Sen. Ted Cruz said Wednesday that the Obama administration’s decision to halt the deportations of illegal immigrant children has fostered an environment along the border where human traffickers are forcing little kids to cut off the fingers and ears of other children in an attempt to extort ransom from their families.

Mr. Cruz said during an appearance on “Fox & Friends” that he made a trip this week to a temporary holding facility for illegal immigrant children in San Antonio and heard horror stories about how some of the kids had been maimed along their journey.

“These are kids that are being handed over, not to well-meaning social workers, but to hardened criminals, to transnational drug cartels,” the freshman Texas Republican said. “These drug cartels hold them for ransom from their families, and then to extort ransom, they literally cut off body parts, and they are forcing one child to cut off fingers and ears of another child.”

Mr. Cruz said the problems are a “direct result of President Obama’s lawlessness” — alluding to the Democrat’s decision in 2012 to halt deportations of up to 800,000 illegal immigrants who were brought into the country a children.

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