"On the same day Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra was grilled by Congress for failing to vet immigrant family sponsors, the Department of Labor announced a 44% increase in the number of children it found working illegally this year.

Both of these issues stem from the same problem, a problem not created by either HHS or the Department of Labor. Child labor, and deaths from child labor, are surging in this country as a direct result of the catch-and-release policies implemented by President Joe Biden at the southern border. These problems will only get worse until all child immigrants are treated equally when encountered by Border Patrol.

The trafficking of immigrant children across the southern border was almost nonexistent until 2008, when President George W. Bush signed the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act. Before 2008, immigrant children were treated equally when apprehended at the border, no matter what country they came from. Nearly all were returned to their country of origin.

After the Wilberforce bill, children from countries other than Mexico and Canada were guaranteed not only a hearing from an immigration judge but also an automatic transfer from Border Patrol custody to HHS's Office of Refugee Resettlement, which would then release them to a sponsor in the United States, usually a family member."

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"With the collapse of his plea bargain, Hunter Biden is facing something that he has been able to evade for five years: a real prosecution. The plea bargain itself was widely panned as a sweetheart deal that offered Biden a chance to close out the investigation with no jail time and two minor misdemeanors. However, it is hard for a plea bargain to actually write 'a wink and a nod' as a part of the formal factual description. The judge made a simple threshold inquiry on its meaning, and it immediately collapsed as the prosecutors and defense counsel struggled to explain.

"If the Justice Department followed its past practice, a withdrawal of this kind would ordinarily result in the prosecutors pursuing every possible criminal count -- and serious jail time. However, Hunter's sudden exposure to equal justice could prove equally costly for the person who was not to be mentioned in the case: President Joe Biden."

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"A recent video on Twitter showed a supermarket employee tussling with a shoplifter who had filled her bag with items. As the employee pulled the bag from her hand, she cried, 'I have to feed my family!' That's a common refrain from shoplifters these days, echoed in media headlines proclaiming that people have turned to stealing to put food on the table -- despite a U.S. social safety net that includes $185 billion in spending on food stamps and other nutrition-assistance programs. In truth, America's exploding shoplifting problem predates our current economic difficulties. Much of the stealing, store owners and security experts say, has less to do with putting food on the table than with a rise in organized theft, and it's having a particularly adverse effect in cities where criminal-justice reforms have made it easy to get away with.

"Retail theft in America has grown to a $94 billion epidemic, according to the National Retail Federation -- a staggering 90 percent increase since 2018. Retailers say that the problem gained momentum about a decade ago, when states began decriminalizing low-level shoplifting, raising the value of goods that a person must steal to enable prosecutors to bring felony charges. More than two-thirds of states now treat shoplifting as a misdemeanor if someone boosts less than $1,000 in goods, and 15 states have raised their limit to $1,500 or more. More than 70 percent of surveyed retailers reported that shoplifting spiked in their stores after these changes. Bail reforms that free without bond those arrested for shoplifting have also contributed to the problem. An official of the Association of Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialists says that retail theft is now 'a low-risk and high-reward line of business.'"

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"If you're a middle-class American, chances are your retirement account quietly funds far-left priorities like climate alarmism, racial hiring quotas, and other Democratic hobby horses. That's because of something called 'ESG,' or environmental, social, and corporate governance.

"In simple terms, ESG is liberal activism masquerading as corporate responsibility -- and it's bad for business and your retirement account. ...

"Last year, energy was the only sector in the Standard and Poor's 500 stock index to rise, yet ESG-aligned funds shunned fossil-fuel company investments. As a result, ESG funds underperformed the S&P 500. These ESG companies put progressivism ahead of profit and left money on the table, hurting their own investors.

"Making matters worse, America's largest ESG firms are likely violating antitrust laws by depriving the fossil fuel industry of investment. Attorneys general across the country are investigating ESG companies for antitrust violations and warning the public about the related financial risk."

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"The number of foreigners on the U.S. terrorist screening list who have tried illegally crossing into the United States has exploded ninefold since President Joe Biden took office, an alarming increase that experts say puts national security at risk.

So far in fiscal 2023, 140 people on the terror list have been apprehended between ports of entry, already crushing last year's record of 98. ...

The rapid growth in crossings by illegal aliens with terror ties is a warning sign that countries with bad intent may be trying to sneak potential terror cells into the United States, experts told Just the News."

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"The same FBI personnel who warned social media companies that the Hunter Biden laptop could be part of a potential Russian 'hack and leak' operation ahead of the 2020 election knew that it was not disinformation, an FBI official told the House Judiciary Committee.

"Section Chief of the FBI's Foreign Influence Task Force Laura Dehmlow participated in a transcribed interview before the House Judiciary Committee and its Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government on Monday and revealed details of how the bureau 'conditioned' social media companies to believe the Hunter Biden laptop was Russian disinformation, despite knowing it was legitimate."

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"When Joe Biden was vice president, the Obama administration changed the way the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) counted deportations, making it appear that they were enforcing immigration law while trying to negotiate a mass amnesty bill.

"They padded these numbers by including the number of recent unlawful border crossers who were returned after being in U.S. Border Patrol custody. This inflated a count that historically included only illegal aliens removed from American communities by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

"Unfortunately, the Biden administration is now cooking the books on unlawful entries but is doing so to make the numbers look smaller and to try to convince the American people and the media that their border security strategy is working.

"If you believe the administration, 'border encounters remain low' after Title 42 ended on May 11. But don't fall for this disinformation. The humanitarian and security crisis at the southern border is ongoing, and the overall illegal immigration problem is now far worse than the border numbers show."

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"President Joe Biden's income-driven student loan repayment program will cost up to $559 billion over 10 years, according to an analysis from the University of Pennsylvania's Penn Wharton Budget Model.

The Education Department announced the final regulations for the 'SAVE' plan last week after the Supreme Court invalidated Biden's student loan forgiveness plan.

Wharton's $559 billion figure is its upper estimate and reflects a scenario in which future students max out the amount of available federal direct loans. The minimum prediction is that it will cost $391 billion if students do not heavily increase borrowing."

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"The Biden administration recently proposed new regulations that would curb short-term health plans -- or, as the White House likes to call them, 'junk' or 'scam' insurance.

"But the true scam is this attempt to deprive people of affordable coverage they like.

"Short-term plans aren't subject to Obamacare's many cost-inflating regulations, including requirements that insurers cover 10 essential health benefits and that bar insurers from charging older enrollees any more than three times what they charge younger ones.

"As a result, short-term plans are much cheaper than plans for sale through Obamacare's exchanges. Monthly short-term premiums can be as little as $55 -- a bargain compared to the $453 a month a 40-year-old would pay for the average benchmark plan.

"For many people -- including young, healthy individuals and workers between jobs -- the cheap, minimalist coverage short-term plans offer is attractive. Too attractive, according to Democrats."

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"As progressives want to do everywhere, California is destroying math education in the name of 'equity.'

"The state's new 'math framework' for public schools ditches traditional instruction to emphasize 'self-identity' and collaboration in lieu of actual math skills.

"It aims to keep all students in the same math courses until 10th grade -- no longer grouping students by skill so the kids who can learn more get the more advanced instruction they need.

"The result will be far fewer kids able to take advanced classes (calculus, or even algebra), and more 'slow' children denied the chance to gain basic skills."

Read the entire article here.