Facing pressure to clear crowded shelters, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) began loosening some vetting restrictions, resulting in children being released "to sponsors who expected them to take on grueling, dangerous jobs," Dreier writes.  

At least five HHS employees have filed complaints related to the issue, saying they were pushed out after raising child safety concerns.  

"I feel like short of protesting in the streets, I did everything I could to warn them," said Jallyn Sualog, a former HHS employee who left the agency after multiple attempts to warn her bosses of child safety issues. "They just didn’t want to hear it." 

White House officials told the Times that both HHS and the Department of Labor shared information on child labor, but the reports "were not flagged as urgent and did not make clear the scope of the problem."  

"There were so many opportunities to connect those dots that no one ever did," said Linda Brandmiller, who flagged suspected trafficking cases for supervisors at HHS.  

Welcome to Tuesday’s edition of The Forum Daily. I’m Dan Gordon, the Forum’s strategic communications VP, and today’s great Forum Daily team also includes Joanna Taylor, Clara Villatoro and Katie Lutz. If you have a story to share from your own community, please send it to me at [email protected].     

CRIMINALIZING EMPATHY — The Republican-backed bill to ban knowingly transporting undocumented immigrants "would criminalize ‘empathy,’" Miami Archbishop Thomas Wenski said in a statement last week, per Insider’s Charles R. Davis. Meanwhile, Juan Carlos Chavez of the Tampa Bay Times reports on concerns among faith leaders in Florida’s bay area. 

NEW PROPOSALS — House Republicans released a bill Monday that would "tighten asylum eligibility, expand migrant family detention and crack down on the employment of undocumented workers," reports Suzanne Monyak of Roll Call. Other aspects also echo Trump-era policies, she writes. Meanwhile, Sen. Bob Menendez (D-New Jersey) is calling on the White House to consider his new immigration plan, which calls for "creating new pathways to citizenship, boosting humanitarian aid to specific counties, increasing funding for border security, and expanding efforts to target human traffickers," per Zoë Richards of NBC News. 

VIGILANTE FEARS — In Texas, Republicans’ House Bill 20 is sparking concerns because it would allow the governor to deputize citizens as immigration officers and even grant them arrest powers, Michael Murney reports in the Houston Chronicle. "They could set up outside a church, for example we have a heavy immigrant population in Dallas that attends [O]ur Lady of Guadalupe, about 11,000 people every Sunday," said Rep. Rafael Anchía of Dallas.  

‘THE ONLY CHRISTIAN THING TO DO’ — Pastor Allan R. Bevere, a Professional Fellow in Theology at Ashland Theological Seminary in Ohio, makes the Christian case for Dreamers in Christianity Today’s "The Better Samaritan" blog. "Yes, immigration is complicated, but acting on behalf of the Dreamers is not," he writes. "In fact, I believe it’s the only Christian thing to do." 

Thanks for reading,  

Dan