bomb. He gets up early now to post inspirational quotes for veterans.

HUNT: Some of these guys are just like me, and they kind of rely on quotes, they kind of rely on sayings to say to themselves, for them to better themselves.

Hunt also left the Army with a TBI and a host of physical and mental challenges. He struggled as a civilian and saw many veterans doing the same. The insight ignited a mission.

HUNT: When I see somebody die from suicide, doesn't matter if I know them or not, I do, I take it personally. And I'm like, okay, what can I do?

A few years after Hunt left the Army, a family member contacted him for a connection to a few nonprofits that helped veterans. That’s when a light went on.

HUNT: I'm like, wow. So, I thought to myself, I'm like, you know, I heard this thing called podcast.

The format was simple. Link veterans with other veterans and with organizations to help them. Hunt found podcasting reduced his temptation to self medicate. And it did something else.

HUNT: It's helped me because it's getting me to talk. It's getting me to communicate to another person.

Hunt’s not alone. A 2022 Wounded Warrior Project report identified “high social connection” as a key quality of life for wounded veterans. In other words, finding that feeling of brotherhood they had in the military, is critical to a veteran finding peace.

HUNT: You know, when a veteran talks with another veteran and finds out well, you know, at night, I have nightmares, and I like shake myself and I wake up from shake. Yeah, I have that too. Really? And, I don't feel so small. And if I feel that way, then I'm sure other veterans feel that way.

Today, Hunt is the Executive Director of Military Broadcast Radio or MBR. It’s an online station of podcasts hosted by veterans for veterans.

MUSIC: [Oscar Mike Radio intro music]

This is the intro for one called “Oscar Mike Radio.”

AUDIO: Good evening, everyone, happy Tuesday and welcome to the Dog Tag Diva Podcast. 

This one’s called “Dog Tag Diva.”

MUSIC: [Tracer Rounds intro music]

And this one, Tracer Rounds.

AUDIO: Hi, welcome to Tracer Rounds, and I'm your host Terry and you're on MBR where veterans are given their voice.

As Adams recovered from two strokes, a voice was exactly what he needed.

ADAMS: The day I went to the hospital, my dad told me that this was a blessing in disguise that there's something more for me to do, and he thinks it's to help vets.

Adams soon started his own podcast on Spotify. It wasn’t long before Hunt contacted him. And today the Big Grizz show airs on MBR. It also streams live on YouTube. Hunt has coached him every step of the way.

ADAMS: He's been in there in the background in my ears, and walking me through like telling me, hey man, you need to watch your time or breathe, you're getting nervous.

Adams’ TBI means he has bad memory issues. This can be a problem, especially on a live podcast. Hunt’s also helped him with this.

ADAMS: I forget to take my break sometimes and I'll forget my ads and stuff, and that's where he comes in, Hey, man, you need to take a break.

Hunt has a calming effect on Adams, and this lets Adams get the most of his guests.

ADAMS: I don't want the person I'm interviewing to see me agitated to get agitated so I got to keep myself calm. And then that allows that person to be more open with me.

Adams has found podcasting lets him get things out he’s held inside for a long time. And it gives him something even deeper.

ADAMS: It means hope. It's such a close thing to me because I've held a pistol to my head and didn't know what was going to happen. And I don't want other vets to do that. So I mean, in essence, it's really hope.

Reporting for the WORLD, I’m Jeff Palomino.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: Today is Wednesday, July 31st, 2024. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Lindsay Mast.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. WORLD Opinions Commentator Emma Waters now…on the consequences of supposedly compassionate border policies.

EMMA WATERS, COMMENTATOR: The news of the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump spread across the nation within minutes of the bullet grazing his ear. By God’s providence, the president chose that exact moment to gesture toward a chart of immigration data. This slight movement took him out of harm’s way. Sadly, the same cannot be said for the many young migrants trafficked each year across the porous U.S. southern border.

Since President Joe Biden took office, more than 460,000 unaccompanied minors have been released to unrelated or distantly related sponsors in the United States. As of 2023, the Department of Health and Human Services was unable to locate more than 85,000 of these children.

Where did they go? Based on investigations by The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, as well as roundtable Senate Committee hearings, it appears that many of these lost children are being exploited for labor or sex in the United States. As HHS whistleblower Deborah White told Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, at a roundtable hearing earlier this month, the Biden administration’s emphasis on speed over proper safety precautions has resulted in “taxpayer-funded child slavery.”

White testified that the Biden administration has failed to follow proper safeguards such as fingerprinting sponsors and conducting home visits before releasing children. Congressional investigations have also found that many of these sponsors have ties to the MS-13 gang, were previously denied approval, or already had three or more unaccompanied minors in their care.

White also explained that children had been sent to addresses of unsafe or abandoned homes. In one case, a child was sent to an open field. In another, more than 50 children had been released to the same address. As The New York Times reports, these situations point to poorly concealed child trafficking schemes.

For many years, certain evangelical leaders and the progressive left disavowed former President Donald Trump’s “inhumane” border policies, citing images of children in cages. Women, especially, were pestered with Bible verses about “welcoming the stranger” and showing hospitality to the least of these. Indeed, they told us that Jesus was an immigrant to the land of Egypt, so we too should welcome those who are foreigners in our land.

These are distortions of Scripture. Joseph, Mary, and Jesus didn’t “immigrate” to Egypt by illegally crossing a border. They simply stayed in another Roman province to avoid dangers in their own town. And there is nothing in Scripture or Christian theology that requires an open border.

Far from caring for the poor and fatherless, the lax policies governing the southern border harm unaccompanied minors who are being trafficked into the United States. Instead of providing safeguards and safety checks at our border, the United States is encouraging child labor and sexual exploitation. Allowing minors into the United States without properly vetting where they will end up is false empathy, and conceals crimes against the poor and vulnerable among us.

We should judge public policies not by the rhetoric in which they’re clothed but by the known and likely effects. As the last four years have shown, a strong and secure southern border is not cruel. On the contrary, it protects both American citizens and illegal immigrants.

I’m Emma Waters.

CLOSING

MARY REICHARD:  And I’m Mary Reichard.

The World and Everything in It comes to you from WORLD Radio.

WORLD’s mission is biblically objective journalism that informs, educates, and inspires.

The Bible records that Jesus said to [those in the synagogue at Nazareth], “A prophet is not without honor, except in his hometown and among his relatives and in his own household.” And he could do no mighty work there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and healed them. And he marveled because of their unbelief. Mark 6:4-6

WORLD Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of WORLD Radio programming is the audio record.