A whistleblower will reportedly tell the House Judiciary subcommittee during a hearing on Wednesday that President Joe Biden‘s administration played the role of a “middleman” in a multibillion-dollar operation involved in trafficking migrant children at the border.
What Happened: The House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement will be hearing “The Biden Border Crisis: Exploitation of Unaccompanied Alien Children” case to address the surge in unaccompanied children arriving at the southern border.
The Subcommittee will hear from three witnesses Tara Lee Rodas, an HHS whistleblower formerly with an inspector general’s office, Sheena Rodriguez, founder and president of Alliance for a Safe Texas and Jessica Vaughn, director of Policy Studies at the Center for Immigration Studies, reported Fox News.
The publication, citing a copy of Rodas' written testimony, said she will warn of a problem that predates the administration but has increased significantly during the recent migrant crisis. Rodas is expected to talk about her volunteering at an emergency intake site in California to help the HHS Office of Refugee Resettlement identify sponsors for minors who have come across the border.
“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…,” she is expected to say.
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“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.”
Rodriguez and Vaughn will also call for congressional action and for the investigation of federal agencies responsible.
Why It Matters: President Biden is fielding criticism from both sides of the aisle over how his administration is handling a dramatic rise in border crossings by unaccompanied migrant minors.
According to Customs and Border Protection (CBP) data, the number of unaccompanied children who arrived at the border has significantly increased from 33,239 in 2020 to over 146,000 in 2021 and 152,000 in 2022. As of the current fiscal year, which is fiscal year 2023, more than 70,000 encounters of unaccompanied children have already taken place.
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