WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) today delivered the following opening remarks during the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Border Security and Immigration hearing he chaired entitled, “Another Biden Blunder: Missing Unaccompanied Alien Children and Criminal Sponsors.” Excerpts are below, and video can be found here.

“President Biden literally lost track of more than 320,000 unaccompanied children, sometimes called UACs.”

“Parents and other relatives played a role in this sad saga by making the incredible decision to place their child into the hands of a criminal organization, potentially putting them in harm’s way in the first place.”

“Some of these children thought they were going to be united with a relative or parent, but they ended up being trafficked or forced to work to pay for their smuggling debts.”

“Some were members of the Tren de Aragua and MS-13 gangs.”

“Of course, no one can forget the many victims of crimes committed by juvenile illegal aliens – crimes like the death of Kayla Hamilton, who was raped and murdered, or Maria Gonzalez, who was raped and strangled to death.”

“The Biden administration prioritized the release of thousands of migrant children without doing background checks, or waiting to receive the results of background checks, or without conducting mandatory home studies, even when staff raised concerns.”

“The Trump administration has located more than 22,000 missing illegal migrant children and arrested more than 400 criminal sponsors, as of March.”

“Unfortunately, for many of these children, help has come too late.”

“No one seems to want to discuss why we continue to incentivize parents and other relatives to pay criminal organizations large sums of money to smuggle their children into the United States. We have laws on the books now that encourage children to make that treacherous journey through South America to enter the country illegally.” 

“President Obama agreed with Republicans back in the day that these incentives could and should be fixed legislatively – and I’m talking about the Flores case now – but, the Democratic base would not hear of it.” 

“They would prefer to have migrant children endangered than even raise the possibility that some illegal immigrants might be deported.”

“This issue highlights the way that our Democratic colleagues have pushed to skirt the formal process for releasing unaccompanied minors, in order to minimize the chances of any person who’s come to the country illegally being deported.” 

“There is a heavy, heavy price to pay and I would submit, we won’t know what the full price ultimately is for years – maybe decades yet to come.”