By Neil Munro

Sen. Elizabeth Warren is one-upping her Democratic rivals by promising to make a pre-debate, TV-magnified visit to a nearby center that shelters foreign youths before they are handed over to U.S.-based “sponsors.”

“We have to shut down that facility and shut it down now,” Warren told supporters, according to a tweet by a Washington Post reporter. The crowd enthusiastically chanted, “Shut it down!”

Warren’s gambit highlights the growing number of progressives who emotionally oppose the federal agencies’ efforts to identify — although not actually stop — the huge wave of Central American migrants and their children who are walking into Americans’ blue-collar workplaces, schools, and neighborhoods.

Amid the emotion, and its use by Democratic politicians, only about ten percent of adult migrants are being blocked at the border. The vast majority are quickly being released precisely because they bring young children on the dangerous journey solely to trigger the catch-and-release laws that are supported by Democrats.

Also, another huge wave of more than 56,000 children and teenagers — who claim to be unaccompanied — have surrendered to border officials since October. Roughly 2,500 of those teenagers are being temporarily sheltered at the center in Homestead, Florida, run by the Department of Health and Human Services.

The Washington Post did not report where Warren thinks the Homestead youths should be sent if the HHS center is closed.

These youths at the Homestead shelter are legally dubbed “Unaccompanied Alien Children” (UAC) because they told border agents that they were not traveling with their parents.

Most of the UAC teenagers at the center will be quickly sent to “sponsors” after officials have checked the potential sponsors for possible criminality, such as forced labor, prostitution, drug selling, and MS-13 links. The average stay is just 36 days, according to a June 19 HHS report.

But the vast majority of the sponsors are either the parents or the in-laws of the UAC teenagers, and many sponsors are also illegal migrants who have paid cartel-linked coyotes to deliver their teenagers to the Homestead camp, via the border agencies.

This UAC-smuggling strategy is dubbed the “UAC pipeline,” and it has been used since at least 2013. So far, the cartels earned a fortune by delivering a huge share of the 270,000 children and youths who have passed through the federally-operated pipeline since 2009.

In March, Democrats included a clause in the 2019 spending bill to hinder federal agencies from narrowing the UAC pipeline by deporting sponsors who are illegal migrants

Warren’s TV-ready visit to Homestead will happen the day of the first of two Democratic debates in Miami, Florida. The Homestead center is just 30 miles down the road.

Warren’s promised visit — which will likely be accompanied by a cheering crowd of pro-migration activists — is part of an escalating race by Democrats to out-do each other in promising to open the borders to poor migrants.

For example, Beto O’Rourke pledged to dismantle the border wall, Julian Castro promised to decriminalize illegal migration, and Joe Biden wants to welcome migrants from Venezuela and also  “streamline and strengthen” the asylum laws being used by 100,000 economic migrants each month to get into the United States.

Warren, however, is keeping pace.

On June 21, for example, she promised to end the use of company-run prisons for holdingmigrants. That goal has long been sought by pro-migration groups because it would force the border agencies to expand the catch-and-release policy. In turn, the expanded catch-and-release policy would allow the cartel-linked traffickers to quickly recoup the cost of smuggling migrants into the U.S. blue-collar labor market and so stimulate the labor trafficking business that is pressuring down Americans’ salaries.

On June 25, Warren escalated again, saying she prefers to decriminalize illegal migration by letting “mamas and babies” into the United States.

“We should not be criminalizing mamas and babies trying to flee violence at home or trying to build a better future,” Warren told the Huffington Post. “We must pass comprehensive immigration reform that is in line with our values, creates a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants including our DREAMers, and protects our borders.”

A June 19 statement by HHS described operations at the center:

Due to the crisis on the southern border, ORR is facing a dramatic spike in referrals of UAC. As of June 10, DHS has referred over 52,000 UAC to HHS this fiscal year (FY), an increase of over 60 percent from FY 2018. Preliminary information shows over 9,000 referrals in May- one of the highest monthly totals in the history of the program. If these numbers continue, this fiscal year HHS will care for the largest number of UAC in the program’s history. Based on the anticipated growth pattern in referrals of UAC from DHS to HHS, HHS is preparing for the need for high bed capacity to continue.

HHS has expanded bed capacity at the Homestead Temporary Shelter for UAC in Homestead, Florida to 2,470 based on need resulting from a current increase in UAC referrals from DHS. Family separations that resulted from the Zero Tolerance Policy that ended in 2018 are not driving the continuing operation of Homestead. In addition, no children at Homestead are there due to the Zero Tolerance Policy.

Since opening in March 2018 over 13,300 UAC have been placed at the site and more than 10,800 have been discharged to a suitable sponsor.

Immigration by the Numbers

Each year, roughly four million young Americans join the workforce after graduating from high school or university.

But the federal government then imports about 1.1 million legal immigrants and refreshes a resident population of roughly 1.5 million white-collar visa workers — including approximately one million H-1B workers — and approximately 500,000 blue-collar visa workers.

The government also prints out more than one million work permits for foreigners, tolerates about eight million illegal workers, and does not punish companies for employing the hundreds of thousands of illegal migrants who sneak across the border or overstay their legal visas each year.

This policy of inflating the labor supply boosts economic growth for investors because it ensures that employers do not have to compete for American workers by offering higher wages and better working conditions.

Flooding the market with cheap, foreign, white-collar graduates and blue-collar labor also shifts enormous wealth from young employees towards older investors, even as it also widens wealth gaps, reduces high-tech investment, increases state and local tax burdens, and hurts children’s schools and college educations. It also pushes Americans away from high-tech careers and sidelines millions of marginalized Americans, including many who are now struggling with fentanyl addictions. The labor policy also moves business investment and wealth from the Heartland to the coastal cities, explodes rents and housing costs, shrivels real estate values in the Midwest, and rewards investors for creating low-tech, labor-intensive workplaces.