Although it was almost midnight in Grand Rapids, Michigan, inside the factory everything was bright. A conveyor belt carried bags of Cheerios past a cluster of young workers. One was Carolina Yoc, 15, who came to the U.S. on her own last year to live with a relative she’d never met.

About every 10 seconds, Carolina stuffed a plastic bag of cereal into a passing yellow carton. It was dangerous labor, with fast-moving pulleys and gears that had torn off workers’ fingers.

“Sometimes I get tired and feel sick,” Carolina said after a shift in November. Her stomach often hurt, and she was unsure if that was because of the lack of sleep, the stress from the incessant roar of the machines, or the worries she had for herself and her family back in Guatemala. “But I’m getting used to it.”

The factory was full of underage workers like Carolina, who crossed the Southern border by themselves and were now spending late hours bent over hazardous machines, in violation of child labor laws.

These workers are part of a new economy of exploitation. Migrant children, who in recent years have been coming into the U.S. without their parents in record numbers, are ending up in some of the most punishing jobs in the country, a New York Times investigation found. The Times report came in late February just weeks after legislators in Iowa and Minnesota introduced bills relaxing child labor protections as some local economies struggle to hire and retain workers.

It was almost midnight in Grand Rapids, Michigan. But inside the factory, everything was bright. A conveyor belt carried bags of Cheerios past a cluster of young workers. One was Carolina Yoc, 15, who came to the U.S. on her own last year to live with a relative she’d never met.

About every 10 seconds, Carolina stuffed a plastic bag of cereal into a passing yellow carton. It was dangerous labor. There were fast-moving pulleys and gears that had torn off workers’ fingers.

“Sometimes I get tired and feel sick,” Carolina said after a shift in November. Her stomach often hurt. She was unsure if that was because of the lack of sleep, the stress from the incessant roar of the machines, or the worries she had for herself and her family back in Guatemala. “But I’m getting used to it.”

The factory was full of underage workers like Carolina, who crossed the Southern border by themselves. Now they were spending late hours bent over hazardous machines, in violation of child labor laws.

These workers are part of a new economy of exploitation. In recent years, migrant children have been coming into the U.S. without their parents in record numbers. They are ending up in some of the most punishing jobs in the country, a New York Times investigation found. The Times report came in late February. This was just weeks after legislators in Iowa and Minnesota introduced bills relaxing child labor protections as some local economies struggle to hire and retain workers.

Following the report, the Biden administration announced a wide crackdown on the labor exploitation of migrant children around the U.S., including more aggressive investigations of companies benefiting from their work.

“This is not a 19th-century problem—this is a today problem,” then U.S. Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh said in February. “This is a problem that will take all of us to stop.”

The use of illegal child labor includes 12-year-old roofers in Florida and Tennessee; underage slaughterhouse workers in Delaware, Mississippi, and North Carolina; and children sawing planks of wood on overnight shifts in South Dakota.

Largely from Central America, the children are driven by economic desperation made worse by the pandemic. This underground labor force has been slowly growing for almost a decade, but it has exploded since 2021, while the systems meant to protect children have broken down.

Following the report, the Biden administration announced a wide crackdown on the labor exploitation of migrant children around the U.S., including more aggressive investigations of companies benefiting from their work.

“This is not a 19th-century problem—this is a today problem,” then U.S. Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh said in February. “This is a problem that will take all of us to stop.”

The use of illegal child labor includes 12-year-old roofers in Florida and Tennessee. It includes underage slaughterhouse workers in Delaware, Mississippi, and North Carolina. And it includes children sawing planks of wood on overnight shifts in South Dakota.

Largely from Central America, the children are driven by economic desperation made worse by the pandemic. This underground labor force has been slowly growing for almost a decade. But it has exploded since 2021, while the systems meant to protect children have broken down.

In town after town, children scrub dishes late at night. They run milking machines in Vermont and deliver meals in New York City. They harvest coffee and build walls around vacation homes in Hawaii. Girls as young as 13 wash hotel sheets in Virginia.

In many parts of the country, middle and high school teachers in English-language learner programs say it’s now common for nearly all their students to rush off to long shifts after their classes end each day.

“They should not be working 12-hour days, but it’s happening here,” says Valeria Lindsay, a language arts teacher at Homestead Middle School near Miami. For the past three years, she says, almost every eighth-grader in her English learner program of about 100 students was also carrying the workload of an adult.

In town after town, children scrub dishes late at night. They run milking machines in Vermont and deliver meals in New York City. They harvest coffee and build walls around vacation homes in Hawaii. Girls as young as 13 wash hotel sheets in Virginia.

In many parts of the country, middle and high school teachers in English-language learner programs say it’s now common for nearly all their students to rush off to long shifts after their classes end each day.

“They should not be working 12-hour days, but it’s happening here,” says Valeria Lindsay, a language arts teacher at Homestead Middle School near Miami. For the past three years, she says, almost every eighth-grader in her English learner program of about 100 students was also carrying the workload of an adult.

Migrant child labor benefits both under-the-table operations and global corporations. In Los Angeles, children stitch “Made in America” tags into J. Crew shirts. They bake dinner rolls sold at Walmart and Target, process milk used in Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, and debone chicken sold at Whole Foods. As recently as the fall, middle-schoolers made Fruit of the Loom socks in Alabama and auto parts used by Ford and General Motors in Michigan.

The number of unaccompanied minors entering the U.S. climbed to a high of 130,000 last year—three times what it was five years earlier—and this summer is expected to bring another wave. Most of the children are coming without authorization to enter the U.S., but once here, they have special status under federal law and, like Carolina, get assigned sponsors.

Migrant child labor benefits both under-the-table operations and global corporations. In Los Angeles, children stitch “Made in America” tags into J. Crew shirts. They bake dinner rolls sold at Walmart and Target. They process milk used in Ben & Jerry’s ice cream. They debone chicken sold at Whole Foods. As recently as the fall, middle-schoolers made Fruit of the Loom socks in Alabama and auto parts used by Ford and General Motors in Michigan.

The number of unaccompanied minors entering the U.S. climbed to a high of 130,000 last year. That’s three times what it was five years earlier. This summer is expected to bring another wave. Most of the children are coming without authorization to enter the U.S. But once here, they have special status under federal law and, like Carolina, get assigned sponsors.

Far from home, many of these children face pressure to earn money. They send cash back to their families while often being in debt for smuggling fees and living expenses.

At Union High School in Grand Rapids, Carolina’s ninth-grade social studies teacher, Rick Angstman, sees the toll long shifts take on his students. Teachers at the school estimate that 200 of their immigrant students are working full time while trying to keep up with their classes.

One who worked nights at a commercial laundry began passing out in class from fatigue and was hospitalized twice. Unable to stop working, she dropped out of school.

“She disappeared into oblivion,” Angstman says. “It’s the new child labor. You’re taking children from another country and putting them in almost indentured servitude.”

When Carolina left Guatemala, she had no real understanding of what she was heading toward, just a sense that she couldn’t stay in her village any longer. There wasn’t much electricity or water, and after the pandemic began, not much food.

Far from home, many of these children face pressure to earn money. They send cash back to their families. At the same time, they are in debt for smuggling fees and living expenses.

At Union High School in Grand Rapids, Carolina’s ninth-grade social studies teacher, Rick Angstman, sees the toll long shifts take on his students. Teachers at the school estimate that 200 of their immigrant students are working full time while trying to keep up with their classes.

One who worked nights at a commercial laundry began passing out in class from fatigue. She was hospitalized twice. Unable to stop working, she dropped out of school.

“She disappeared into oblivion,” Angstman says. “It’s the new child labor. You’re taking children from another country and putting them in almost indentured servitude.”

When Carolina left Guatemala, she had no real understanding of what she was heading toward. She had only a sense that she couldn’t stay in her village any longer. There wasn’t much electricity or water. And after the pandemic began, there wasn’t much food.

The only people who seemed to be getting by were the families living off remittances from relatives in the United States. Carolina lived alone with her grandmother, whose health began failing. When neighbors started talking about heading north, she decided to join them. She was 14.

“I just kept walking,” she says.

Carolina reached the U.S. border exhausted, weighing 84 pounds. Agents sent her to a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (H.H.S.) shelter in Arizona, where a caseworker contacted her aunt, Marcelina Ramirez. At first, her aunt was reluctant: She had already sponsored two other relatives and had three children of her own. They were living on $600 a week, and she didn’t know Carolina.

When Carolina arrived in Grand Rapids last year, Ramirez told her she would go to school every morning and suggested she pick up evening shifts at the Hearthside Food Solutions factory. She knew Carolina needed to send money back to her grandmother. She also believed it was good for young people to work. Child labor is the norm in rural Guatemala, and she herself started working at a young age.

The only people who seemed to be getting by were the families living off remittances from relatives in the United States. Carolina lived alone with her grandmother, whose health began failing. When neighbors started talking about heading north, she decided to join them. She was 14.

“I just kept walking,” she says.

Carolina reached the U.S. border exhausted. She weighed 84 pounds. Agents sent her to a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (H.H.S.) shelter in Arizona. A caseworker there contacted her aunt, Marcelina Ramirez. At first, her aunt was reluctant. She had already sponsored two other relatives and had three children of her own. They were living on $600 a week, and she didn’t know Carolina.

When Carolina arrived in Grand Rapids last year, Ramirez told her she would go to school every morning and suggested she pick up evening shifts at the Hearthside Food Solutions factory. She knew Carolina needed to send money back to her grandmother. She also believed it was good for young people to work. Child labor is the norm in rural Guatemala. She herself started working at a young age.

The growth of migrant child labor in the U.S. over the past several years is a result of a chain of willful ignorance, experts say. Companies ignore the young faces in their back rooms and on their factory floors. Schools often decline to report labor violations, believing it will hurt children more than help. And H.H.S. behaves as if the migrant children who melt unseen into the country are doing just fine.

“As the government, we’ve turned a blind eye to their trafficking,” says Doug Gilmer, the head of the Birmingham, Alabama, office of Homeland Security Investigations, a federal agency that often becomes involved with immigration cases.

“We’re encountering it here because we’re looking for it here,” Gilmer says. “It’s happening everywhere.”

In response to the Times’s investigation, the White House laid out new initiatives to investigate child labor violations and improve the support that migrant children receive when they’re released to sponsors in the U.S.

The growth of migrant child labor in the U.S. over the past several years is a result of a chain of willful ignorance, experts say. Companies ignore the young faces in their back rooms and on their factory floors. Schools often decline to report labor violations. They believe reporting violations will hurt children more than help. And H.H.S. behaves as if the migrant children who melt unseen into the country are doing just fine.

“As the government, we’ve turned a blind eye to their trafficking,” says Doug Gilmer, the head of the Birmingham, Alabama, office of Homeland Security Investigations, a federal agency that often becomes involved with immigration cases.

“We’re encountering it here because we’re looking for it here,” Gilmer says. “It’s happening everywhere.”

In response to the Times’s investigation, the White House laid out new initiatives to investigate child labor violations and improve the support that migrant children receive when they’re released to sponsors in the U.S.

As part of the new effort, the Department of Labor said it would target not just the factories and suppliers that illegally employ children but also the larger companies with child labor in their supply chains. Migrant children often use false identification and find jobs through staffing agencies that don’t verify their Social Security numbers.

Officials plan to initiate investigations in parts of the country more likely to have child labor violations and ask Congress to increase penalties. Federal investigators have long complained that the maximum fine for violations—about $15,000 per occurrence—isn’t enough to deter child labor.

As for Carolina, it’s been a little more than a year since she left Guatemala, and she’s started to make some friends. Mostly, though, she keeps to herself. After a week of 17-hour days, she sat at home one night with her aunt and considered her life in the United States. The long nights. The stress about money.

“I didn’t have expectations about what life would be like here,” she says, “but it’s not what I imagined.”

As part of the new effort, the Department of Labor said it would target not just the factories and suppliers that illegally employ children but also the larger companies with child labor in their supply chains. Migrant children often use false identification. They find jobs through staffing agencies that don’t verify their Social Security numbers.

Officials plan to initiate investigations in parts of the country more likely to have child labor violations. They’ll also ask Congress to increase penalties. The maximum fine for violations is about $15,000 per occurrence. Federal investigators have long complained that isn’t enough to deter child labor.

As for Carolina, it’s been a little more than a year since she left Guatemala, and she’s started to make some friends. Mostly, though, she keeps to herself. After a week of 17-hour days, she sat at home one night with her aunt and considered her life in the United States. The long nights. The stress about money.

“I didn’t have expectations about what life would be like here,” she says, “but it’s not what I imagined.”

Hannah Dreier is an investigative reporter for The New York Times. With reporting by Rebecca Katzman.

Hannah Dreier is an investigative reporter for The New York Times. With reporting by Rebecca Katzman.