A whistleblower is set to testify on Wednesday to lawmakers that the U.S. government has become the “middleman” in a multibillion-dollar migrant child trafficking operation.
The bombshell testimony will be delivered to a House Judiciary Subcommittee hearing, titled “The Biden Border Crisis: Exploitation of Unaccompanied Alien Children,” will focus on the alarming surge in unaccompanied children (UACs) at the southern border.
Customs and Border Protection (CBP) data reveals a significant increase in UACs arriving at the border – from 33,239 in fiscal year 2020 to more than 146,000 in fiscal year 2021 and 152,000 in fiscal year 2022. In fiscal year 2023 alone, over 70,000 encounters with unaccompanied children have been documented.
Unaccompanied child migrants found at the border are typically transferred to Health and Human Services (HHS) custody and eventually placed with a sponsor, often a family member already in the U.S.
However, recent reports have indicated that more than 85,000 child migrants have become unreachable, and administration officials have allegedly ignored evidence of growing child labor exploitation.
The hearing will feature testimony from three witnesses: Tara Lee Rodas, a former HHS inspector general’s office whistleblower; Sheena Rodriguez, founder and president of Alliance for a Safe Texas; and Jessica Vaughan, director of Policy Studies at the Center for Immigration Studies.
In her written testimony obtained by Fox News Digital, Rodas exposes the deeply troubling reality that has persisted for nearly a decade but has worsened during the recent migrant crisis.
She will testify about children being forced to work in dangerous conditions and sold for sex while unaccompanied children suffer in the shadows.
“Today, children will work overnight shifts at slaughterhouses, factories, restaurants to pay their debts to smugglers and traffickers. Today, children will be sold for sex,” she will say.
“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,” Rodas will continue.
Rodas, who volunteered at an emergency intake site in California to help the HHS Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) identify sponsors for minors, discovered a sophisticated network of child trafficking.
“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,” Rodas said in written remarks.
“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’ continues.
“Whether intentional or not, it can be argued that the U.S. Government has become the middleman in a large scale, multi-billion-dollar, child trafficking operation run by bad actors seeking to profit off the lives of children,” Rodas states.
Rodriguez will share her experiences encountering unaccompanied children at the border, including teenage boys who told her that cartel cooperatives transported children through Mexico and held them at warehouses guarded by armed personnel. Rodriguez will call for an investigation of the responsible federal agencies and demand an end to releasing migrants to sponsors.
“We can no longer turn a blind eye and pretend this isn’t happening. Congress has the power to stop this, which is why I am calling on you to do what is right,” Rodriguez’s testimony says.
Vaughan will also call for congressional action, urging the closure of legal loopholes that she believes force the government “to operate a massive catch and release program for illegally-arriving alien children.”
She asserts that the current system for processing minors is dysfunctional and must be fixed to prioritize their safety and well-being.
“They have been carelessly funneled through the custody of U.S. government agencies and contractors, and handed off to very lightly vetted sponsors (who are usually also here illegally) in our communities without regard to their safety and well-being,” she will say.
“There is no question that the system for processing minors who cross illegally is dysfunctional, and has been for some time, and needs to be fixed,” Vaughan will testify.
Last month, HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra rejected claims that his agency was unable to contact 85,000 minors, asserting that the number was unrealistic. He explained that HHS authorities are limited by Congress and can only do so much to follow up with children and their sponsors after placement.
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“I have never heard that number of 85,000, I don’t know where it comes from and … so I would say it doesn’t sound at all to be realistic, and what we do is we try and follow up as best we can with these kids,” he said.
“Congress has given us certain authorities. Our authorities end when we have found a suitable sponsor to place that child with. We try and do some follow-up, but neither the child or the sponsor is actually obligated to follow up with us,” he said.
Susan Rice, former domestic policy adviser, recently denied being informed of a systematic issue with migrant child labor, stating, “We were never informed of any kind of systematic problem with child labor or migrant child labor.”