Senators and Whistleblowers Raise Alarm on Missing Minors and Trafficking at Southern Border

A recent roundtable discussion led by Senators Chuck Grassley, Bill Cassidy, and Ron Johnson has shed light on the growing concern of missing and potentially trafficked minors at the southern border. The discussion, which included testimonies from two federally employed whistleblowers, Deborah White and Tara Rodas, highlighted the apparent complicity of the federal government in the trafficking of unaccompanied minors.

According to White, who worked with the Health and Human Services (HHS) and Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) on their Unaccompanied Minor Program, children were being trafficked with billions of taxpayer dollars by contractors failing to vet sponsors and process children safely, with government officials complicit in the process. White cited instances of children being sent to abandoned houses, nonexistent addresses, and even one being sent to an abandoned field in Michigan.

White began working with the program in Pomona, California in the summer of 2021, when the contractor processing unaccompanied children at the border was Cherokee Federal. She claimed that when she raised concerns about Cherokee Federal and asked to see the contract, she was told she would not get the contract and was not to ask for it again. White also asserted that HHS never met with sponsors face-to-face and falsified documents were rampant.

Rodas, White's coworker, testified about a 16-year-old Guatemalan girl named Carmen who was released to a sponsor claiming to be her older brother, only to appear in a photo on his social media page with her hair and makeup styled and shirt unbuttoned. A later photo showed her with her hair and makeup styled and shirt unbuttoned, and an ORR federal field specialist claimed that Carmen looked drugged, and the post was an ad for her sale.

The roundtable discussion highlighted the severity of the issue, with 128,904 unaccompanied minors reported at the border in 2022 alone. The whistleblowers' testimonies emphasized the need for accountability and investigation into the HHS ORR program to ensure the safety of children.