HHS Whistleblower Claims Biden Admin Is ‘Middleman’ In Child Trafficking Op
HHS whistleblower Tara Lee Rodas has just testified in front of the house Judiciary Committee.
On Wednesday, Rodas told Congress that in the United States children will work in slaughter houses, factories, and restaurants to pay their debt to the smugglers, traffickers and cartels.
She also warned that the US Government had become the “middleman” in a large scale multi-billion dollar child trafficking operation on the border.
Todas told Rep. Andy Biggs: “There was no one with law enforcement experience overseeing where children are going.”
Today, children will work shifts at slaughter houses, factories & restaurants to pay their debt to smugglers & traffickers.
— House Judiciary GOP (@JudiciaryGOP) April 26, 2023
Kids will call a hotline to report they're being abused & trafficked.
LISTEN to HHS whistleblower Tara Lee Rodas's powerful testimony.#BidenBorderCrisis pic.twitter.com/XqXkDZG0g0
Fox News reports: A whistleblower who viewed first-hand what she testified is a “sophisticated network” of child migrant smuggling into forced labor and other forms of slavery is calling on Congress to act to crack down on the U.S. role in that network.
The hearing, “The Biden Border Crisis: Exploitation of Unaccompanied Alien Children,” was held by the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security and Enforcement and included Health and Human Services (HHS) whistleblower Tara Lee Rodas as a witness.
Rodas, who was detailed with HHS at an Emergency Intake Site in Pomona, California, on Wednesday told lawmakers about what she experienced on the ground.
“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 recruiting in their home country, smuggled to the U.S. border, and ends when [Office of Refugee Resettlement] 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 said.
According to Customs and Border Protection (CBP) statistics, the number of unaccompanied alien children (UACs) who arrive at the border has swelled from 33,239 in fiscal year 2020 to more than 146,000 in fiscal year 2021 and 152,000 in fiscal year 2022. So far in fiscal year 2023, there have been more than 70,000 encounters of UACs.
When child migrants are encountered at the border, they are transferred into the custody of HHS and then united with a sponsor — typically a parent or family member already in the U.S.
But the administration has been hit by a number of New York Times reports detailing a rise in child exploitation, where children are forced into the labor force — sometimes to pay back their smuggling costs. It has led to concerns that, by transporting children to sponsors, the U.S. is involved in child trafficking. The Times reported how officials reportedly ignored signs of “explosive” growth in the child labor force.
“Whether intentional or not, it could be argued that the U.S. government has become the middleman in a large scale, multibillion-dollar child trafficking operation that is run by bad actors seeking to profit off of the lives of children,” Rodas said.
Rodas described how she saw children becoming captive to their “sponsors” as they couldn’t seek help in English or Spanish and sponsors using multiple addresses to obtain sponsorships of children. Rodas said she does not see it as a political issue, but as a humanitarian issue, noting that it has been a crisis going on for nearly 10 years.
