Hannah Dreier:
That is a great question.
One thing that I found really surprising and kind of appalling with this reporting was how easy it was to find these kids. I mean, I thought I would have to crack some kind of subterranean trafficking ring. But what I actually did was, I showed up in different towns and cities, and, by the next day, I was usually talking to a migrant child who'd come here without their parents and was working in illegal conditions.
So, throughout this whole process, I just kept asking myself, why isn't the Department of Labor here? And one thing that inspectors told me is, there hasn't been an emphasis on proactive child labor investigations. And that's one thing that hopefully will change.
With this new Biden initiative, the Department of Labor is going to launch a new operation to go out, not just respond to tips, but go actively try to search for these kids.
And the same staffing issues that have been there will be there. But I think a lot of people who work with these children are celebrating that part of the announcement, at least, today.
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