During a round table held by Republican Senators on Tuesday, federal whistleblowers made shocking allegations that the Biden administration is facilitating the trafficking of migrant children through contractors who receive billions of taxpayer dollars.
Deborah White and her colleague Tara Rodes, both federal employees in the Health and Human Services (HHS) Unaccompanied Child Program, testified that the Office of Refugee Resettlement sent thousands of unaccompanied migrant children into potentially dangerous environments without properly vetting the sponsors they were placed with.
From White’s shocking testimony:
“What I discovered was horrifying… Make no mistake – children were not going to their parents; they were being trafficked with billions of taxpayer dollars by a contractor failing to vet sponsors and process children safely with government officials complicit in it.”
White provided a particularly alarming example from Florida, involving more than a dozen children linked to a single sponsor at multiple addresses.
“Children were sent to addresses that were abandoned houses or non-existent in some cases,” she added. Another case involved a child being dropped off in an “open field” in Michigan by the HHS contractor, even though a 911 call reported someone screaming for help in the same area around the same time.
Rodes followed up White’s bombshell testimony with further concerns about the safety of the children placed in the hands of these unvetted sponsors. She emphasized the dangers of placing vulnerable migrant children with sponsors who could have criminal histories or gang affiliations and are often not even their parents.
“To place vulnerable migrant children into the hands of sponsors with criminal history, gang affiliation, to whom many aren’t even their parents,” she said.
Both whistleblowers claimed they never saw the sponsors face to face, and fraudulent documents were constantly being filed within the program. White added that when she raised these issues with her HHS superiors, she was belittled and dismissed.
White recounted HHS’s response:
“You’re not a fake ID expert, and your job is not to investigate the sponsors – your job is to reunify the child with the sponsor.”
White told CBS Austin that she holds the Biden administration and HHS accountable for the current state of affairs.
Watch the full whistleblower testimony below:
According to White, there is no question: these children are being trafficked, and the Biden administration is “complicit.”
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