Unaccompanied migrant children are navigating the bowels of the city’s subway system and trains to peddle candies to strangers.
On Wednesday, an 11-year-old migrant girl exited an uptown B train at the 59th Street-Columbus Circle station all on her own, carrying a cardboard box filled with peanut M&M’s, Skittles, and Kinder Buenos for sale.
“My mother is on the other side,” the child told The Post in Spanish, before running off solo to tug at riders’ jackets and pant legs and offer treats for $2 a pop.
The mom, who had been selling goodies on the downtown platform, did not say where she and her daughter were from or staying and declined to speak further.
Last week, a young girl in a purple jacket was spotted toting a box full of candy while traveling alone between subway cars aboard a C train, according to footage shared on X, formerly known as Twitter.
The child had been spotted repeatedly selling candy, usually between the 14th and 59th street stations during rush hour, and was believed to be 6 years old, according to the video’s poster.
“This is shameful, disgusting, blatant child abuse,” one user said.
Minors under the age of 14 are not allowed to work at any time, either after school or during summer vacation, according to the state Office of Children and Family Services.
A veteran NYPD transit officer at the Columbus Circle station said she had seen “dozens” of migrant children shilling candies on their own in recent months — including when they should be in class — and was concerned for their safety.
Despite warning parents about their kids’ vulnerability when they come to pick them up at the precinct, she said she has seen the same young faces return again and again on the train platforms.
“No matter how you tell them, you talk to them, you hold them, you say this over and over, and they still do it,” she told The Post.
Others were shocked by the proliferation of underage sellers on their own.
“It makes the country look like a third-world country,” UPS worker Lance Johnson, 73, said.
“It’s a horrible scene.”
Olivia Yaeger, 20, fretted that even if the pint-sized sales kids are peddling candy outside of school hours, the solitary gig still could hinder their education.
“They should definitely be doing their homework,” she said, adding, “They should be playing, coloring, making friends.”
Sweets sellers have become a daily fixture throughout the city’s subways since spring 2022, when migrants began pouring into the Big Apple, many from Central and South America and now totaling well over 110,000.
Mothers with tots strapped to their backs in slings rarely raise straphangers’ eyebrows as they drift across subway cars and platforms to sell candy bars, some of whom bring in at most $80 a day.
This week, Mayor Eric Adams kicked off a four-day tour south of the US border to discourage the continued flow of migrants to the Big Apple — which is projected to run the city as much as $12 billion by 2025.
Adams has pushed to roll back the city’s universal “right to shelter” regulation in recent months and has imposed 30-day time limits on adult migrants’ stays at city-run shelters.
An Administration for Children’s Services claimed that it is working with various city agencies to ensure migrant families have the support they need to safely care for their children.
An MTA spokesperson declined to answer a question about whether their agency was making any efforts to deter young migrants from vending in the subways.
