possible, toxic fumes after fire broke out on a warehouse near the city for a challenge, has more a major fire and a major response in germany, 2nd largest city. the from before dawn, firefighters battled the flames, conceiving several warehouses in an industrial area, south east of hamburg center. german media reported that containers of hydrogen sulfide are involved, a toxic chemical with an unpleasant odor. so far, cruise and police, or breathing last few words. we have been here since 4 o'clock in the morning. resident reported the fire was initially bird only a warehouse with respect to other warehouses for various reasons. a cloud of smoke is covering half the city and we sounded our warning system. a police spokesperson said it isn't possible get to assess how dangerous the situation is. people in hamburg have been advised by mobile phones to close their windows, turn off ventilation and air conditioning,

and avoid the area. the plume of dog smoke also halted long distance trains between hamburg and other german cities. by mid day, the fire department had reduced the threat level. authorities say no injuries have been reported. yes, we talents how to sir. ah, dental era, and these are the top stories, the sour, israel's police commissioner, has made a rare admission that is ready for this should not have beaten palestinians worshipping inside the oxen, moth class, weak covey ship ship tie, told is rarely media that police had to wagged but that the images cause what he called a terrible impact. russell said he has more from occupied east jerusalem. one of the top israel police officer seeing that the images that were sent out, particularly on the day of wednesday and thursday, where when israel occupation force

a storm locks on mosque and forcefully remove the palestinian overnight worshippers and arrested around 20 of them and enjoy that on 20 of them and arrested nearly $400.00 palestinians, so that images using excessive force in the holy compound, off of alexa most that images he said that has created a terrible impact. a man immediate, his mid delegations from the hootie ripple group and saudi arabia in the human capital. now on sunday, it's part of an if it's in the 8 year conflict, described as the world's worst humanitarian crisis, is the 3rd and final day of china's military drills around taiwan. beijing's shantung aircraft carrier is participating in the exercises chinese, the media, se the military is rehearsing and encirclement of the island, which beijing sees as a break. why province? thailand's army is putting up temporary shelters for thousands of refugees fleeing

conflict and me and ma, at least 10000 people have crossed into thailand in the past week to escape fighting between armed groups and the border guard. false, ty, authorities have said they will send refugees back to me in march when the violence stops for the headlines. the news continues on al jazeera after upfront talk to, i'll just 0. we who is really fighting this. russia wagner with the russian military . we listen. we started talking to me, i'm a visual back. we meet with global news makers and talk about the stories that matters on al jazeera, hundreds of migrant children across the united states are working long hours and ruling often dangerous conditions in factories, farms, and mill. the kids are alone in the u. s. typically having flayed their countries without their parents, many are seeking asylum and other protections under u. s. and international law process that can take years and cost thousands of

dollars. and if they wait, they are in need of ways to support themselves and for many send money to the families back home, overnight shift and dangerous work violate multiple long standing child labor law. so how is this happening? and what does it say about how migrants are treated in the united states? that's our conversation this week. and upfront special, the alone and exploited. those are the opening words of a recent new york times investigation that exposed widespread, illegal employment of unaccompanied migrate. children corporations across the united states, thousands of kids, some as young as 12 and 13 years old. are working grueling hours at highly dangerous jobs for permanent companies like target, general motors, ford and food processing giant heart side food solutions which manufacturers popular serial brands, curios and lucky charms. the investigation describes children sawing planks of wood on overnight ships, operating hazardous machinery, roofing houses,

and working in florida houses. so why is this happening on such a vast scale and indirect violation of us and international labor laws? joining us to discuss this r, hannah dryer and investigative reporter with the new york times and author of the investigation alone and exploited migrant children, worked brutal jobs across the u. s. and mario resume senior policy advisor at the women's refugee commissions migrant rights and justice program. and thank you both for joining me on upfront and i want to start with you. you spoke with more than 100 migrant youth in 20 states across united states were working in highly dangerous and i might add illegal jobs. but many of these kids are laboring and brutal conditions working, punishing the long hours, according to some case worker estimates about 2 thirds of unaccompanied migrant children in the u. s. work full time that is mind boggling them. you said that it wasn't actually difficult to even find these kids. this is happening more or less

openly around the country. busy you talked to 113 year old, his name was jose. he works on a commercial egg farm in michigan, and he said to you, i'd like to go to school. but then how would i pay rent? tell us about jose, what does a typical day like for him? thank you so much for bringing attention to this mark. and i think that jose is really typical of the kinds of kids that i was talking to. he came to this country because after the pandemic, there wasn't enough to eat in his home country and guatemala. and he thought that life would be easier here. he thought maybe he could help send money home to his younger siblings. and so he came by himself at 13, and instead what he found was that he had to pay rent. he had to support himself. everything was much more expensive than he had imagined. and you know, this is a child making this decision. so how could he have known and he was working 12 hour shift completely in violation of child labor laws on that,

on an ed farm that supplies eggs around the country. and this is what i found again and again. and a lot of this reporting was as simple as going to the car part supplier that supplying ford motors just waiting at the ship change and watching the faces of the kids. the people who are coming out and a 13 year old looks like a 13 year old. these kids admitted their ages right there in the parking lot. it wasn't hard reporting in that sense. and some of the adults who were working alongside them said that they've been really troubled and they'd notice that they were more and more kids on these overnight sets on the dangerous ships. but the companies, when we talked to them, said they had no idea. they'd never notice these guns faces mario about 130000 unaccompanied children across the southern border. last year. they were seeking asylum in the united states. that's 3 times what it was 5 years ago. but can you

explain why we're seeing this increase in children specifically unaccompanied miners who are seeking asylum? yeah, it's a great question. so on a couple of kids mostly come from 3 countries in central america, from guatemala, from 100 and from the door. they tend to come from neighborhoods that are quite dangerous, where there's a lack of opportunity. and these are countries where corruption is rampant, indicates upon doris, where there are widespread gangs that have territory territories and as well as territorial disputes that would be in danger. where those kings may forcibly recruit children into those gangs at a certain age. and then in the case of guatemala, you have an indigenous minority that is deeply discriminated against a, basically every conceivable juncture. so we, what we find in the sort of outcome of that is this long standing crisis of protection that happens to come to a head in the past recent years, especially with the code 910 demick. and it's a crisis of protection for children, but also for families because parents care deeply about their children. the outcome

of that crisis of protection is kids seeking asylum in the united states. a place where they can be safe, where they can have a future have a life. that's an interesting point that you raise around the families being so deeply invested in the safety and the well being of their children. because one of the popular dominant media narratives is they don't care about their children, they're letting them go across the board, or they're letting go unaccompanied. they clearly don't care. can you help us sort of make sense of that kind of narrative and why it's problem? i can't speak to why it's prevalent other than it feel comfortable to believe and it feels potentially comfortable to say that we don't have to do work at the country as congress, as american society. but you know, what is what is happening here. these kids, adults, young people want to have opportunities, they want to see themself. they want to have a future. and if you live in a neighborhood where gangs are rampant where that is, the only way forward and you don't want to participate, you don't have very many options. so what comes out of that are children who want

to seek a different kind of like a safer life, a better life. i mean, i think provide that opportunity as we have for decades century. and that's actually like a lovely thing about the country. that's a wonderful thing that we should be uplifting. and it's unfortunate that there is this discourse that you mentioned that treated as if inappropriate. if i could jump in, i mean, i talk to a lot of these parents back in their home country and ask them exactly this question. why did you said your child, you know that your child is living this life and across the board, they told me that they wish that they could have come the shout. they would like to be the one working in the slaughter house to try to send money home or working in roofing. while their child was back in guatemala or in el salvador. not working. these really explains of jobs, but they know that they are likely to be turned around at the border, whereas their childs is likely to be allowed to come in and apply for asylum. and

so what i was hearing again and again it's parents who wish they could be in this country working but know that they can't. and so that's part of what contributing to this leave of children coming across on more kids are coming. i also found that even in the most remote villages where volcano and block cell phone service, people know this rule, that if you're under 18, you are more likely to be allowed into the country. and that's a law in this country that goes back to 2008 that has to do with not wanting to expel children so that they're all alone in a border town or anything might happen to them. so we have a policy of letting children come in, but we don't have that policy, like you say for adults, and it's getting harder and harder for adults to come into the country. and i mean, mario can speak to this more than me, but this is something that advocates often refer to as self separation, where families are choosing to separate because of the phenomenon where children can come in. but their parents often can. i just wanted to add on to something that

hannah said when we look deeply into the data of who's coming and where they're coming. one of the curiosities is that on a company children's arrivals over time, rise at the same time that family arrival so. so parents with children at the us border. what that suggests is that the decision for a child to go is, is worsley about the pressure in home country. and the choice of families make is whether that child is going by themselves, or whether they're going with a family number. and that's a slightly different situation than a parent who might go instead of the child, right? it's large years, at least from the data that i see, which is talking about hundreds of thousands of these, these kids and families about, you know, the pressure and home country and how they're going to make that journey. and the pressures of the border look like they are contributing to those families that are already decided that a child needs to leave because it's unsafe to go by themselves because the child can get it rather than going and make an attorney and honestly, a more safe manner to the us border with a parent or family member and they said,

now parent your investigation found that unaccompanied miners are working for not just companies. they're working for a well known corporations. many of them household names. their brands, like general motors, target wal mart, just the name of you who are mixed up in this stuff. in 2022, 835 companies in the united states were found to have violated child labor laws. some kids have been seriously injured, even killed on the job. 115 year old alabama died when he was laying down shingles on a roof. and another 16 year old was crushed under a $35.00 ton tractor scraper, near atlanta, georgia. how does this stuff continue to happen? and how is it frankly, that both of us even well read and well informed or barely hearing about it, if at all, until now. yeah, you mentioned that 16 year old trust under the tractor scraper. one thing that

shocked me with that 16 year old was actually driving the earth mover. i don't know how that happened. but i mean, when i started this reporting, i sort of figured that i would find some children working in agriculture, maybe working in restaurant. it's been an open secret, i think in immigration world that a lot of the children across the border on their end up working. and what i found instead, whereas that kids were working in these completely industrial jobs. like you say in factories i talked to kids who, who's told me that their lungs burned because they were working all night packing, spicy cheetos, and that spicy dust with irritate there. i talked to children who had lost limbs at industrial meat packing plant. i mean, it's not the kind of work where you would ever expect to your child labor inspectors say they never did the children in these kinds of workplaces in these numbers until really just the last few years. so that's been a huge shift and i think it really goes back to lack of libra, law enforcement,

and then just how alone these children are on. when a child crosses the border, they go to a government shelter. and then a government worker decides who's going to take care of that and they try to find an adult who can take responsibility and support that child. and what i found is that after children are released, there's almost no follow up for the majority of them. but these are, they're really, i guess, how sort of our economic system, greed, lack of oversight, produces this kind of predatory action from corporations. i guess what i'm finding surprising is that it's not again, it's not the mom and pop shop. it's not the unknown. a named farmer who doesn't give a darn who, who, you know, who's working the tractor. mean these are major corporations. i would think they'd be worried about lawsuits bad image in the, in the media. i would think they'd be worried about him. they don't have any feelings about if i pull they'd have interests. that would make them less likely to

have such a big tackler displays of labor exploitation. no, it's such a good point. and one thing is, time. libra law sounds like it's a big serious thing. we have federal agents who enforce that. we also have state agent to enforce this law, but the maximum penalty for violation is $15000.00. no matter what happens with child, no matter how much they work, no matter what they're doing. a corporation is not going to pay more than $50000.00, which i don't do for that. they make that it's not generally criminal matter. this is something that might now change. there's been a lot of pressure in the last couple weeks since a story came out to maybe reform that law to make a more serious penalty. but even if a child dies on the job, you mentioned that 13 year old who fell 50 feet from a roofing job. he should never have been doing that was a $100000.00 penalty for the death of the child. which again, for these companies that you know, nothing that's changed. mario,

according to the u. s. department of labor, child, labor violations have increased by almost 70 percent since 2018. now, are we thing more of a cracked down by authorities to ensure compliance or has just been an increase in actual violations? i think it's both. i think you have a situation where these bad actors, as you've called them, have figured out that there is a particular group of immigrant children who are exploitable for their labor and have largely move towards that. you also have with, in these increasing numbers, you have a sort of effect in which you haven't a big enough population in lots of different places where, where lots of different corporations, labor brokers are able to exploit children for their labor. and i would say to going back to the, the last point, but that's part of the process as well. so a lot of these companies are not employing. there are the people who work in factories directly. instead, they're using labor brokers and that removes their legal liability, but the labor broker. so that's a company,

a contractor that says they're going to provide a group of laborers to some sort of setting. and the labor broker is taking the responsibility for presenting legal compliant workers. right. so, so the companies just say, hey, this is what we got from the broker. wow. i don't know anything about. yeah, absolutely. yeah. why are we intensifying our crack down? or at least our examination of the brokers. i mean because the brokers are direct being directly know what they're doing. i think that's a great question. i think some of these have involved investigations into labor brokers. i know in the california ag sector, one of the things that happens is the companies dissolve very readily and they, they disappear in effect. so if there's no criminal liability, it's very easy for individuals to because all the corporation have the corporations headquarters disappear. the people involved sort of scatter and then they reform a labor brokerage somewhere else. but with all of the social connections that they

had before, i would expect that some version of that some similar process would be happening in the manufacturing that hannah as reporting unveiled. well, mario, another piece of this is the fact that the kids are not undocumented. many are asylum seekers. we've been processed, they're known by the united states government to be in the country. you know, that's a very big difference. there are a number of players who are involved in this process. you've got the u. s. department of health and human services, which is responsible for placing migrate children with sponsor. you're also also supposed to provide care and protect them from exploitation. then there's a department of labor. they have a duty to stop child labor violations too. there's a lot of blame to go around and we've talked about the brokerage, you talked about the corporation, but on the government side of things, who should we be looking at? yeah, it's a great question. so there are failures of protection, especially at the state and local level that i think haven't got as much attention through this reporting and through the outcry as they really deserve. so states

like ohio and iowa, an arkansas as well, have been reducing the standards for child labor made it easier for people to exploit child labor to profit from child labor, reducing the protections, reducing the need for children to have appropriate safety equipment. that's all political choices and those folks should be held accountable for those. in addition, states have really stepped back, their enforcement of child labor laws over the past several decades. ohio doesn't even have a department of labor for what's well, the premise behind that, right? you know, i know when they, when, when, when, when the right once it is all things like the department of education and they say the state needs to be taken care of it right up. but on the state level, when you're dissolving things like labor oversight, what's, what's the government art, what's the, what's the argument for that? i assume it's some version of cutting red tape mark. i assume that their argument is to say something like these are just inspections that are keeping businesses from going about their daily duties and it just creates more red tape. it creates

lawyers and legalism and doesn't promote entrepreneurialism or something like that . there's been a swift response to the investigation by elected officials, the by the ministration formed in inter agency child labor task force. and us lawmakers have introduced a bipartisan bill that would increase penalties on employers who violate child labor laws. is enough being done to hold employers for these children to account. you know, there has really been swift action and the last several weeks in a way that i never expected to see. i mean, i think every investigative reporter is used to putting stories out and sort of hoping one day something might change or at least people can't say they didn't know . in this case, within 72 hours, the department of labor was really taking action. they're going to change the way that they enforce these laws. they're pledging to go up the team and go after those big brands, not just the labor brokers. there is movement to increase the penalties for companies that break these laws at the department of labor also is launching

a task force with health and human services. so i think we are truly going to see more enforcement. what is less clear is whether these children are going to have more support. and i think that would look like social worker is looking after these kids, when they released lawyer, it's for these kids more focused on making sure that sponsors understand the kind of responsibility that they truly are taking on. they can't turn around and send these kids to the factory where they know they can get a job without sort of both of those things. i don't think there is, you know, that much reason to think that there won't be another way of, of kids coming in this summer. who at that in similar jobs. yeah, i mean with that because it's, with our approach to many challenges, social childs the united states is we get tough, we militarize, we criminalize, we'll do all that. but the actual social investment, the economic investment in the vulnerable is something very different. and i think

your investigation cause for all of it, but the kind of outraged people are getting or experiencing might be quote, but people say we're going to get tough with all those exploitation companies. totally, because it's more, you know, it's easier to say we're going to track down, it's much harder to say, we're going to solve this very complicated situation, where both marable children need support immigration, and that's a politicized issue. it's hard to know. will we get more money to support these kids? is their appetite to go out and make sure that they're left alone by talking to advocates, talking to people who work within the government, who are most closely with these children on the ground. they say it really does need to be both sides of that equation. mario, the by the ministration also just unveiled a new immigration officially called the circumvention of lawful pat ways. of course human rights groups of many, many of them are referred to it as the asylum band. the american civil liberties union has spoken out against the thing. quote, it would continue to restrict many families from accessing asylum together. but how

do you think the new so called asylum band would affect this issue of child exploitation? and do you think the enforcement mechanisms on corporations are enough to actually address the problem? so the women's refugee commission is, is adamantly against the rule as well. we have also spoken out against it several times. for your viewership, for anyone who, who may not be familiar, the proposed rule would make it extremely difficult for anyone to get asylum in the united states. if they passed through a country where they could have asked for a silent previously, but did not what be affect this rule is or will have on, on family, as we think is a number of families will travel together. as we discussed earlier in this program to the us border, it will find out at the us border that they do not qualify for asylum in the united states. and they will be confronted with the horrific choice to either send the child across the border alone. because unaccompanied children are excluded from the rule or to remain in a dangerous situation in mexico where we've seen horrific things happen to asylum

seekers. crimes committed against them, all sorts of really terrible situation, but remain intact there. that choice is, is cruel. and it's horrifying. and we are adamantly opposed to it. i would also say that the rule is misconceived as policy. so even if you think that too many people who don't really have a chance of asylum are applying for asylum, that doesn't mean that an individual shouldn't be allowed to present their case for protection. and then on top of that, if people are, if the process is bad, people are abating a process. that's not a cause for migration. that's the cause of a bad process about a file and process. and so the room sort of is misconceived as policy. it also is going to hurt a lot of vulnerable people and for that reason w r c is adamantly against it. in terms of the labor question that you asked a moment ago, or what we can do, we have a number of, of things that we think will help on the social services side. so increasing what's called a warm handoff between those government shelters and the local social service providers,

making sure that kids and their sponsors have all of the access to material to support that they need. and providing all of these kids with lawyers because the lawyers often backstop the children's sort of protection needs of a child is in a situation they're going through their court case because they're, they're actually an immigration limbo when they're here. so they're known to the government that they're in immigration when the lawyer helps them do that. but also helps with things like identifying exploitative employers, making sure that they get protected, making sure they get access to services, making sure all of their needs are met. so those are the 2 things that we would really promote on that services front. hannah is describing just such an impossible set of choices that people have to make at the border. and a set of rules sometimes masquerading is policies and a set of economic and political structure that don't seem particularly responsive to the challenges that we're facing, how we feel our way out of it. yeah,

i mean this is something that i came back to again and again in this reporting, how is it that in 2023, this country can't keep young children out of the most dangerous poodle overnight? industrial kind of work. and a lot of it comes down to these issues of global and equity. what do you do when you have people who are very close to the united states, who are starving in guatemala salvadoran hunter, as relates to become untenable. and the u. s. is sort of the beacon of a better life. people still feared as a place where they can go and try to improve their lot, help their families. and some of these issues are, you know, intractable. and so we come back to these things like, well, at least give these kids lawyers at least to make this a real violation. not a sort of violation on paper that nobody cares about. but you know,

it's been sort of wrenching to talk to hundreds of these kids and their families and just confront the terrible choices that they, they have to deal with dan and day out. hannah, thank you so much for joining me. mara. thank you so much for joining me on upfront . all right, that is our show upfront. we'll be back in the ah, from the al jazeera london broadcast into 2 people in thoughtful conversation with no host and no limitations this decade is

a most consequential decade in immense is she doth for too many companies that are doing bad things in the front in part 2 of human rights activists. q me 19 and environmental if we known and the t, the systems are not working, but the longer that you fight them. the more that things change studio be unscripted on al jazeera, the muslim community in diana, living in a vibrant harvey in cal chat. this country we are blessed. we live in harmony with al jazeera, well to travel to south america for a guy, and he's ramadan. is long ago the of late and they enjoy doing it. we have a rich country in terms of diversity, and that is something that we can celebrate. graham, at an in diana analysis era, april on al jazeera, as the warring frame moves in to with the 2nd year. we bring you the latest reports

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palestinians inside the alex and mosque last week.