New York Times reporter focused on immigration. Previously covered Venezuela for AP, and wrote for The Washington Post and ProPublica. hannah.dreier
@nytimes
.com
I’m out on parental leave! I feel so lucky to have this time with my baby, and wish more working mothers got this kind of benefit.
See you in a few months!
There's a saying in emergency management: The first 24 hours are the only 24 hours.
FEMA was ready to deploy to the condo collapse almost immediately, and included the crisis in its daily briefing, but didn't get permission from Gov. DeSantis to get on the ground for a full day.
The Venezuelans Gov. DeSantis dropped in Martha’s Vineyard last fall as a political stunt are thriving.
“I did not even know where Martha’s Vineyard was. And now I feel welcomed by everybody here. I’m working, making friends and this is home for me now.”
California farm workers are keeping markets stocked nationwide, without the luxury of social distancing, or the hope of benefiting from expanded sick leave or unemployment if they fall ill.
Kevin was required to see a therapist when he got to the US. She said their sessions would be private. Instead, everything he disclosed was passed to ICE, to be used against him in court.
This is now happening in migrant child shelters around the country.
A 16-year-old boy was killed this week while working at a sawmill in Wisconsin in violation of child labor laws.
Wisconsin is one of 14 states with proposals to roll back child labor protections.
A mother who was told she had five minutes to say goodbye to her son before he would be put up for adoption successfully sued ICE over "intentional emotional distress." The settlement could help thousands of migrant parents sue over child separation.
A major child labor rollback goes into effect in Iowa this weekend.
14 year-olds are now allowed to work in meat coolers, 15 year-olds can join assembly lines and 16 year-olds can serve alcohol.
In a few weeks, similar rollbacks take effect in Arkansas.
Hearthside Food Solutions—which makes and packages Cheetos, Cheerios and Chewy Bars—has begun going through its 39 factories to check for children. Workers say much of the staff has vanished overnight.
This is a selfie one of the kids recently sent me from the night shift.
The US is seeing an unprecedented wave of migrant child labor right now.
Thousands of kids are working overnight in dangerous factories for brands like Cheerios, Fruit of the Loom and Ford. They're here alone and they're being failed in the most basic way.
How child labor investigations go wrong: A 13-year-old girl was one of dozens of kids cleaning slaughterhouses owned by JBS, the world's biggest meatpacker.
Prosecutors didn't charge JBS or its contractor, but put the girl's dad in jail and may deport him.
Why are half a dozen Republican-controlled states suddenly rolling back child labor laws?
The legislation all goes back to the same source: A billionaire-backed Florida lobbying group.
Amazing. Half of Trump voters worry that they personally will be attacked by the gang MS-13.
This is a gang that targets immigrant teens in a few specific areas, has not grown in size for a decade, and is not active at all in most US towns.
Wow, the national archive system is letting ICE destroy records including complaints about civil rights violations and shoddy medical care in detention centers.
14-year-old Marcos Cux had his arm shredded at a Perdue slaughterhouse in Virginia last year.
The plant was full of migrant kids working in violation of child labor laws.
The whole town heard about the accident. But even teachers and police kept it quiet.
I spent the last year talking to children who live with distant relatives or strangers and work illegal jobs. These are 12 and 13-year-olds who pay rent, take on overtime, and rarely get a weekend off. They’re part of a shadow work force that has exploded since the pandemic.
Border Patrol arrested a 75-year-old humanitarian worker who was bringing water to lost migrant children, including one holding a baby. Agents used a legal workaround to charge her with trespassing on public land.
Why is this not a HIPAA violation? The government acts as de facto parent to the tens of thousands of kids who come to this country alone or are separated from their relatives at the border each year. As legal guardian, it can ask for records and share them as it sees fit.
Henry was desperate to escape his gang, MS-13. So he told Long Island police and the FBI all he knew. They used his information, then turned him over for deportation. Now, he's being sent back to El Salvador, where he's been marked for death as a snitch.
But while it may be legal, groups like the American Psychological Association say the policy is unethical and a profound violation of patient confidentiality. Many of the shelter therapists I talked to had no idea their notes were being used like this. One called it "sickening."
Why are half a dozen GOP states suddenly chipping away at child labor laws?
The legislation all goes back to the same source: A billionaire-backed Florida lobbying group.
So grateful for this. Thank you to
@propublica
and our partners at
@NYTmag
,
@NYMag
and
@Newsday
.
I hope this recognition helps bring more attention to the plight of immigrants who struggle to get help from law enforcement in this country.
Under new Trump administration policies, more and more immigrant children are having intimate confessions, early traumas, even half-remembered dreams used against them in court. They’re not allowed to skip these therapy sessions, and everything they say can be filed as evidence.
As I reported on migrant children working in slaughterhouses, plants around the country run by Perdue, Tyson and Smithfield Foods started circulating a warning about me.
They told workers not to talk to me, and passed out fliers with my picture.
Worth revisiting this story of a rookie cop who chose not to shoot an unarmed black man, only to have older backup officers come in behind him and shoot the man dead.
The rookie was fired for NOT using deadly force. The officers who fired kept their jobs.
Nearly three years have passed since Kevin's first mandatory therapy session. He has been granted asylum, certified as a victim of severe human trafficking, and twice ordered released by a judge. But he remains detained because of what he said in confidence.
US companies are saying this week they had no idea migrant children were making their products.
But finding these kids was often as easy as going to factory parking lots and talking with baby faced workers who freely admitted they were children.
A man is on trial this week for giving migrants water and shelter at Arizona’s deadliest desert crossing, where hundreds have died of thirst. He faces a 20 year sentence. It would be the first time a humanitarian worker on the border was sent to prison.
The child labor rollbacks are so extreme that they violate a century of US law.
But the Labor Department can’t force officials in Iowa or any other states to enforce federal rules. So we can expect to see a lot more kids working adult jobs this summer.
A Mexican couple was turned over for deportation this week when they tried to visit a New York military base to celebrate the Fourth of July with their son-in-law, who is an army officer. They had lived in Brooklyn for decades.
Black families who've passed down land since a generation after slavery are now losing it to worsening natural disasters.
The government won't help them rebuild unless they can produce a formal deed. But deeds were hard to come by in the Jim Crow South.
Kids accused of belonging to the gang MS-13 were left naked in cold cells, beaten while handcuffed and strapped to chairs with bags over their heads. I know one of these kids. His was sent to this jail because he drew the number "503" in school.
It's an open secret on Long Island that Tate's Bake Shop cookies are made by undocumented immigrants, including teenagers who balance factory work with high school. Now employees say Tate's is using the threat of deportation to stop them from unionizing.
The federal agency that recommended sweeping building code changes after 9/11 now has six people on the ground investigating what happened in the condo collapse, according to the latest FEMA briefing.
A survivor of the El Paso Walmart shooting was deported yesterday. "This young lady only came forward to help build the case against the shooter in the racist attack.”
Last winter, I wrote about an asylum-seeker named Kevin and how ICE used confidential therapy notes to keep him detained.
In July, his detention center was overrun by Covid, and he gave up his case. He didn't survive even a month back in Central America.
Two days after we reported that thousands of migrant children are being exploited for their labor, the Biden administration has announced sweeping changes to fix multiple system failures.
In letters and floor speeches, lawmakers say even more must be done.
There are two main employers on Virginia's Eastern Shore: Tyson and Perdue. Together, they produce a third of chicken sold in the US.
It's become an open secret that middle schoolers work nights at the plants. One manager told me the companies couldn't run without child labor.
The housekeeper who waits on Trump at his New Jersey golf club is undocumented. She says the club helped her work without papers. Why on earth would she go public? “We're tired of the way he talks about us when he knows we are here helping him make money.”
Homeless people in 5 states have now come down with covid-19. One has died.
An outbreak among the homeless would have horrific consequences. But they've been left out of federal aid packages. So frontline workers are taking huge risks to pick up the slack.
People in the richest part of Long Island are building panic rooms and guarding charity galas with automatic weapons because they're scared the gang MS-13 is coming to get them. There hasn't been an MS-13 murder in the entire county for more than a year.
Child labor laws exist for a reason. They're meant to keep kids safe.
Migrant children are losing legs at meat plants and breaking their backs in falls. A dozen have died on the job. This is Edwin, a 14-year-old food delivery worker hit and killed on his bike in Brooklyn.
As migrant children were exploited for cheap labor in the US, the people who were supposed to protect these kids looked the other way.
Whistleblowers warned the White House for two years, but were dismissed as thousands of children took on dangerous jobs.
This is emerging as a recurring story: Parents have their kids taken away at the border, agree to voluntary deportation because they think that means they will be reunited, but instead end up on a plane home while their young child stays here.
Officials are still separating families at the border, now citing claims that the parents are unfit. In September, Border Patrol took this 4-year-old from his father, and said the dad was in a gang. Today, a judge disagreed and ordered the dad released.
Good corrective to social media hysteria over the weekend about 1,500 missing immigrant kids. There are 1,475 minors whose caregivers didn't respond to a government survey. They're not lost. And they weren't ripped from their parents at the border.
There are so many migrant child roofers in the US now, they’ve developed a whole TikTok subculture built around the hashtag "ruferitos.”
All roofing work is illegal for minors. But contractors say they don't worry about hiring kids because labor inspectors never visit worksites.
Maybe you suspected the gang MS-13 isn't really using children to sneak across the border. Or taking over whole US cities. Here are the other things Trump has been getting wrong, and why it matters.
The organization that runs the largest network of detention centers for immigrant children has tripled its revenue in three years. It's supposed to be a charity, but has been funneling millions to top executives and friends.
A sense of what this kind of inflation feels like: Over the summer, I was paying 500,000 bolivars a month to rent a nice apartment in Caracas. Today, that amount buys a single pack of toilet paper.
When children cross the border alone, they're sent to Health and Human Services shelters. HHS is supposed to protect these kids from exploitation and release them only to trustworthy adults. But staff say they've been under huge pressure since 2021 to release kids more quickly.
This isn't about paring back child labor protections around the edges. The GOP bills let 14 and 15-year-olds take on overnight shifts and dangerous assembly line jobs. Work that has been banned for children for a century.
Third child worker killed on the job in just one month.
Duvan Perez was a 16-year-old from Guatamala working overnight at a slaughterhouse in Mississippi.
A teenager went public this week with his story of informing on his gang, MS-13, and being marked for deportation in return. He's been flooded with offers of help. His FBI handler has agreed to testify. In a few hours, a judge will decide his fate.
One sad thing about the rise of child labor in slaughterhouses is that if companies paid just a little better—$2.85 more an hour—studies show adults would do this dangerous work.
Instead, they remain among the worst paid jobs in the US, with more and more migrant kids on shift.
Thousands of children are doing one of the most dangerous jobs in America: roofing.
They're working in violation of basic child labor and workplace safety laws, and more and more of them are getting catastrophically injured.
Henry was desperate to escape the gang MS-13. He informed to police and the FBI. They used his intel, then handed him over to ICE.
Now, he's been deported. A judge said his hands were tied.
With help from supporters, Henry has gone into hiding in Europe.
This isn't a debate about kids getting after-school jobs.
The law already allows 14 year-olds to work 40 hours a week. 16 year-olds can work the same hours as adults. What's in question is whether minors belong in the handful of occupations where they're most likely to be hurt.
I spent last month in a closing FEMA trailer park in California, trying to understand why so many families become permanently homeless after natural disasters.
Officials separated a 5-year-old asylum seeker from her grandmother, then had the girl sign a contract agreeing to stay in detention without a hearing.
Virginia company charged with trafficking Central American children and forcing them to work at a commercial laundry overnight.
One 13-year-old girl was told she'd be killed if she didn't work.
Things that have happened to protect migrant child workers since Monday:
_Four agencies have launched investigations.
_Congress has introduced legislation.
_Both parties have demanded more from HHS and DOL.
And the children who spoke out have gotten help.
Migrant children are working illegal jobs in all 50 states but rarely speak out. Many risked talking to me because they want other kids to know what it's really like here before they come. We've posted the story in Spanish so it can be used by local media.
After 14-year-old Marcos was hurt at Perdue, bosses reported a severe injury to OSHA. But officials let the company do a self-inspection and never visited. They closed the case before Marcos was even out of the hospital, with no fines and without realizing the worker was a child.
Hi again, Twitter! I work at the
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HHS Secretary Becerra is pushing staff to get migrant kids released to sponsors faster. He often asks why it can't run like an assembly line.
In this leaked video, he berates staff and says, “If Henry Ford had seen this in his plants, he would have never become famous and rich."
Another way families are being separated: A new wave of workplace raids. One 12-year-old was left behind and is staying in a mostly abandoned trailer park. He wrote to ICE: "I can’t live without my Mom. I don’t have anybody but her."
After we reported on the case of a 15-year-old roofer who fell and died during his first day on the job, the Department of Labor began investigating.
Now they've settled with the Alabama roofing company that sent him up 50 feet with no safety gear, but for just a $117,000 fine.
@DarbyOGill13
@Rschooley
"Martha’s Vineyard has become the place where they hope to put down roots. Mr. Cauro said he would like to bring his wife and two children from Venezuela once his own legal status was secured."
When the gang MS-13 started killing immigrant kids in the woods of Long Island, police dismissed the attacks as "misdemeanor murder" and listed the victims as runaways. Families had to use taxi drivers as interpreters, and search for the bodies themselves.
As temperatures at the Texas border reach 110 degrees this month, someone has been removing the barrels of water set in the desert to save migrants' lives.
Henry started the week facing deportation after informing to the FBI about his gang, MS-13. Now, an immigration judge wants to hear from everyone in law enforcement and at Henry's high school who touched the case. And Henry may be released on bail.
When the gang MS-13 wants to recruit you, there's a price for saying no.
Five friends were stalked and threatened for refusing to join. Police did little to help. One was killed. One lost a hand in a machete attack.
Then, ICE labeled them gang members.
Florida Republicans just approved a bill to roll back child labor law protections.
The bill would make it legal for 16 year-olds to work overnight shifts seven days a week. "These are youth workers," the bill's sponsor said. "They are not children."
The government said kids had to be taken at the border because MS-13 gang members kept posing as families. Yesterday, the government revealed it found seven cases of fake parents: 1 was actually an uncle, 2 were grandmothers, and 4 are under investigation.
Damning report out this morning finds the US has been releasing migrant children to adult sponsors without doing mandatory safety checks.
Health and Human Services Inspector General: "I would define these gaps as very serious."
Hundreds of thousands of immigrants will be unable to vote in November if the government keeps refusing to do virtual citizenship ceremonies. Already, 150,000 people who were on the verge of becoming citizens before the pandemic have been left in limbo.