Federal prosecutors have brought charges against a family they say conspired to smuggle a 10-year-old illegal immigrant girl into the country and then put her through a living hell that saw her repeatedly raped, stabbed with a kitchen knife and subjected to regular beatings.
The case is one of the more horrific examples of immigrants abusing the so-called “family loophole” in border policy, with an overwhelmed federal government assisting in the abuse.
In this instance, that meant accepting the word of the illegal immigrant family that they were related to two Guatemalan girls, approving them as sponsors and delivering the girls to them for what turned out to be a nightmare.