A Health and Human Services (HHS) whistleblower testified to a House Judiciary Subcommittee on Thursday the U.S. government has become the "middleman" in trafficking unaccompanied minors who have illegally crossed the U.S.-Mexico during the crisis under the Biden administration.
Tara Lee Rodas used to work at an emergency intake site in California to help the HHS Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), where she discovered that due to the increased volume of unaccompanied minors coming to the border, sponsors were not being properly vetted.
"Today, children will work overnight shifts at slaughter houses, factories, restaurants to pay their debts to smugglers and traffickers. Today, children will be sold for sex. Today, children will call a hotline to report they are being abused, neglected, and trafficked. For nearly a decade, unaccompanied children have been suffering in the shadows," she said.
"I thought I was going to help place children in loving homes. Instead, I discovered that children are being trafficked through a sophisticated network that begins with being recruited in their home country, smuggled to the U.S. border, and ends when ORR delivers a child to a sponsor – some sponsors are criminals and traffickers and members of Transnational Criminal Organizations. Some sponsors view children as commodities and assets to be used for earning income – this is why we are witnessing an explosion of labor trafficking," Rodas explained.
"It could be argued that the U.S. government has become the middleman in a large scale, multi-billion-dollar, child trafficking operation that is run by bad actors seeking to profit off of the lives of children," she added.
HHS whistleblower on the humanitarian crisis at the border:
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) April 26, 2023
"It could be argued that the U.S. government has become the middleman in a large scale, multi-billion-dollar, child trafficking operation that is run by bad actors seeking to profit off of the lives of children." pic.twitter.com/eiwzsI38Y8
Up to 80,000 children who were placed by ORR with sponsors can no longer be found. There is concern once Title 42 goes away on May 11, there will be an even bigger increase of unaccompanied minors coming to the border, straining HHS and will result in more minors being placed in dangerous situations.