Children for sale: Watch O’Keefe’s ‘Line in the Sand’

Read Hanne’s The Herland Report.

The terrifying documentary “Line in the Sand,” by journalist and film director James O’Keefe, premiers on the Tucker Carlson Network today, Oct. 10, 2024. It is a chilling tale of modern-day exploitation, of human misery and abuse in the illegal-immigration system across the U.S. border where millions cross and children disappear from facilities, the federal government pays for the illicit process and cartels profit by the billions. Half a million children have been moved in three years across the U.S. border illegally, most of them currently unaccounted for, says O’Keefe in the film’s trailer. Where did they disappear to once they entered the United States? Who are the government employees and NGO and church staff that work in silence amid this massive illegal humanitarian crisis? It is a billion-dollar business with immense human cost for those who are the human merchandise. Many end up in sex slavery and prostitution.

Why is this form of human slavery, trafficking and gross abuse not stopped? O’Keefe concludes that all those involved are getting rich off the industry – the NGOs, the government, the churches, the cartels. It is child trafficking with federal government employees helping to facilitate the unaccompanied children to “sponsors” all across the U.S., he says. They are delivered to people whom they often do not know and left there reportedly without any further follow up.

O’Keefe spent a year on the film, risking his life pretending to be a Ukrainian refugee, crossing the Mexican border into the United States, all with hidden cameras documenting what he and his courageous team saw. Yet, what shocked him the most was how willing regular American employees were to hide what was going on. He asks: Are we a nation of moral cowards? How is it acceptable for so many individuals that work at these facilities to close their eyes to the human trafficking only so they can collect their pay checks? This is mass criminal behavior.

The most important question is summed up this way: Does sacrificing your value system and integrity to feed your family make you a bad person? There seemed to be an internal struggle between doing what people perceived to be the morally right thing and pursuing their livelihood.

The heart-wrenching moral questions posed in “Line in the Sand” echoes World War II and the German philosopher, Hannah Arendt, who posed the very same questions back then. She is considered one of the most influential political theorists of the 20th century. The problem during the war was precisely the same as O’Keefe experienced, that people close their eyes and refuse to take moral responsibility for their own actions.

The NAZI leadership in Germany (NAZI is the abbreviation for “Nazional sozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei,” the National Socialist German Workers’ Party) succeeded in exterminating the unwanted ethnic groups in concentration camps because nobody said anything. They were too afraid to speak up. The silence from the public facilitated the Holocaust. Everyone blamed the government, yet willingly received the orders and implemented them, even if it meant participating in killing the innocent, raping women, abusing children. Fear, lack of empathy and willingness to obey the status quo created the perfect opportunity for socialist totalitarian forces to take control.

Arendt famously attended the Jerusalem trial of Adolf Eichmann, the man who was one of the chief architects of the extermination of Jews and others in the Holocaust. Throughout the trial, he excused his evil actions by claiming he only followed orders. Arendt was shocked by the lack of personal responsibility. She concluded that fostering a strong state – as seen in so many socialist and communist countries – creates the de-responsibilization of the people. No one dares to disagree with the state narrative.

Arendt was a Holocaust survivor. She spent years questioning how it was possible for a modern, democratic state such as Germany to turn into a single-uniparty authoritarian government with a brutal top elite that ordered the killing of millions of its own population. In “The Origins of Totalitarianism,” Arendt examined the power structures that led to the silencing of an entire population out of fear of its own ruling elites. Her point was that precisely because modern democracies have such sophisticated, organized institutions and structures, it became much easier to implement an efficient tyranny. The population was more inclined to obey orders without reflecting on their ethical responsibilities. The weakening of the people was done by implementing NAZI propaganda that removed the trust in historic values, traditions and institutions, deeming these to be “wrong and unwanted.” So, we are repeating history.

Watch “Line in the Sand.”