Rep. Kat Cammack (R-Fla.) shared on social media a video of her displaying a jar of colored wristbands in a recent Congressional hearing that she said were wristbands cartels forced migrants to wear or face mutilation. Cammack posted the video July 26 on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.
"These are wristbands the cartels force people to wear when they cross the border," Cammack posted. "If you're not wearing one when you cross, the cartels will take a limb, like an arm or leg."
Cammack was showing the jar to Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Sec. Xavier Becerra while questioning him about how his department is handling the flow of migrants and migrant children at the U.S.-Mexico border. She said the wristbands "dictate which cartel they belong to, how much they have paid," and concluded her statement by telling Becerra "85,000 children are missing and it's on your watch."
In the video Cammack said children are being trafficked by the cartels that use wristbands and often write phone numbers on the children. She criticized HHS for not doing enough to check who these children are being handed off to once in the US, citing statistics that only 9% of the children are DNA tested and only around 20% of the “sponsors” who take them are background checked.
The wristbands are not a new phenomenon, according to the Federalist. A Federalist article from 2021 reported that human smugglers adopted sophisticated techniques to monitor migrants crossing the border. The technique consisted of the migrants wearing wristbands to serve as identifiers for the specific smuggling outfit responsible for them and indicate their payment status. These wristbands are affixed to migrants' left wrists at stash houses in Mexico, just before they enter the U.S. Each wristband bears a unique number that corresponds to a database containing personal details such as the migrant's name, phone number, intended destination in the U.S., and information about their family members back in their country of origin, which becomes useful in case of delayed payments. Smugglers meticulously verify both the migrant's and their family's cell phone numbers during the distribution of these wristbands to ensure effective payment tracking, the article said.
The human trafficking business is now a global business creating $150 billion in illegal profits, according to the Heritage Foundation (HF). Around 60% or Unaccompanied Alien Children (UACs) are caught by the cartels and used for smuggling or child pornography, according to a HF article.
