[House Hearing, 118 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
TRAFFICKED, EXPLOITED, AND MISSING: MIGRANT
CHILDREN VICTIMS OF THE BIDEN-HARRIS AD-
MINISTRATION
=======================================================================
JOINT HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON
BORDER SECURITY AND ENFORCEMENT
AND THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON
OVERSIGHT, INVESTIGATIONS, AND ACCOUNTABILITY
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
NOVEMBER 19, 2024
__________
Serial No. 118-83
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Homeland Security
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.govinfo.gov/
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
60-159 PDF WASHINGTON : 2025
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY
Mark E. Green, MD, Tennessee, Chairman
Michael T. McCaul, Texas Bennie G. Thompson, Mississippi,
Clay Higgins, Louisiana Ranking Member
Michael Guest, Mississippi Eric Swalwell, California
Dan Bishop, North Carolina J. Luis Correa, California
Carlos A. Gimenez, Florida Troy A. Carter, Louisiana
August Pfluger, Texas Shri Thanedar, Michigan
Andrew R. Garbarino, New York Seth Magaziner, Rhode Island
Marjorie Taylor Greene, Georgia Glenn Ivey, Maryland
Tony Gonzales, Texas Daniel S. Goldman, New York
Nick LaLota, New York Robert Garcia, California
Mike Ezell, Mississippi Delia C. Ramirez, Illinois
Anthony D'Esposito, New York Robert Menendez, New Jersey
Laurel M. Lee, Florida Thomas R. Suozzi, New York
Morgan Luttrell, Texas Timothy M. Kennedy, New York
Dale W. Strong, Alabama LaMonica McIver, New Jersey
Josh Brecheen, Oklahoma Yvette D. Clarke, New York
Elijah Crane, Arizona
Stephen Siao, Staff Director
Hope Goins, Minority Staff Director
Sean Corcoran, Chief Clerk
------
SUBCOMMITTEE ON BORDER SECURITY AND ENFORCEMENT
Clay Higgins, Louisiana, Chairman
Michael Guest, Mississippi J. Luis Correa, California,
Marjorie Taylor Greene, Georgia Ranking Member
Tony Gonzales, Texas Robert Garcia, California
Morgan Luttrell, Texas Delia C. Ramirez, Illinois
Josh Brecheen, Oklahoma Thomas R. Suozzi, New York
Mark E. Green, MD, Tennessee (ex LaMonica McIver, New Jersey
officio) Bennie G. Thompson, Mississippi
(ex officio)
Natasha Eby, Subcommittee Staff Director
Brieana Marticorena, Minority Subcommittee Staff Director
------
SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT, INVESTIGATIONS, AND ACCOUNTABILITY
Dan Bishop, North Carolina, Chairman
Marjorie Taylor Greene, Georgia Glenn Ivey, Maryland, Ranking
Mike Ezell, Mississippi Member
Dale W. Strong, Alabama Shri Thanedar, Michigan
Elijah Crane, Arizona Delia C. Ramirez, Illinois
Mark E. Green, MD, Tennessee (ex Yvette D. Clarke, New York
officio) Bennie G. Thompson, Mississippi
(ex officio)
Sang Yi, Subcommittee Staff Director
Lisa Canini, Minority Subcommittee Staff Director
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Statements
The Honorable Clay Higgins, a Representative in Congress From the
State of Louisiana, and Chairman, Subcommittee on Border
Security and Enforcement:
Oral Statement................................................. 1
Prepared Statement............................................. 3
The Honorable J. Luis Correa, a Representative in Congress From
the State of California, and Ranking Member, Subcommittee on
Border Security and Enforcement................................ 4
The Honorable Dan Bishop, a Representative in Congress From the
State of North Carolina, and Chairman, Subcommittee on
Oversight, Investigations, and Accountability:
Oral Statement................................................. 6
Prepared Statement............................................. 61
The Honorable Glenn Ivey, a Representative in Congress From the
State of Maryland, and Ranking Member, Subcommittee on
Oversight, Investigations, and Accountability.................. 62
The Honorable Bennie G. Thompson, a Representative in Congress
From the State of Mississippi, and Ranking Member, Committee on
Homeland Security:
Prepared Statement............................................. 65
Witnesses
Mr. J.J. Carrell, Private Citizen, Retired Deputy Patrol Agent in
Charge, U.S. Border Patrol:
Oral Statement................................................. 66
Prepared Statement............................................. 68
Ms. Alicia Hopper, Private Citizen, Consultant on Human
Trafficking, Sadulski Enterprises, LLC:
Oral Statement................................................. 70
Prepared Statement............................................. 72
Ms. Kathryn A. Larin, Director of Education, Workforce, and
Income Security, United States Government Accountability
Office:
Oral Statement................................................. 75
Prepared Statement............................................. 77
Ms. Tara Lee Rodas, Private Citizen, Former Deputy to the
Director of the Federal Case Management Team, U.S. Department
of Health and Human Services:
Oral Statement................................................. 87
Prepared Statement............................................. 89
For the Record
The Honorable Dan Bishop, a Representative in Congress From the
State of North Carolina, and Chairman, Subcommittee on
Oversight, Investigations, and Accountability:
Article, New York Times, February 25, 2023..................... 10
Article, New York Times, April 17, 2023........................ 41
Article, New York Times, February 15, 2024I6059................
The Honorable J. Luis Correa, a Representative in Congress From
the State of California, and Ranking Member, Subcommittee on
Border Security and Enforcement:
Statement of Kids In Need of Defense (KIND).................... 114
Appendix
Ms. Tara Lee Rodas, Private Citizen, Former Deputy to the
Director of the Federal Case Management Team, U.S. Department
of Health and Human Services:
Supplemental Statement......................................... 121
TRAFFICKED, EXPLOITED, AND MISSING: MIGRANT CHILDREN VICTIMS OF THE
BIDEN-HARRIS ADMINISTRATION
----------
Tuesday, November 19, 2024
U.S. House of Representatives,
Committee on Homeland Security,
Subcommittee on Border Security and
Enforcement, and the
Subcommittee on Oversight, Investigations,
and Accountability,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittees met, pursuant to notice, at 2:17 p.m., in
room 310, Cannon House Office Building, Hon. Clay Higgins
[Chairman of the Subcommittee on Border Security and
Enforcement] presiding.
Present: Representatives Higgins, Bishop, Guest, Greene,
Gonzales, Ezell, Luttrell, Strong, Brecheen, Correa, Ivey,
Thanedar, Ramirez, Clarke, Suozzi, and McIver.
Mr. Higgins. The Subcommittee on Border Security and
Enforcement and the Subcommittee on Oversight, Investigations,
and Accountability will come to order.
Without objection, the Chair is authorized to declare the
committee in recess at any point.
Without objection, the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Pfluger,
is permitted to sit on the dais and ask questions of the
witnesses.
The purpose of this hearing is to examine how the Biden-
Harris administration's crisis at the border has led to
increased numbers of trafficked, missing, and exploited
children.
I now recognize myself for an opening statement.
Well, good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the
Subcommittee on Border Security and Enforcement and the
Subcommittee on Oversight, Investigations, and Accountability.
This is a joint hearing on the trafficking, exploitation, and
missing unaccompanied children of the Southwest Border.
We're here today to examine how the Biden-Harris
administration's border policies have allowed dangerous
cartels, criminals, and human traffickers to prey upon the
world's most vulnerable people, unaccompanied children that
come to our country.
Our committee has been actively engaged in addressing this
important issue.
In August, I, along with Chairmen Green and Bishop, sent a
letter to the deputy assistant secretary for humanitarian
services and director of the Health and Human Services Office
of Refugee Resettlement, Robin Dunn Marcos, requesting critical
information on the screening and vetting of potential sponsors.
In September, Chairman Bishop and I held a Member briefing
with officials from the Department of Homeland Security and
Health and Human Services to better understand how DHS
encounters, screens, and transfers unaccompanied children to
HHS and how HHS subsequently places those children with
potential sponsors.
As the administration's border crisis continues to spiral
out of control, the number of unaccompanied minors arriving at
the Southwest Border has increased greatly, turning the
situation at the border into a devastating humanitarian
catastrophe. In fact, the Biden-Harris administration has
encountered nearly 530,000 alien children at the border to
date. In comparison, the Trump administration had less than
half that number over the same period of time.
I think America, we should ask ourselves, why are so many
children arriving at the border alone and afraid, sometimes in
the hands of an unconfirmed relative with no apparent
indications of family connection? These children show up with
arbitrary phone numbers and addresses scribbled on their arms
as if they're, like, packaging arriving at someone's warehouse
or doorstep. Some children that arrive at the border appear to
be drugged, preventing law enforcement authorities from
properly questioning them about those they're traveling with.
This is outrageous, and it's an affront to the very core
principles that form the morality of any decent nation.
Certainly, Americans should not accept this moving forward.
The purpose of this hearing is to put some hard facts on
the table so that we can work together on both sides of the
aisle and address actual solutions.
The Biden-Harris administration has stated that they have
the most humanitarian border policies in history, yet we
witness these horrors that are happening, and there's nothing
humanitarian about enabling criminal cartels to exploit, abuse,
and profit from vulnerable children.
Once the children enter the United States, Customs and
Border Protection, the CBP, and Immigration and Customs
Enforcement, ICE, and Health and Human Services, HHS, are
tasked with their well-being and safety. Initially, CBP works
to process and screen those children once they're encountered
at the border. Next, HHS works to identify and place them with
a potential sponsor. Finally, ICE works to ensure they follow
through with their immigration court proceedings.
That's how it's supposed to work. However, those agencies
do not have the capacity or resources to handle the sheer
number of children who have crossed the border in the last 4
years.
Compounding this crisis, the administration is not
thoroughly vetting potential sponsors. This is a serious weak
link in the chain.
According to information leaked to the media, Health and
Human Services reportedly lost contact with more than 85,000
unaccompanied children between 2021 and 2023. Now, think about
that. That's the size of major cities in America. In my
district, that would be about the size of Lake Charles,
Louisiana. Eighty-five thousand children that are stated and
known to be lost, and this was a year and a half ago.
We are appalled that our Government has neglected its
primary duty to protect the safety and well-being of those
children placed in our care. It's entirely unacceptable that
the current administration has allowed human traffickers to
take advantage of this on-going border crisis. We have a
responsibility to our Nation to fight against human-trafficking
horrors and to find and rescue the children at that are
currently missing.
I would like to express my gratitude to our witnesses for
appearing before the committee today.
Before I yield to the Ranking Member of the Border Security
Subcommittee, Mr. Correa, I'd first like to thank my good
friend and colleague, Representative Dan Bishop from the great
State of North Carolina, for joining me one last time as we
work together to bring awareness to this very important topic.
After winning a special election in 2019, Representative
Bishop was appointed the seat on the House Homeland Security
Committee. He later became Chairman of the Subcommittee on
Oversight, Investigations, and Accountability in 2023.
Known for his tenacious questioning of hostile bureaucrats
who've come to testify before both this committee and the House
Judiciary Committee, where he also serves, Dan has devoted
himself to combating the abuse of weaponized Government.
Dan is an extraordinary champion of the right to free
speech, defending the homeland through strong border security,
and enforcing the immigration laws passed by Congress.
Agree or disagree with him on policy, Dan Bishop's
intellectual rigor and command of the law are indisputable and
have earned him the respect of colleagues on both sides of the
aisle. There is never any doubt about where Representative Dan
Bishop stands.
It's been an honor to serve with him on this committee, and
I'm sure that he will continue to use his God-given talents to
serve our country.
With that, I yield the balance of my time.
[The statement of Chairman Higgins follows:]
Statement of Chairman Clay Higgins
November 19, 2024
Good afternoon, and welcome to the Subcommittee on Border Security
and Enforcement and the Subcommittee on Oversight, Investigations, and
Accountability joint hearing on the trafficking, exploitation, and
missing unaccompanied children at the Southwest Border.
We are here today to examine how the Biden-Harris administration's
open border policies have allowed dangerous cartels, criminals, and
human traffickers to prey upon the world's most vulnerable people--
unaccompanied children.
Our committee has been actively engaged in addressing this
important issue. In August, I, along with Chairmen Green and Bishop,
sent a letter to the deputy assistant secretary for humanitarian
services and director of the Health and Human Services Office of
Refugee Resettlement, Robin Dunn Marcos, requesting critical
information on the screening and vetting of potential sponsors. In
September, Chairman Bishop and I held a Member briefing with officials
from the Department of Homeland Security and Health and Human Services
to better understand how DHS encounters, screens, and transfers
unaccompanied children to HHS and how HHS subsequently places these
children with potential sponsors.
As the administration's border crisis continues to spiral out of
control, the number of unaccompanied minors arriving at the Southwest
Border has skyrocketed, turning the situation at the border into a
devastating humanitarian catastrophe.
In fact, the Biden-Harris administration has encountered nearly
530,000 alien children at the border to date. In comparison, the
previous Trump administration had less than half that number.
America, ask yourself--Why are so many children arriving at the
border alone and afraid and sometimes in the hands of unconfirmed
``relatives'' with no apparent familial indicators?--These children
show up with arbitrary phone numbers and addresses scribbled across
their arms as if they are a package arriving at somebody's doorstep.
Some children arrive at the border drugged, preventing law enforcement
authorities from questioning them about those they are traveling with.
This is a moral outrage.
The Biden-Harris administration has touted that they have the most
``humanitarian'' border policies in history. Yet, there is nothing
humanitarian about enabling the cartels to exploit, abuse, and profit
from vulnerable children!
Once the children enter the United States, Customs and Border
Protection (CBP), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and Health
and Human Services (HHS), are tasked with their well-being and safety.
Initially, CBP works to process and screen these children once they are
encountered at the border. Next, HHS works to identify and place them
with a potential sponsor. Finally, ICE works to ensure they follow
through with their immigration court proceedings. However, these
agencies do not have the capacity or resources to handle the sheer
number of children who have crossed the border in the last 4 years.
Compounding this crisis, the administration is not thoroughly
vetting potential sponsors. According to information leaked to the
media, Health and Human Services reportedly lost contact with more than
85,000 unaccompanied children between 2021 and 2023. Think about that.
That is the size of the city of Lake Charles, LA.
We are appalled that our Government has neglected its primary duty
to protect the safety and well-being of these children placed in our
care.
It is entirely unacceptable that the Biden-Harris administration
has allowed human traffickers to take advantage of this on-going border
crisis.
We have a responsibility to our Nation to fight against this
scourge of human trafficking and to find the children that are
currently missing.
I would like to express my thanks to our witnesses for appearing
before the committee today.
Before I yield to the Ranking Member of the Border Security
Subcommittee, Mr. Correa, I first would like to thank my good friend
and colleague, Representative Dan Bishop (from the great State of North
Carolina), for joining me one last time as we work together to bring
awareness to this very important topic.
After winning a special election in 2019, Mr. Bishop was appointed
a seat on the House Homeland Security Committee. He later became
Chairman of the Subcommittee on Oversight, Investigations, and
Accountability in 2023.
Known for his tenacious questioning of hostile bureaucrats who have
come to testify before both this committee and the House Judiciary
Committee, where he also serves, Dan has devoted himself to combatting
the abuse of weaponized Government.
Dan is an extraordinary champion of the right to free speech,
defending the homeland through strong border security and enforcing the
immigration laws passed by Congress.
Agree or disagree with him on policy, Dan's intellectual rigor and
command of the law are indisputable and have earned him the respect of
colleagues on both sides of the aisle--and there is never any doubt
about where he stands.
It has been an honor to serve with him on this committee, and I am
sure that he will continue to use his God-given talents to serve our
country.
With that, I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. Higgins. I recognize my friend and colleague, Mr.
Correa.
Mr. Correa. Good afternoon. Thank you to Chairman Higgins
and Chairman Bishop for holding this most important hearing
today on unaccompanied children.
I want to thank our witnesses again for being here. Thank
you for your time and interest.
I'm going to listen to your testimony from you, the
witnesses, very closely, not just as the Ranking Member of this
committee but as a father, as an individual that, like I think
all of us in this country, cares about children. We want to
find some good solutions to these challenges. I hope that this
hearing will also generate some good, bipartisan, across-the-
aisle solutions that all of us can work on moving forward.
Let me be clear at the onset that it's everyone's
responsibility to make sure all our children, as many children
as we can put in safety, that we put them there. It means
ensuring that these children that we're talking about today are
protected at all stages of the immigration process, and that
includes when they're encountered and held at the border,
transferred to Department of Health and Human Services, and
sent to what we hope is a vetted sponsor.
All of us--all of us--want to stop human trafficking, child
trafficking, and other horrible, unspeakable crimes against
children. Human traffickers are not going to be waiting for us
or our permission. They're going to keep doing what they do.
But, again, I'm interested in hearing solutions today from
our witnesses and also how you believe we can implement those
solutions. All of us can give advice and counsel, but I want to
hear, how do we implement them based on the constraints that we
have?
Of course, Mr. Chairman, we all need to address the root
causes of this problem of immigrants approaching the border.
You know, at earlier hearings, we found out, discovered, that
80 percent of the women by the time they reach the Southern
Border are either raped or sexually abused. It's a long,
expensive, and dangerous journey. So the question is, what
would prompt people to undertake that journey? What would
prompt parents to let their children go on this very dangerous
journey?
None of us want these children crossing our border or
making this journey. Nobody in this committee wants to see that
situation. So we have to ask ourselves, what is it that
prompted these individuals to undertake this journey?
A lot of young children I've spoken to in other countries
have said, ``Either I leave or I join a gang. One way or the
other, I'm probably going to die.'' Others come from families
that have nothing to eat, essentially starvation. It's what
prompted our ancestors to come to this country. Stay in Europe
or starve; you've got a choice.
Also, we need to investigate those individuals that are
making a lot of money from trafficking children, dropping kids
over a wall, as well as those individuals in the United States
that actually make a buck from looking the other way and hiring
children to do adult work.
Of course, we also need to make it easier for the victims
that are trafficked to come forward and to ask for help.
I've worked closely with my Republican colleagues to
counter a lot of human trafficking, child exploitation. I've
also spoken to special agents at Homeland Security
Investigations to hear about their investigations, what are
they doing, and what tools do they need to be more effective.
In this committee I've spoken to many CBP officers about
the ways they identify human-trafficking situations. I've also
heard from the Department of Health and Human Services on their
efforts to improve outreach to unaccompanied minors, expand
access to post-release services, and improve the vetting
process.
Just last year, our Chairman Higgins and I introduced H.R.
4574, Cooperation on Combating Human Smuggling Trafficking Act.
This bill would enhance Homeland Security's transnational
criminal investigative units, which help stop trafficking in
their home countries before these children undertake that long
journey.
I'm glad this bill was passed out of this committee and
then is now scheduled to be marked up in the Senate, and
hopefully we'll be able to get it to the President's desk for
his signature.
But so much more is left to be done, and that's where all
of you come in.
Of course, we know that, basically, we need more agents
dedicated to investigating these cases, preventing child
trafficking and exploitation. We also need more legal services
available for children so that toddlers aren't defending
themselves in a courtroom.
We also need the resources for more home visits of those
sponsoring unaccompanied minors. We need to make sure that
those children, after they're placed, are actually in safe
living conditions.
Those are just a few things that we need to do. A lot of
work to do across the aisle. A lot of work.
Finally, Mr. Carrell, I want to note that I saw your
prepared remarks and they don't conform to the rules of the
committee. Here in Congress, we don't accuse sitting
Presidents, Vice Presidents, or Members of Congress of treason.
But you are invited by the Chairman, and in this hearing
I'm going to respect that. I want to make sure we move ahead
and hear your testimony, sir. We want to be productive here and
move forward.
With that, I want to thank our witnesses for being here.
Finally, I also want to turn to Mr. Bishop.
Chairman Bishop, sir, every once in a while, you and I have
disagreed on issues. Just once in a while. But I've enjoyed the
debates, the discussions, the intellect that you brought to the
House of Congress.
Like the Chairman has said, I don't think you're done. I
think you're just taking a reprieve and going to recharge the
batteries, and God knows where we'll find you in a couple of
years.
Give him a round of applause, please.
[Applause.]
Mr. Correa. Thank you, sir, and may God be with you.
Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Higgins. The Ranking Member yields.
I now recognize the Chairman of the Subcommittee on
Oversight, Investigations, and Accountability, the gentleman
from North Carolina, Mr. Bishop, for his opening statement.
Mr. Bishop. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, thank you, Ranking
Member Correa, both of you, for your very kind words.
My passing from this place doesn't hold a candle to the
seriousness of the subject that is before us today. So I very
much appreciate your comments, but I want to get to the matter
at hand.
I do want to say to Mr. Correa, I have such a fond feeling
for you, sir, and it is important to say that we do have very
fundamental disagreements and yet you are a warm-hearted, kind
individual.
I wish that it were possible for us to express just how
deeply our differences are felt without it appearing sometimes
that we dislike each other on a personal basis. I do not. I
haven't disliked anybody in this Congress--well, I'm sure
there's probably an exception or two to that. But, for the most
part, it is merely the seriousness of the problems that we
confront and the deep disagreements about what leads to them
that I think leads me to the things I'm going to say right now.
When you say that we need more resources for rescuing
children from these circumstances, when we say that we need
more resources to crack down on employers who would employ
vulnerable children in the country, when you say you need more
resources to ferret out child sex trafficking and the most
horrendous sorts of victimization that you can imagine, sheer
hell on Earth, I don't know how you can talk about that need
without reckoning with whether or not decisions that each of us
made gave rise to the need that is articulated.
Why do the people come? Because it was declared that the
border was open. Let's face it, that's what was declared.
That's why you saw a sudden, dramatic change. You saw a
massive, complete 180-degree reversal of policy that had
attenuated the flow most successfully in history. It was 100
percent reversed.
So we see the horrific circumstances that you now want to
articulate more burdens on the American taxpayer to attempt to
solve. You want to impose more burdens on the men and women of
law enforcement, who are already overburdened with the problems
we have in society in the United States that will now be
increasingly neglected because you have chosen to recreate in
the United States, to a substantial degree, the horrific
circumstances that are causing people to flee elsewhere.
I, too, want to thank our witnesses for joining us today to
examine this tragic crisis enabled by one of the major parties
in politics in the American political system and the Biden-
Harris administration's gross mismanagement of caring for
unaccompanied migrant children.
I think it also bears noting at the beginning, what we're
examining here today are the unaccompanied children, who went
into the care of the Office of Refugee Resettlement and were
supposedly cared for to the best of the capability of the
overtaxed resources of the United States of America, and it
overlooks every other migrant child who came in, many of them
purportedly with family units to which they may not have been
genuinely attached. What has happened to them? We won't even
see that in the numbers, upwards of 100,000 that we say have
gone missing. We don't even know--those people aren't even
represented in those stats.
So, under the Biden administration, over 526,000
unaccompanied alien children crossed the Southwest Border--
unprecedented number. Each year from 2021 to 2023, CBP
encountered over 130,000 unaccompanied children, more than
twice the levels seen under the Obama and Trump
administrations.
While CBP is usually the first point of contact for
unaccompanied children who cross the border, the Health and
Human Services Department's Office of Refugee Resettlement is
primarily responsible for the care and placement of these
children. Much of this work is done in partnership with
nongovernmental organizations that provide shelter and
services, usually under contract.
Under the Biden-Harris administration, these NGO's received
a windfall of taxpayer money through ORR, whose budget for its
Unaccompanied Children Program was $6.9 billion in fiscal year
2023.
We throw these terms around, these numbers, up here like
they don't matter. Six-point-nine billion. My good friend and
colleague from California is up here talking about we've got to
get a lot more, we need a lot more.
Southwest Key Programs, the largest housing provider of
unaccompanied children--one contractor--received more than $2.5
billion in taxpayer funding over the past 3 years. This summer,
the Federal Government sued Southwest Key, alleging that
employees engaged in a pattern of sexual abuse and harassment
against children in its shelters and failed to take sufficient
action to protect the children in its care.
Do you see how the dominoes fall? This is what happens when
you begin with one ill-considered, ideologically-bound decision
that did not take account of the realities on the ground or the
circumstances that would certainly ensue, and they have ensued.
Another company, Deployed Resources, has had a contract for
a migrant facility in Greensboro, North Carolina, my State,
since May 2022. Thirty-nine-point-five million has already been
spent, with another $64 million obligated, but, incredibly,
according to HHS, no children have been in care at the facility
from the time it became operational in March until it went into
standby in June.
Do you see how the consequences proliferate of unbelievably
bad decision making? What did we spend all that money on?
The Biden-Harris administration placed political aims above
the welfare of unaccompanied migrant children who crossed or
were trafficked across the Southern Border, releasing UACs--I'm
not going to use that term--releasing unaccompanied children
with inadequate vetting and follow-up to avoid the bad optics
of crowded facilities.
The Office of Refugee Resettlement releases children to
sponsors in the United States. Thorough vetting of these
sponsors is absolutely critical and morally compelled if that's
the path you're going to undertake to bring these children
across.
Unfortunately, the Biden-Harris administration's push to
bring in migrants, to quickly release migrants, resulted in
countless cases of migrant children being released to sponsors
with major red flags, placing children at obvious risk of
exploitation that has played out in exactly the exploitation
that would've been anticipated.
Far too often, children are released to sponsors who do not
care about their welfare and intend to exploit the child
through, at a minimum, child labor and, very often, far more
heinous forms of trafficking.
Should we really--is it really in the interests of these
children to rush to release them to individuals who are trying
to sponsor multiple unrelated migrant children? This is a
systemic failure that has put thousands of vulnerable children
in risky situations here in the United States.
This failure goes well beyond the vetting issues on the
front end, as an inspector general report earlier this year
made clear that the Federal Government cannot account for tens
of thousands of children that HHS released to sponsors. Thirty-
two thousand children didn't show up for their immigration
court hearings.
Those hearing dates are one of the only opportunities that
ICE must engage with unaccompanied children and observe signs
of trafficking or exploitation. What happened to those? What
happened not just to 32,000, each one of them, what happened to
that child? We do not know. They cannot be reached.
This is just the tip of the iceberg. Over 290,000 have been
released by HHS without a notice to appear for an immigration
court date at all, so there will be no such opportunity to
observe signs of trafficking or exploitation. There is no way
for ICE to monitor their location, the status of these
children, or verify their safety.
We've asked and even subpoenaed HHS for information about
the screening of potential sponsors and the children that
they've lost contact with.
In many cases, documented by investigative journalists with
The New York Times, children released to sponsors who may not
even be related to the child ended up working dangerous jobs to
pay off debts or send money back home, often working night
shifts or dropping out of school.
Mr. Chairman, I request unanimous consent to enter into the
record 3 articles: ``Alone and Exploited, Migrant Children Work
Brutal Jobs Across the United States.'' That's February 28,
2023. Second one, ``As Migrant Children Were Put to Work, U.S.
Ignored Warnings,'' April 17, 2023, New York Times. Finally,
``U.S. Failed to Safeguard Many Migrant Children, Review
Finds''----
Mr. Higgins. Without objection.
Mr. Bishop [continuing]. February 15, 2024.
[The information follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
------
U.S. Failed to Safeguard Many Migrant Children, Review Finds
By Hannah Dreier, Feb. 15, 2024
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/15/us/migrant-child-labor-review.html
Many sponsors were inadequately vetted and safety checks
went unfulfilled, an independent watchdog found.
Children ended up in dangerous jobs across the
country.
An independent government watchdog found serious lapses at the
Department of Health and Human Services in its protection of children
who migrate to the United States on their own, according to a report
released Thursday.
H.H.S., the Federal agency responsible for sheltering migrant
children when they arrive by themselves, repeatedly handed them over to
adult sponsors in the United States without thorough vetting and
sometimes failed to conduct timely safety checks on children once they
were released, said the report by the department's inspector general.
``I would define these gaps as very serious,'' said Haley Lubeck,
the project leader for the review. ``We know that these children are
especially vulnerable to exploitation.''
The findings echoed New York Times reporting that the screening of
sponsors and other safeguards for migrant children broke down during
the first years of the Biden administration as hundreds of thousands of
children crossed the border amid a pandemic-era economic collapse in
parts of Central America.
Migrant children have ended up working dangerous industrial jobs in
violation of child labor laws across the country--in slaughterhouses,
factories, construction sites and elsewhere, The Times found. Some have
been gravely injured or killed.
The report follows a June audit that H.H.S. conducted in response
to Times reporting that found that many children were living with
strangers who expected or even forced them to work. That audit revealed
that government case workers had released more than 340 migrant
children to adults who were sponsoring 3 or more children who were not
family members.
In early 2021, record numbers of children started crossing the
border faster than H.H.S. could process them. With no room left in
shelters, many children stayed on cots in crowded tents, sparking
public outrage. The Biden administration pressured staff members to
move the children out of shelters more quickly, and government workers
said they saw children being sent to adults who clearly intended to put
them to work.
H.H.S. is supposed to call all children a month after they begin
living with adult sponsors. But data obtained by The Times showed that
over 2 years, the agency could not reach more than 85,000 children. In
Thursday's report, the inspector general found that in more than a
fifth of cases, H.H.S. workers did not make these calls in a timely
way, and in some instances, waited nearly a year.
In other cases, the review found, government workers skipped
important safety checks, including looking into whether adults had
abused children in the past, or ensuring that the addresses to which
children were released were actual residences. In a third of cases,
sponsors submitted illegible identification. In other cases, the agency
sent children to sponsors without making mandatory home visits.
The report also found that some protective measures, including
periodic reviews by case coordinators, were removed when shelters were
overcrowded.
One child who said he had not received the mandatory follow-up call
is Wander Nimajuan. He was 13 when he was released in 2022 to a man
whom H.H.S. caseworkers listed as an unrelated adult. His mother had
arranged for him to travel to the United States because the family was
struggling in Guatemala. He said he had expected to continue studying
in middle school. Instead, his sponsor put him to work immediately.
Wander has spent the past 2 years working in roofing, the most
dangerous job in the country for young people outside of agriculture.
``I would have liked to talk to someone,'' he said.
An H.H.S. spokesman, Jeff Nesbit, said the new report raised issues
the agency had ``already improved,'' including through better policies
and a joint task force with the Department of Labor. ``These changes
simultaneously prioritize child welfare and safety while minimizing the
time children spend in congregate care settings,'' he said.
In the past year, H.H.S. has created a team that focuses on
identifying cases of exploitation of migrant children, committed to
providing universal case management for children after they are
released, and begun offering more children free legal services.
The inspector general for the Labor Department is also looking into
how officials there have handled the recent surge in child labor.
Hannah Dreier is a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter on the
investigations team. Email her at [email protected].
Mr. Bishop. The Federal Government has precipitated and is
facilitating this humanitarian catastrophe. The unaccompanied
children are released from the HHS shelters right into the
hands of these sponsors despite multiple warnings from staffers
within the agency that the vetting process was failing to
protect children.
The Biden administration was so focused on moving people
through the system as fast as possible that they failed to
ensure the safety of the children they were releasing. Many of
these children already suffered at the hands of criminal
cartels on that treacherous journey to the border, only to find
themselves exploited again after leaving Government custody.
The human cost of this impossible-to-understand bad
judgment is simply heartbreaking and tragic. I look forward to
the testimony of our witnesses as we shine a light on this
monumental failure.
Mr. Chairman, thank you. I yield back.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Bishop follows:]
Statement of Chairman Dan Bishop
November 19, 2024
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank our witnesses for joining
us today to examine this tragic crisis enabled by the Biden-Harris
administration's gross mismanagement of caring for migrant children.
Under the Biden-Harris administration, over 526,000 unaccompanied
alien children--or UACs--have crossed the Southwest Border--an
unprecedented number. Each year from 2021 to 2023, CBP encountered over
130,000 unaccompanied children--more than twice the levels seen under
the Obama and Trump administrations.
While CBP is usually the first point of contact for UACs who cross
the border, the Health and Human Services Department's Office of
Refugee Resettlement (ORR) is primarily responsible for the care and
placement of these children. Much of this work is done in partnership
with nongovernmental organizations (NGO's) that provide shelter and
services.
Under the Biden-Harris administration, these NGO's received a
windfall of taxpayer money through ORR, whose budget for its
unaccompanied children program was $6.9 billion in fiscal year 2023.
Southwest Key Programs, the largest housing provider of
unaccompanied children, received more than $2.5 billion in taxpayer
funding over the past 3 years. This summer, the Federal Government sued
Southwest Key, alleging that employees engaged in a pattern of sexual
abuse and harassment against the children in its shelters and failed to
take sufficient action to protect the children in its care.
Another company, Deployed Resources, has had a contract for a
migrant facility in Greensboro, North Carolina since May 2022.
Thirty-nine-point-five million dollars has already been spent, with
another $64 million obligated, but incredibly, according to HHS, no
children have been in care at the facility from the time it became
operational in March until it went into standby in June.
What did we spend all that money on?
The Biden-Harris administration placed political aims above the
welfare of unaccompanied migrant children who crossed, or were
trafficked across, the Southern Border, releasing UACs with inadequate
vetting and follow-up to avoid the bad optics of crowded facilities.
ORR releases children to sponsors in the United States. Thorough
vetting of these sponsors is absolutely critical. Unfortunately, the
Biden-Harris administration's push to quickly release migrants resulted
in countless cases of migrant children being released to sponsors with
major red flags, placing children at risk of exploitation.
Far too often, children are released to sponsors who do not care
about their welfare and intend to exploit the child through child labor
or more heinous forms of trafficking.
Should we really be rushing to release children to individuals who
are trying to sponsor multiple unrelated migrant children?
This is a systemic failure that has put thousands of vulnerable
children in risky situations here in the United States.
This failure goes well beyond the vetting issues on the front end.
As an inspector general report earlier this year made clear that the
Federal Government cannot account for tens of thousands of children
that HHS released to sponsors.
Thirty-two thousand children didn't show up for their immigration
court hearings.
Those hearing dates are one of the only opportunities that ICE must
engage with unaccompanied children and observe signs of trafficking or
exploitation.
What happened to those 32,000 children? We don't know. We can't
reach them.
This is just the tip of the iceberg. Over 290,000 have been
released by HHS without a notice to appear for an immigration court
date. There is no way for ICE to monitor the location and status of
these migrant children or verify their safety.
We've asked and even subpoenaed HHS for information about the
screening of potential sponsors and the children that they've lost
contact with.
What is happening to these migrant children?
In many cases documented by investigative journalists with the New
York Times, children released to sponsors, who may not even be related
to the child, ended up working dangerous jobs to pay off debt or send
money back home, often working night shifts or dropping out of school.
Mr. Chairman, I request to enter 3 articles into the record: Alone
and Exploited, Migrant Children Work Brutal Jobs Across the U.S.; As
Migrant Children Were Put to Work, U.S. Ignored Warnings; and U.S.
Failed to Safeguard Many Migrant Children, Review Finds.
The Federal Government is facilitating this humanitarian
catastrophe.
The unaccompanied children are released from the HHS shelters right
into the hands of these sponsors, despite multiple warnings from
staffers within the agency that the vetting process was failing to
protect children.
The Biden-Harris administration was so focused on moving people
through the system as fast as they could that they failed to ensure the
safety of the children they were releasing.
Many of these children already suffered at the hands of criminal
cartels on the treacherous journey to the border, only to find
themselves exploited again after leaving Government custody.
The human cost of this crisis is simply heartbreaking and tragic. I
look forward to the testimony of our witnesses as we shine a light on
this monumental failure.
Thank you Mr. Chairman, and I yield back.
Mr. Higgins. The gentleman yields. Thank you, Chairman
Bishop.
I now recognize the Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on
Oversight, Investigations, and Accountability, the gentleman
from Maryland, Mr. Ivey, for his opening statement.
Mr. Ivey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I want to join with both of you in my comments regarding
Chairman Bishop of North Carolina. We had a chance to work
together on a subcommittee, several hearings, actually, with
respect to forced labor, and I appreciate the work that we were
able to do together on that. We also serve on the Judiciary
Committee together. I share the view about his insight, his
legal acumen, and his energy and passion that he brings to
these.
I was mentioning to him, I was campaigning for another
candidate down in North Carolina and happened to see some of
his commercials down there, and I realized what a full-contact
sport politics is in North Carolina. I'm going to stay in
Maryland, I guess.
But I do appreciate the fact that you've done such great
work. The fact that you're leaving public office, I assume,
does not mean you're leaving public service, so I look forward
to your continued work. As they say, God is not finished with
you yet.
To the matters of the day, I do want to say this. I
actually share in the concerns that have been voiced I think by
all three of my colleagues so far with respect to the dangers
and the horrors that these kids have been facing, as they not
only face sometimes death, sometimes maiming, sometimes sexual
assaults as they make this trip to the United States, but that
the system has let them down here when they get to the United
States.
I think those have been well-documented not only by this
committee but New York Times reporter Hannah Dreier. I believe
these are the 3 articles that Chairman Bishop just put into the
record, and I reference these as well.
One of my colleagues from Michigan, Hillary Scholten, said
that ``stories of kids dropping out of school, collapsing from
exhaustion, and even losing limbs to machinery are what one
expects to find in a Charles Dickens or Upton Sinclair novel
but not an account of everyday life in 2023, not in the United
States of America.''
So I think we can all agree that there are horrific
circumstances here in the United States right now that these
young people are facing. I think we have to try and figure out
how to work our way out of that.
I'll say this, too. I mean, we've got a new administration
coming in. I've heard some comments by some of the nominees,
and I'm not sure that what they're proposing actually would
necessarily address this particular problem. There's a lot of
focus on shutting down the border, and, you know, that's
certainly of interest, I think, to many of us on that front.
But figuring out what to do with the kids that are here, I
think, is the immediate challenge that this hearing I hope will
focus at least in part on.
Because, as has been stated, there's at least--I think
320,000 is the number that I've heard--here in the United
States, many of whom have not been located, many of whom we
don't know what they're doing or how they're doing. I do want
to make sure we figure out how to touch base with them and help
get them on the right track. Many of them are due for court
proceedings. I don't know that those are on track. Apparently
they are not. I think we need to address that too.
I know my colleagues have made some comments about money,
but, you know, unfortunately, I think money's going to be
relevant to trying to address these problems. It's going to be
expensive to locate these kids. It's going to be expensive to
try and put them back in connection with their parents, to the
extent they are here. To the extent there's a decision about
sending them back to a different country, that's going to be
expensive. To the extent there's a decision made about keeping
them here, that's going to be expensive too.
I do want to note that the fiscal year 2024
Congressionally-enacted budget for this particular issue,
Unaccompanied Children Program, was $100 million less than the
prior year and the President's request, and then for the fiscal
year 2025 budget approved by the House Committee on
Appropriations, more than $3 billion less than the prior year
and what the President requested.
Now, money doesn't fix everything. You know, I'm of the
mindset that money can play a role but there's got to be other
types of impact that can make a difference on these sorts of
things, but I really do think money's going to have an impact
here.
Mr. Correa referenced a moment ago the issue about
unrepresented minors not getting any legal representation to
the extent they're coming through court. Some of them might not
speak English. Some of them might be too young to understand
what's going on. Some of them might be old enough to understand
what's going on, but I can tell you, the immigration process is
a complicated legal system.
Now, I remember in this committee, when we were voting on--
I think it was H.R. 2, if I recall correctly--Mr. Magaziner
offered an amendment to that bill that would've provided
funding for legal representation for kids in these
circumstances, and that was voted down and has not been
included. So I hope that's one of those things that we can
revisit as we move forward with this.
I'll say this, as well. I think that one of the things that
we really need to do is make sure that we're--well, I'll say it
this way. I read in the testimony 2 statements--well, multiple
statements, actually--about the harvesting of organs from
children, and that was news to me. When I looked for footnotes
and references and citations to support those claims, I didn't
see them.
So, I'll say, you'll have a chance to testify about those
when your time comes, but those are very serious allegations.
To the extent that that's actually taking place, I would
strongly support the effort to energize Department of Justice,
the FBI. To the extent my--I know I've got some colleagues that
want to defund them, but I don't think they're going anywhere;
at least I hope not.
I hope that we can try and address whatever these types of
issues may be--certainly the sexual assault, certainly the
trafficking, certainly the international cartel activity. I
know the Department of Justice has had some success there,
especially with the Sinaloa Cartel, but we've got a long ways
to go to actually make a dent on that activity.
Then, Mr. Carrell, I guess--you know, I've just got to
mention this before you have a chance to testify, and you can
address it. But, you know, staff found a couple of quotes from
you about punching--I guess it was the Speaker--square in the
head, and ``the mass deportations will be swift, but they will
be deadly.'' I'm concerned about those kinds of comments.
Now, you'll have a chance to speak to those things. You
know, I don't know that mass deportations are going to be the
way to go, especially with respect to the children,
unaccompanied children issue, but you'll have a chance to
discuss that. I look forward to questioning you about it as
well.
But to all of those here today, I'll say this: These are
very serious problems. These are very serious concerns. These
children are very much at risk here in the United States. We
want to make sure that we do everything we can to address those
problems and help to get those children back on the right
track, as well as the immigration issue as a whole.
So, Mr. Chairman, I thank you again for giving me a chance
to speak.
Mr. Bishop, I've got to thank you one last time for your
service.
Mr. Bishop. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Ivey. Michael Jordan--you know, I guess he's kind of a
GOAT out of North Carolina. Maybe you can be the Republican
GOAT for Congress out of North Carolina as well.
With that, I yield back.
Mr. Higgins. Thank you, Ranking Member Ivey.
Other Members of the committee are reminded that opening
statements may be submitted for the record.
[The statement of Ranking Member Thompson follows:]
Statement of Ranking Member Bennie G. Thompson
November 19, 2025
I'm glad we are here today to talk about protecting the most
vulnerable among us.
We should all agree that children, all children, deserve to be safe
and cared for.
No child should be placed in an unsafe home, exploited, or forced
to work in a dangerous place.
Unfortunately, this happens all too often--to both American
children and migrant children.
And unaccompanied children--those children who arrive to the United
States without their parents and without immigration status--are among
the most vulnerable. And the most in need of our protection.
These children, often fleeing violence in their home countries,
come to the United States alone, seeking asylum and sanctuary. They are
children in need.
These children can become victims of traffickers on their way to
the United States, and can become victims of traffickers once inside
the United States.
The stories we've all read about children being exploited and
forced to work in unsafe environments are heartbreaking. As some of the
witnesses noted in their testimony, this has been a real problem going
back over a decade.
No matter the administration, this is unacceptable.
The Federal Government must ensure appropriate care for these
children and prioritize their safety and well-being.
While the Biden administration has made positive steps, there is
more to be done.
This should not be an issue of politics--it should be about common
decency and humanity.
Yet, I fear that migrant children are being used yet again by
Republicans to score cheap political points.
When Trump was last in the White House, Republicans didn't focus on
helping children.
Instead, the Trump administration separated thousands of children
from their parents, and President-elect Trump's new border czar wants
to do it again.
He wants to conduct massive raids on the immigrants in our
communities, including those with American citizen children.
And this Congress, my Republican colleagues chose to ignore
requests from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) for new
laws that would protect children.
They ignored a request to allow HHS to partner with the Department
of Justice for anti-trafficking programs.
They also ignored a request to lower the cost-sharing requirements
for grants that help trafficking victims, which make it easier for
victims to get the help they need.
They also ignored a request to expand training programs that teach
parents and caregivers about preventing human trafficking among youth.
Instead of passing these proposals, my Republican colleagues passed
legislation that put unaccompanied children in even more danger.
Their legislation would allow unaccompanied children to stay in
Border Patrol's jail-like facilities for weeks.
They would also send unaccompanied children back to the places they
fled, where they are at enormous risk for exploitation and abuse.
They would also make it harder for children to obtain lawyers to
help them navigate our incredibly complex legal system.
Democrats want to help children, not put them in more danger. I
hope the witnesses today have recommendations for doing this.
Mr. Higgins. I am pleased to welcome our panel of
witnesses.
I ask that our witnesses please rise and raise your right
hand.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Higgins. Let the record reflect that the witnesses have
answered in the affirmative.
Thank you, and please be seated.
I'd like to now formally introduce our witnesses.
Mr. J.J. Carrell is a retired U.S. Border Patrol agent with
a distinguished 24-year career, most recently serving as deputy
patrol agent in charge of the San Diego Sector.
Ms. Ali Hopper is a nationally-recognized counter-
trafficking expert and policy advocate dedicated to combating
human trafficking and exploitation.
Ms. Kathy Larin serves as director in the Government
Accountability Office's Education, Workforce, and Income
Security Team. Her portfolio covers a broad range of issues,
including child welfare and refugee resettlement.
Ms. Tara Rodas--how do you say your last name, ma'am?
Ms. Rodas. ``Rodas.''
Mr. Higgins. ``Rodas.''
Ms. Tara Rodas is testifying in her personal capacity as an
anti-human-trafficking advocate, but, professionally, Ms. Rodas
is an 18-year veteran of the Federal inspector general
community.
In 2021, Ms. Rodas was detailed to the United States
Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Refugee
Resettlement. As a detailee, she blew the whistle on the
failures of the Unaccompanied Children Program and was
threatened with retaliation and investigation.
I thank the witnesses for being here today.
The witnesses' full statements will appear in the record.
I now recognize Mr. Carrell for 5 minutes to summarize his
opening statement.
STATEMENT OF J.J. CARRELL, PRIVATE CITIZEN, RETIRED DEPUTY
PATROL AGENT IN CHARGE, U.S. BORDER PATROL
Mr. Carrell. Chairman Higgins, Ranking Member Correa,
Chairman Bishop, Ranking Member Ivey, and the Members of the
subcommittee, I appreciate the opportunity to speak about the
evil of child trafficking caused by the open-border policies
under President Joe Biden and his administration.
I served in the United States Border Patrol for 24 years
until I retired as a deputy patrol agent in charge of San Diego
Sector. I worked under 5 Presidential administrations, and only
1 President secured the border--President Donald Trump. Border
Patrol agents went from working and being supported by the
greatest border President in American history to the worst,
President Joe Biden.
My last year in the Border Patrol was Joe Biden's first
year in office. On his first day in office, I watched in
disbelief as 94 executive orders cascaded down from Washington,
DC, obliterating every immigration policy that had been
providing the most secure border in America's history. Border
Patrol agents were forced to carry out unconstitutional orders
that violated every law in the Immigration and Nationality Act.
President Biden, through Department of Homeland Security
Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, created policy out of thin air,
ignored Federal immigration law, and facilitated the largest
mass invasion into America that the world has ever seen.
The United States of America will have spent hundreds of
billions of dollars in 4 years to fund the needs of over 50
million illegal aliens that populate our Nation. Between 1 in 6
and 1 in 7 residents in America is an illegal alien. America
has suffered the greatest demographic shift in modern history.
After serving in the United States Border Patrol for 24
years, spending a year researching and writing a best-selling
book entitled ``Invaded: The Intentional Destruction of the
American Immigration System,'' and filming 2 documentaries, I
state with complete certainty that Biden, Harris, and Mayorkas
intentionally, strategically, and purposely weaponized illegal
immigration and used it as a tool to fundamentally transform
America.
Inside this invasion, the unspoken evil of child
trafficking and, more specifically, child sex trafficking has
flourished. At the end of this current administration, the
number of children trafficked will have grown to over 550,000
unaccompanied alien children, known as UACs. This horrific
number of children will have been arrested, released into
America, and then lost.
To put this into context, during President Trump's last
year in office, Customs and Border Protection arrested 30,557
UACs who were accounted for and not lost. Conversely, in the
first year of Biden's Presidency, CBP arrested 147,975 UACs,
most of which are unaccompanied for and lost.
In a 2023 Congressional hearing, Health and Human Services'
Xavier Becerra and Director of Office of Refugee Resettlement
Robin Marcos were forced to admit that their agency had no
contact with over 85,000 UACs; they were lost.
What did DHS, HHS, and ORR do to correct this humanitarian
disaster? Nothing. In fact, all 3 agencies created further
policies and procedures to increase the efficiency of moving
UACs from the border to the interior of the United States to
unknown and unvetted sponsors. Unaccompanied alien children
were being handed off to total strangers. Then they disappeared
into the darkness of labor and sex trafficking.
In fact, a year later, in August 2024, the inspector
general with oversight over DHS issued a report stating the
number of lost UACs was not 85,000, it was over 320,000.
My business partner, Ryan Matta, and I spent 6 months
traveling across America filming a documentary titled ``What is
Treason? #Trafficked.''
The evil of child sex trafficking is difficult to digest
and understand. However, after conducting numerous interviews
with officers, agents, and whistleblowers from every alphabet
agency and department, it was made clear to us that the Federal
Government knowingly and actively facilitated these criminal
acts.
After several exhaustive months of filming, interviewing,
and then editing this documentary, I state without reservation
that the United States Federal Government is the world's
largest child-sex-trafficking organization in modern history.
The probability that thousands of these UACs are being
raped at this very moment is 100 percent.
The call to action has 3 parts--my call to action--and
they're swift, and they happen at the same time.
Every means necessary is to be taken to ensure all 4
borders of the United States of America are sealed shut.
No. 2, there's a law enforcement--a national law
enforcement emergency to locate and rescue every single one of
the 550,000 unaccompanied alien children that are lost.
No. 3, a full-scale investigation of every U.S. department,
agency, and every NGO participating in this criminal act shall
be launched, and every person involved shall be arrested.
Finally, the intentional opening of our borders is an act
of treason.
I encourage questions, and I--so I may further articulate
this allegation.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Carrell follows:]
Prepared Statement of J.J. Carrell
November 19, 2024
Chairman Higgins, Ranking Member Correa, Chairman Bishop, Ranking
Member Ivey, and Members of the subcommittees, I appreciate the
opportunity to speak about the evil of child trafficking caused by the
open border policies under President Joe Biden and his administration.
I served in the United States Border Patrol for 24 years until I
retired as a deputy patrol agent in charge in San Diego Sector. I
worked under 5 Presidential administrations and only 1 President
secured the border, President Donald Trump. Border Patrol Agents went
from working and being supported by the greatest border President in
American history to the worst, President Joe Biden.
My last year in the Border Patrol was Joe Biden's first year in
office. On his first day in office, I watched in horror as 94 Executive
Orders cascaded down from Washington, DC obliterating every immigration
policy that had provided the most secure border in America's history.
Border Patrol Agents were forced to carry out unconstitutional orders
that violated every law in the Immigration and Nationality Act.
By the action of Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary,
Alejandro Mayorkas, President Biden was able to create policy out of
thin air, ignoring Federal immigration law, and facilitating the
largest mass invasion into America that the world has ever seen.
By the end of the Biden administration, approximately 12,000,000
illegal aliens will have been arrested and, essentially, every one of
those illegal aliens will have been released onto the streets of
America.\1\ In 2023 and 2024, DHS was forced to admit that Customs and
Border Protection (CBP) used both commercial and private airlines to
fly hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens into America. DHS also
openly admits to losing 3,000,000 illegal aliens as they absconded
through the unprotected and open borders. These illegal aliens are
classified as ``get-aways''.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/nationwide-encounters.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
DHS admits to arresting, releasing, flying into America, and losing
between 15 and 16 million illegal aliens in 4 years.
The data used by DHS and CBP are misleading and false. For the
record, immigration experts believe that the flights into America
carried millions of illegal aliens. The true number of ``get-a-ways''
who crossed the border is, actually, between 15,000,000 and 18,000,000
illegal aliens. The total and true number of illegal aliens entering
America in 4 years is 30,000,000.
After serving in the Border Patrol for 24 years, spending a year
researching and writing a best-selling book entitled INVADED: The
Intentional Destruction of the American Immigration System,\2\ and
filming two documentaries: WHAT IS TREASON? #TRAFFICKED \3\ and WHAT IS
TREASON? INVADED \4\ I state, with complete certainty, that Biden,
Harris and Mayorkas intentionally, strategically, and purposely
weaponized illegal immigration and used it as a tool to fundamentally
transform America.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ Carrell, J.J.. INVADED: The Intentional Destruction of the
American Immigration System. United States of America: Carrell, 2023.
\3\ Matta, Ryan, director. WHAT IS TREASON? #TRAFFICKED. Carrell
Entertainment, LLC & Ryan Matta Media, 2024, 1 hr., 46 min. https://
rumble.com/v5ewdmy-what-is-treason-trafficked-vip-only-do-not-share-
private-screening.html, https://www.thisistreason.com.
\4\ Matta, Ryan, director. WHAT IS TREASON? #INVADED. Carrell
Entertainment, LLC & Ryan Matta Media, 2024, 1 hr., 44 min. https://
rumble.com/v5k0tr8-what-is-treason-inaved-released-101024-by-jj-
carrell-and-ryan-matta.html, https://www.thisistreason.com.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Biden, Harris, and Mayorkas have committed the crime of treason
against the United States of America.
From the first day of Joe Biden's Presidency to the present, there
are anywhere from 5,000 to 20,000 illegal aliens entering the United
States of America each day. By the end of Biden's term in office, he
will have accomplished the following:
30,000,000 illegal aliens will have entered America
unlawfully
Approximately 11,000,000-12,000,000 illegal aliens will have
been arrested and released into America
Over 180 nations will be reported in the United States
Border Patrol arrest data
Approximately 60-70 percent of all illegal aliens are
single-adult military-aged males
Over 932,000 Venezuelans will have illegally entered America
Over 500,000 Haitians will have illegally entered America
Over 131,000 Russians will have illegally entered America
Over 326,000 Chinese will have illegally entered America--
and of these, there are tens of thousands that are soldiers
from the People's Liberation Army (PLA)
Over 250,000 Special Interest Aliens/Terrorists will have
illegally entered America
60-80 percent of every woman and child will have been raped
or sexually assaulted making their journey to America
Over 550,000 Unaccompanied Alien Children (UACs) will have
illegally entered America
The vast majority of the 550,000 UACs will have been lost
into labor and sex trafficking.
The destruction of America is visible in every facet of American
life from the biggest metropolitan cities to the smallest towns across
America. The United States of America will have spent over $1 trillion
in 4 years to fund the needs of the over 50,000,000 illegal aliens that
populate our Nation. Between 1 in 6 and 1 in 7 residents in America is
an illegal alien. America has suffered the greatest demographic shift
in modern history. The fundamental transformation of America has begun.
This invasion of 30,000,000 illegal aliens entering America in 4
years was created and facilitated by Democrat representatives in office
but it was funded by Republican representatives in office. This act of
treason is a uni-party effort.
Inside this invasion, the unspoken evil of child trafficking and,
more specifically, child sex trafficking, has flourished. At the end of
this current administration, the number of children trafficked will
have grown to over 550,000 UACs. This horrific number of children will
have been arrested, released into America and then lost. To put this
into context: during President Trump's last year in office, Customs and
Border Protection (CBP) arrested 30,557 UACs who were accounted for and
not lost. Conversely, in the first year of Biden's presidency, the CBP
arrested over 147,975 UACs, most of which are unaccounted for and lost.
In a 2023 Congressional hearing, Health and Human Services (HHS)
Secretary Xavier Becerra denied knowing that over 85,000 UACs had been
lost. In another Congressional hearing that same year, Director of
Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) Robin Marcos was forced to concede
that her department had no contact with over 85,000 UACs. They were
lost.
What did the DHS, HHS, and ORR do to correct this humanitarian
disaster? Nothing. In fact, all 3 agencies created further policies and
procedures to increase the efficiency of moving UACs, their ages
ranging from newborn infants to 17-year-olds, from the border to the
interior of the United States to unknown and unvetted sponsors.
Unaccompanied alien children were being handed off to total strangers.
They then disappeared into the darkness of labor and sex trafficking.
What was the result of this criminal negligence?
A year later, the inspector general with oversight of DHS stated in
a 2024 report that the number of UACs lost had surpassed 320,000. When
you understand the policies and procedures of what constitutes a
``welfare check'' on UACs establishing them as accounted for and
protected, you would then know the horrific truth that every one of the
550,000 or more UACs in America are lost.
These children are being labor-trafficked, sex-trafficked,
barbarically harvested for their organs and, quoting President Trump,
``A lot of them are already dead.''
My business partner, Ryan Matta, and I spent 8 months traveling
across America while filming our documentary entitled, WHAT IS TREASON?
#TRAFFICKED.\3\ What we discovered, through numerous interviews with
Border Patrol agents, CBP officers, DHS employees, FBI agents, former
CIA officers, HHS whistleblowers, FBI whistleblowers, organizations
that combat child sex trafficking and individuals that worked inside
the non-governmental organizations (NGO's) that traffic children, were
the grotesque evils of child sex trafficking and criminal acts
committed by our own Government.
The current Federal Government knew, in the first few months of the
Biden-Harris administration, that the number of UACs entering the
country was spiking to never-before-seen statistics. However, they did
nothing to stop it. Instead, the conveyor belt of child-trafficking
production was more heavily funded and procedures were put in place to
ensure the maximum output of these innocent and most vulnerable
children.
The Biden-Harris government knows that transnational criminal
organizations from across the globe have discovered and are exploiting
loopholes in the child sponsorship program. Human smuggling cartels
specializing in children are smuggling the children over the border.
They then wait for the Border Patrol to arrest these children. Because
of the Flores Settlement Agreement, the Border Patrol's internal
procedures are to release these children to NGO's within 72 hours.
The NGO's then have a total of 20 days from the date of arrest to
release the children. These NGO's then coordinate with HHS and ORR to
reunite these children as quickly as possible with the same cartels
that reside within the United States. There are no background checks or
DNA tests on the sponsors who receive these children. There are no site
visits to ensure the child's safety or to confirm the child has been
taken to a home that actually exists.
The probability that thousands of these UACs are being raped at
this very moment is 100 percent.
After several exhaustive months filming, interviewing, and then
editing this documentary, I state, without reservation, that the United
States Federal Government is the world's largest child sex trafficking
organization in modern history. This is not just my belief, it is the
adamant belief of every person we interviewed for this documentary.
The call to action has 3 parts. All 3 parts are to happen
simultaneously:
1. Every necessary measure is to be taken to ensure all 4 borders
of the United States of America is sealed shut.
2. A national law enforcement emergency shall be declared in order
to locate and rescue every single one of the missing 550,000
unaccompanied alien children.
3. A full-scale investigation of every U.S. department, agency, and
every Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) participating in this
criminal act shall be launched. Every person involved shall be
arrested.
The intentional opening of our borders is an act of treason. I
encourage questions so I may further articulate this allegation.
Mr. Higgins. Thank you, Mr. Carrell.
I recognize Ms. Hopper for 5 minutes to summarize her
opening statement.
STATEMENT OF ALICIA HOPPER, PRIVATE CITIZEN, CONSULTANT ON
HUMAN TRAFFICKING, SADULSKI ENTERPRISES, LLC
Ms. Hopper. Chairman Higgins, Chairman Bishop, Ranking
Member Correa, and Ranking Member Ivey, and the distinguished
Members of the committees, thank you for the opportunity to
testify and for prioritizing this important issue.
Human trafficking is one of the greatest humanitarian
crises of our lifetime. In the 5 minutes I speak today, men,
women, and children are being sold, exploited, and brutalized
within our borders.
As a Hispanic mother, this crisis is deeply personal to me.
I have witnessed first-hand the unimaginable suffering
experienced by migrants on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico
border. In one interview I conducted, a local resident, whose
property straddles the border, told me about the screams of
women and children he hears, including just 2 days before my
visit.
I walked these very paths, and I found discarded clothing,
personal belongings, and chilling evidence of brutal assaults,
all under the control of ruthless cartels like the Jalisco New
Generation Cartel. No one passes through without their
approval.
Among the discarded items, I found IDs, many belonging to
children--some real, others forged or burned. One was the
passport of a 5-year-old Colombian girl, a haunting reminder of
the dangers these children face.
Traffickers erase migrant identities to smuggle them in
under false names. In an interview with a former Sinaloa Cartel
affiliate, he revealed how cartels use advanced technology to
forge documents and erase children's identities before crossing
into the United States.
Tragically, the horrors don't end at the border. The very
system meant to protect vulnerable children has become a
trafficking pipeline. An OIG report recently revealed that
324,000 unaccompanied children processed at the border are
currently accounted for.
Policies from the Biden-Harris administration prioritizing
speed over safety have placed children with unvetted sponsors,
increasing their risk. Furthermore, this administration's
decision to eliminate DNA testing to verify familial
relationships has created dangerous loopholes which traffickers
are now currently aware of and actively exploiting.
A young girl who arrived at the border in the custody of
individuals claiming to be her family was bruised, disoriented,
and in pain. Medical examinations revealed that she had been
raped. Yet she was sent back to her abusers because no
verification was done to confirm her guardianship. This is not
an isolated case but a glaring failure of the system, leaving
children in the hands of those who exploit them.
The failure extends beyond the Government to NGO's
contracted by ORR to care for these children. During my
research, I interviewed auditors tasked with inspecting an NGO-
run facility in Pecos, Texas, and it exposed a lack of
oversight, with critical information filtered to mask abuse,
neglect, and trafficking, as seen in the DOJ lawsuit against
Southwest Key for sexual abuse of children in those shelters.
Meanwhile, taxpayer dollars fund no-bid contracts for these
NGO's, whose CEOs have tripled their salaries, hire staff
teaching migrant girls to dance provocatively, and continue
receiving payments for undelivered services.
The crisis does not end there. Trafficking extends beyond
sexual exploitation and forced labor to organ harvesting.
During a recent interview I conducted in a Central American
prison, the convicted trafficker described organs being
harvested in places like veterinary clinics in Merida, Mexico,
recounting the removal of 3 livers, often sold to U.S. buyers.
Another trafficker revealed that migrant children are the
frequent targets. My colleague, Dr. Jarrod Sadulski, testified
last year about a 12-year-old boy whose eye was harvested in
Mexico for $15,000.
We need rigorous oversight, strong accountability, and,
where necessary, criminal prosecution of those who fail to
protect these children. We must designate cartels as terrorist
organizations, reinstate DNA testing, and demand accountability
from NGO's and Government agencies responsible for these
children.
With this new administration, the American people have
issued a clear and urgent mandate, one that now rests in your
hands. With top-down support, the trust of the American people,
and the eyes of the world upon you, you have a profound
opportunity to lead with decisive action.
Today, over 324,000 children are unaccounted for, each one
a life in desperate need of our protection. We cannot afford to
wait any longer. These children's future depends on what we do
today.
Thank you for your time, and I look forward to your
questions.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Hopper follows:]
Prepared Statement of Alicia Hopper
Chairman Higgins, Chairman Bishop, Ranking Member Correa, Ranking
Member Ivey, and distinguished Members of the committees, thank you for
prioritizing this urgent issue. We are facing one of the most
significant humanitarian crises of our time. In the 5 minutes I have to
deliver this testimony, women and children here in the United States
will be sold into trafficking and disappear. Unaccompanied migrant
children will continue to be exploited, extorted, abused, and
neglected--tragically, a direct consequence of the Federal Government's
failure to meaningfully vet their sponsors.
This is not a political issue, this is a humanitarian crisis, one
that is costing the lives of countless children. I've witnessed this
devastation first-hand. I have been on the front lines at the border,
in Mexico, and throughout Central America, and what I've seen is gut-
wrenching. The disastrous effects of the current administration's
immigration policies are fueling child trafficking, and I have seen
cartel members, with children in their grasp, operating with impunity
at our borders.
In my efforts to further grasp the depth of this crisis, including
the trafficking of children, I have taken steps to understand the inner
workings of these operations. I've interviewed former sex traffickers
and cartel members, both in the United States and abroad, who are
currently or were previously incarcerated. These conversations have
given me critical insights into the realities at our Southwest Border.
Cartels bring trafficking victims to the border and rely on a vast
network of gangs to facilitate the trafficking operations within the
United States. This activity has surged under the Biden administration.
My research has uncovered the complex system of stash houses on both
sides of the Southwest Border, where gangs and cartels hold and exploit
their victims. I've personally seen stash houses used by the Jalisco
New Generation Cartel as lookout points, and I've encountered cartel
members both at the border and in Mexico, continuing their operations
with alarming boldness.
jacumba, ca/mexico border
Recently, I returned from the border with my research partner, Dr.
Jarrod Sadulski. During our time there, we interviewed a property
manager overseeing a large, unfenced border property in the Jacumba, CA
area--a site frequently exploited by cartels and traffickers for
migrant smuggling. What we uncovered was deeply disturbing.
On this property, migrants are led down 1 of 2 paths, depending on
their ability to pay. Higher-paying migrants from Asia, the Middle
East, and Turkey are funneled through a route that shows little
evidence of exploitation. However, the second path, designated for
poorer migrants from Central and South America, reveals a much darker
reality. The property manager told us of the consistent screams of
migrant women and children being sexually assaulted--screams that are
heard regularly along this path. Just 2 nights before our arrival,
those horrifying cries echoed once again, but the property manager, out
of fear for his own safety, didn't dare investigate. He knows all too
well that neither law enforcement nor Border Patrol can protect him.
This area, like many others, is controlled by the Jalisco New
Generation Cartel, operating with impunity right on U.S. soil.
In one instance, a young, bloodied girl being chased ran up to him
on the property. I walked both paths, and evidence of sexual assault
was apparent on the second path. I found torn clothing indicative of
exploitation, particularly of young female teenagers. I examined the
sizes of clothing that reflected sexual assault. Some were children. I
examined different parts of the trail where the sexual assault
routinely occurs, which included a brush area that provides concealment
if Border Patrol aircraft fly through the area.
Following my exploration of the alarming realities of human
trafficking and exploitation, I ventured to another path in Jacumba,
CA, notorious for the smuggling and trafficking of migrants. This
route, like many others, is tightly controlled by the cartels--no one
passes through without their approval or involvement. As I walked along
the pathway near the border, discarded identifications littered the
ground, many belonging to children. Initially, we wondered why so many
were left behind--some valid, many forged, often burned, torn, or
buried. Among the debris, I found the passport of a 5-year-old
Colombian girl, hauntingly staring back at me from the photo. In that
moment, I was struck by the harrowing realities children like her face
at the hands of these cartels.
Delving deeper into this crisis, we uncovered a chilling reality:
individuals are deliberately erasing their identities to enter the
United States under false names. Our host, Cory Gautereaux, who lives
on the border and has offered invaluable insights into this situation,
has collected hundreds of IDs issued from various countries around the
world. This collection underscores the global scope of this tragic
phenomenon. The discarded identifications highlight a disturbing
truth--those smuggled through this area effectively lose their original
identities. This issue extends beyond immigration; it poses a
significant national security threat. Some individuals are concealing
criminal histories or their countries of origin, but when children's
identities are erased, even darker questions emerge: Where are they
coming from? Are they being exploited? What horrors have they endured
to reach this point?
To gain a more comprehensive understanding, I interviewed a former
Sinaloa Cartel affiliate who had previously worked as a sex trafficker
in Southern California before his incarceration. His extensive
knowledge of trafficking in this region revealed that cartels routinely
discard IDs to create new identities just before crossing the border.
He detailed how scanners are utilized in vans to produce these new
documents. At one point along the border, we even observed a van on the
Mexican side that matched his description, reinforcing the alarming
reality of how these operations are executed. This on-going crisis
demands urgent attention and action to protect vulnerable lives caught
in this web of exploitation.
live & in-person migrant border crossing
While conducting human trafficking research at the border last
month, I witnessed a shocking scene: a child being handed through the
border wall panels by a masked cartel member to an adult on the other
side. Two cartel members in ski masks were present during this
exchange. With Border Patrol nearby, we approached the area, and from
about 15 feet away, I captured this photo as one of the cartel members
flashed a peace sign (introduce picture as evidence). They utilized a
black rope ladder to smuggle over 2 adults connected to the child. One
cartel member even took a photo to document the successful crossing,
referred to as ``proof of life.''
staging sexual violence
A disturbing aspect of cartel operations is the sexual exploitation
that occurs at specific points along the smuggling route. Scholarly
research spanning over a decade has documented what cartels refer to as
``rape trees''--designated spots along the route where such
exploitation takes place. These trees are marked by hanging
undergarments as a grim symbol of the violence endured by victims (The
Performative Speech and Silence of Rape Trees: Staging Sexual Violence
Against Migrant Women in the U.S.-Mexican Borderlands). Tragically,
during our time on the border, we discovered a rape tree, and our host
informed us that since our visit, additional undergarments have been
found on that same tree. We also observed a van used for smuggling
people to the border, which contained a large amount of undergarments
that further, further reflecting the pervasive sexual exploitation in
this area.
office of refugee resettlement
Under the current Presidential administration, the Office of
Refugee Resettlement (ORR) has processed and sent 329,457 unaccompanied
children to sponsors between Oct. 2021 and July 2024 In contrast, only
124,627 children were sent to sponsors during the period from Oct. 2017
to Sep. 2020. This represents a staggering 164 percent increase,
highlighting a significant rise in the number of children who are at
grave risk while being smuggled and trafficked to the border. This
alarming trend underscored the urgent need for effective policies and
protections to safeguard these vulnerable children.
Cartels are actively targeting migrant children for exploitation in
the United States through the Unaccompanied Children (UC) program, and
this alarming trend has intensified under the Biden administration. The
cartels have taken advantage of the fact that the administration no
longer requires DNA testing to verify familial relationships with child
sponsors. It is essential for you to understand the dire circumstances
faced by these innocent unaccompanied children. One heartbreaking case
involved a little girl who crossed the border in Arizona with
individuals claiming to be her family, though they were not. This
situation is tragically common. When she arrived, she had bruises
covering her legs and complained of stomach pain, prompting her to be
taken to the hospital as a precaution. There, it was discovered that
this little girl had been raped. Even more distressingly, despite the
trauma she endured, she was returned to those who falsely claimed to be
her family due to the discontinuation of DNA testing. This is a
horrifying reality that is happening right here in the United States.
Children in migrant groups are often sold to traffickers when it
becomes apparent that their families cannot afford the unexpected
expenses imposed by the coyotes embedded within these smuggling
networks. In a migrant shelter in McAllen, Texas, a mother who had
traveled to Texas from Reynosa, Mexico, refused to let her child out of
her arms. She shared with staff that she had been robbed not only of
her belongings but also of the 2 other children she had started the
journey with in Mexico, all because she lacked the money for bribes.
This heart-wrenching situation underscores the desperation that
families often endure in their impossible struggle to find safety.
The strategies employed by cartels are constantly evolving and
rapidly improving, as they increasingly leverage cloud technology to
monitor the finances and demographic information of child trafficking
victims. This creates a digital trail that is often completely
overlooked. Cartels provide unaccompanied migrant children with the
names and contact information of individuals designated as potential
sponsors once the children are processed by the Office of Refugee
Resettlement.
Post-placement protections for migrant children are alarmingly
inadequate. In one instance, law enforcement conducted a welfare check
on 25 unaccompanied migrant children but could only locate 2 of them.
Disturbingly, some sponsors reported that the children never arrived at
their intended destinations. In another troubling instance, a sponsor
provided an address in Delaware that turned out to be nothing more than
an open field, raising serious concerns about the safety and legitimacy
of such sponsorships.
Based my research, ORR has failed to adequately protect
unaccompanied children in several critical areas:
Vetting Sponsors.--There is a significant absence of
thorough background checks, leading to children being placed
with sponsors who in some cases have turned out to be gang
members, individuals on terror watch lists, known pedophiles,
or those who ultimately abuse or traffic them.
Home Studies.--ORR has not conducted home studies to ensure
that children are being placed into suitable environments.
Information Sharing.--The agency does not share sponsor
information with State child protective services or law
enforcement, hindering efforts to ensure child safety.
Well-Being Checks.--After a child is placed with a sponsor,
ORR makes only a single phone call to check on their well-
being. If neither the child nor the sponsor answers, no further
follow-up is conducted.
Tracking Unaccompanied Children.--The failure to track
unaccompanied children once they are delivered to sponsors has
resulted in ICE being unable to issue Notices to Appear (NTAs),
exacerbating the risks these children face.
ngo s
This lack of oversight extends beyond sponsor vetting; through my
research, I've discovered that the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR)
relies on NGO contractors to manage influx facilities. This raises
critical concerns about the need for greater accountability within
these facilities to ensure the safety of migrant children.
Additionally, NGO's often use staffing agencies to provide personnel,
which has resulted in inadequately vetted staff having unsupervised
access to children, without the necessary background checks or security
clearances.
endeavors
I conducted interviews with auditors tasked with inspecting the NGO
Endeavors in Pecos, Texas. One auditor explained that while ORR has an
on-site monitor, they often receive ``filtered information'' from
Endeavors regarding what is actually happening at the facility. This
lack of transparency can hinder ORR's ability to be aware of incidents
and ensure compliance with their policies. A former supervisor at the
Endeavors facility detailed how, during a surge of unaccompanied
children, the facility was grossly unprepared. Staff arrived with
little to no experience or training, and background checks, including
fingerprinting, were sometimes completed a year after hiring.
Case managers on-site reported that the same addresses were
frequently used to sponsor children, raising further red flags about
the vetting process. Although the facility is designed to accommodate
children aged 13 to 17, the former supervisor explained that Endeavors
sometimes knowingly allowed adults to remain, opting not to process the
paperwork that would alert ICE to their status and prevent deportation.
The third-party auditor and compliance supervisor also shared that
Endeavors leadership discouraged her from documenting concerns in
writing, further obstructing transparency regarding sponsor vetting.
The dysfunction in the Unaccompanied Children (UC) system is so
pronounced that during a recent flight from San Diego to Florida, I
encountered several unaccompanied children on-board. When I inquired
with the flight attendant about how common it is for unaccompanied
minors to travel without escorts, she confirmed it is a frequent
occurrence. She also mentioned that UC migrant children are often taken
to the wrong airport or dropped off at gates with no waiting sponsors,
highlighting the systemic issues at play.
The on-going crisis involving the exploitation of children through
the UC program underscores the urgent need for reform in how we manage
this system to mitigate further risks of exploitation and trafficking.
human trafficking involving juvenile organs
Building on the systemic issues highlighted earlier, it's crucial
to address one of the more insidious aspects of human trafficking:
organ harvesting. Recently, I conducted research in a prison in Central
America, where I spoke with a former sex trafficker and a member of a
Mexican cartel incarcerated for arms trafficking. Through these
discussions, I learned that organ harvesting thrives due to the
desperate demand from buyers. When families face the anguish of having
a dying loved one and can't find the needed organ, they often resort to
traveling to Mexico in search of a solution.
The trafficker recounted chilling details of witnessing multiple
organs harvested in Merida, Mexico, noting that such practices are
alarmingly common in both veterinary clinics and hospitals in the
region. He emphasized that American buyers frequently seek out these
illicit organ trades. Disturbingly, news reports from August 2024
surfaced about 2 American college girls who may have been drugged with
the intent of having their organs stolen while on the Yucatan
Peninsula.
In my conversation with the former sex trafficker and ex-Sinaloa
cartel member, he revealed the lengths family members will go to for a
dying relative, illustrating how organ traffickers exploit this
vulnerability. These traffickers often take what he described as a
``custom order'' for specific organs and then target areas where
migrants congregate on their way to the U.S. border. Migrant camps, in
particular, serve as hotspots for exploitation, leaving individuals
especially susceptible to these heinous acts.
The former sex trafficker also pointed out that under the Biden
administration, human trafficking has escalated, as cartels and gangs
are reaping substantial profits. Many organizations that previously
shied away from human smuggling are now deeply involved, capitalizing
on the current lax immigration policies.
Despite the grim realities I've uncovered regarding human
exploitation at the border, I remain hopeful--hopeful in you. I believe
in the power of bipartisan action to enact meaningful legislation that
can alleviate the crisis threatening lives. The current immigration
system fails everyone, and it is imperative to establish legal pathways
that include proper vetting for entering the United States. We must
send a clear message to the cartels that the border is no longer open
and empower Border Patrol with the funding and resources necessary to
secure the border rather than merely processing migrants who have been
smuggled into the country.
Thank you again for the opportunity to share my research and I
welcome your questions.
Mr. Higgins. Thank you, Ms. Hopper.
I now recognize Ms. Larin for 5 minutes to summarize her
opening statement.
STATEMENT OF KATHRYN A. LARIN, DIRECTOR OF EDUCATION,
WORKFORCE, AND INCOME SECURITY, UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT
ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE
Ms. Larin. Chairman Higgins, Chairman Bishop, Ranking
Member Correa, Ranking Member Ivey, and Members of the
subcommittees, thank you for inviting me here today to discuss
GAO's work on the Department of Health and Human Services'
Office of Refugee Resettlement and its role in the care and
release of unaccompanied children.
In reports we issued in 2016 and 2020, we called on the
agency to better ensure that those who provide care to
unaccompanied children are qualified, to strengthen its
oversight and monitoring of facilities housing these children,
and to better track services that are provided to children
after they're released to sponsors.
HHS has made significant progress in addressing our
recommendations, but, as I will discuss today, more can be done
to safeguard unaccompanied children.
Every year, thousands of children enter the United States
without a parent or guardian and without lawful immigration
status. The number of unaccompanied children has increased
substantially over time, from about 14,000 in 2012 to around
119,000 in 2023. Many of these children have been exposed to
trauma and violence, and they're at increased risk of becoming
victims of child trafficking.
The Office of Refugee Resettlement, or ORR, is the primary
agency responsible for ensuring the safety and well-being of
children that enter the country unaccompanied. ORR awards
grants to providers that care for children in shelters, foster
homes, treatment facilities, and other types of facilities
until the children are placed with sponsors. Both State
licensing agencies and ORR play a role in overseeing the
facilities to ensure the health and safety of children in their
care.
Reports we issued in 2016 and 2020 identified several
significant lapses in ORR's implementation of policies and
procedures affecting the quality of care provided to these
children. Since that time, ORR has taken action to address all
9 of our recommendations and we have closed 5 recommendations
as implemented.
Specifically, with regard to ensuring that care providers
are qualified to provide care, we found that ORR did not have
up-to-date and accurate information about whether applicants
were licensed and, as a result, awarded grants to providers who
did not have a license to operate or who were unable to obtain
one.
We also found that ORR either did not have information or
did not consider information that they did have about past
allegations and concerns when awarding the grants, including
concerns that providers were not meeting standards to protect
the health and safety of children. As a result, grants were
renewed even when there were significant outstanding child
safety concerns uncovered during monitoring.
We made 3 recommendations to address these gaps, and ORR
has fully or partially addressed all 3.
With regard to oversight and monitoring of facilities, we
also found significant gaps. These ranged from providers not
consistently notifying ORR about issues that could affect their
State license to ORR and State licensing agencies failing to
share information about their activities and findings, which
could hamper effective oversight.
We made 4 recommendations to address these deficiencies,
and ORR has taken action on all 4 and fully addressed 2.
In addition, we found that ORR was not meeting its own
monitoring goals. For example, they weren't always notifying
providers right away when they found a compliance issue, and
they weren't following up to ensure that issues were resolved
in a timely way.
Our recommendation in this area was fully addressed.
I'd like to turn now to the question of what happens to
children after they're released from ORR care. In 2016, we
found there was limited information on follow-up and services
provided to children after they were placed with sponsors. At
that time, only a small percentage of children were eligible
for post-release services, but as of November 2023, all
children and sponsors are to have 3 virtual check-ins to
confirm that children are residing with their sponsors,
enrolled in and attending school, aware of upcoming court
dates, and are healthy and safe.
We recommended that ORR develop a process to ensure
information on its post-release efforts is reliable and
systematically collected, and this recommendation is still
relevant and open.
ORR has taken some action to revamp its case management
system, to include tracking of children post-release. Officials
have told us that these enhancements will be complete at the
end of 2024.
This concludes my statement, and I'm happy to answer any
questions.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Larin follows:]
Statement of Kathryn A. Larin
November 19, 2024
gao highlights
Highlights of GAO-25-107840, a testimony before the Subcommittees
on Border Security and Enforcement and Oversight, Investigations, and
Accountability, Committee on Homeland Security, House of
Representatives.
Why GAO Did This Study
Thousands of children enter the United States without a parent or
guardian and without lawful immigration status each year. Many
unaccompanied children have been exposed to trauma and violence and
travelled great lengths to get to the United States. In addition,
unaccompanied children may be at greater risk becoming child
trafficking victims.
These children are generally referred to ORR for care by the
Department of Homeland Security. ORR is responsible for coordinating
and implementing the care and placement of unaccompanied children. In
fiscal year 2023, ORR cared for about 119,000 unaccompanied children,
according to agency data.
This testimony summarizes findings from GAO's 2016 and 2020 reports
on ORR's role in the care and release of unaccompanied children. It
provides an update on ORR's efforts to address 9 recommendations
contained in those reports. The reports identified several significant
lapses in ORR's implementation of policies and procedures that could
affect the quality of care provided to these children.
GAO's 2016 and 2020 reports contain a detailed description of the
methodology used. Generally, GAO reviewed relevant Federal laws and
regulations and ORR policies and monitoring documentation. GAO also
obtained the views of a range of relevant stakeholders such as ORR
officials, State licensing agencies, staff at grantee facilities, and
others.
unaccompanied children.--efforts by the office of refugee resettlement
to address gao recommendations
What GAO Found
The Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Refugee
Resettlement (ORR) has taken several steps to address prior GAO
recommendations related to its role in caring for unaccompanied
children--those that enter the United States without a parent or lawful
immigration status. ORR awards grants to providers that operate
facilities to house and care for unaccompanied children.
In its 2020 report, GAO found that ORR had awarded grants for 219
facilities operating in 25 States. ORR and State licensing agencies
each play a role in overseeing facilities and ensuring that they meet
health and safety standards, among others. Facilities generally must be
licensed to operate in the State.
ORR took steps to sufficiently address 5 GAO recommendations, while
ORR has partially addressed 4 others. The 9 recommendations were
related to:
Ensuring care providers are qualified (3 recommendations).--
GAO's 2020 report found that ORR's grant announcements used to
solicit care providers for unaccompanied children were unclear.
Specifically, it was unclear what information applicants were
to submit on their licensing status and related concerns. This
information helps ensure that providers are qualified to care
for unaccompanied children. ORR took steps to address 2
recommendations that staff verify applicants' licensing and
performance information. ORR partially addressed a third
recommendation by requiring in recent announcements that
applicants report any allegations of abuse or neglect or
adverse licensing actions. GAO will close this recommendation
when ORR clarifies that applicants should report licensing
issues at all facilities that they operate.
Oversight and monitoring of facilities (3
recommendations).--GAO's 2020 report also found that ORR did
not provide clear instructions to grantees on including State
licensing citations in their performance reports to ORR, which
is needed for effective oversight of ORR facilities. ORR
addressed 2 of GAO's recommendations by collecting information
from its grantees on any State licensing citations and
notifying grantees and ORR staff that grantees were required to
report this information. ORR also addressed a third
recommendation to develop plans to help meet its monitoring
goals.
Information sharing (2 recommendations).--In its 2020
report, GAO also found limited information sharing between ORR
and State licensing agencies. ORR has partially addressed the
recommendations by establishing communication channels and
points of contact in some States. GAO will close the
recommendations when ORR completes outreach to all States.
Tracking post-release services (1 recommendation).--GAO's
2016 report found that there was limited information available
on post-release services that ORR provides. These services
include linking families to education and community resources,
in-home counseling, and case management. Tracking these
services would allow the information to be compiled in summary
form and provide useful information to ORR and others. GAO will
close this recommendation when ORR completes improvements to
its case management system to enable tracking of post-release
services.
Chairmen Higgins and Bishop, Ranking Members Correa and Ivey, and
Members of the subcommittees:
Thank you for the opportunity to discuss our work related to the
Department of Health and Human Services' (HHS) Office of Refugee
Resettlement's (ORR) responsibilities for unaccompanied children. Every
year, thousands of children enter the United States without a parent or
guardian and without lawful immigration status. Primary responsibility
for ensuring the health, safety, and well-being of these children after
they enter the country lies with ORR.
In 2016 and 2020, we issued reports related to ORR's role in the
care and release of unaccompanied children.\1\ These reports identified
several significant lapses in ORR's implementation of policies and
procedures that could affect the quality of care provided to these
children. Our recent efforts have focused on monitoring the agency's
progress in addressing recommendations contained in those reports.\2\
Of 9 recommendations we made in our 2016 and 2020 reports, ORR has
addressed 5 of them.\3\ ORR has partially addressed the remaining 4
recommendations.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ GAO, Unaccompanied Children: HHS Can Take Further Actions to
Monitor Their Care, GAO-16-180 (Washington, DC: Feb. 5, 2016) and GAO,
Unaccompanied Children: Actions Needed to Improve Grant Application
Reviews and Oversight of Care Facilities, GAO-20-609 (Washington, DC:
September 15, 2020).
\2\ We have also issued reports related to the care and custody of
unaccompanied children while they are in the custody of the Department
of Homeland Security. For more information, including the status of
recommendations that we have made in these reports, see: GAO,
Unaccompanied Alien Children: Actions Needed to Ensure Children Receive
Required Care in DHS Custody, GAO-15-521 (Washington, DC: July 14,
2015) and Southwest Border: Actions Needed to Improve DHS Processing of
Families and Coordination between DHS and HHS, GAO-20-245. (Washington,
DC: February 19, 2020).
\3\ There are a total of 11 recommendations contained in our 2016
and 2020 reports. Nine are discussed in this testimony. This testimony
does not discuss 2 recommendations in the 2016 report, 1 of which
relates to how ORR determines the number of beds needed to house
unaccompanied children, and 1 of which is similar to a monitoring-
related recommendation in our 2020 report. ORR has addressed both these
recommendations.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
My statement today will focus on ORR's efforts related to: (1)
ensuring care providers are qualified; (2) overseeing and monitoring
facilities that care for unaccompanied children; and (3) tracking
services that are provided to these children after they are released to
sponsors. My statement is based primarily on the findings from our 2016
and 2020 reports. Each of our prior reports contains a detailed
description of the methodology we used. Generally, we reviewed relevant
Federal laws and regulations and ORR policies and monitoring
documentation. We also obtained the views of a range of relevant
stakeholders such as ORR officials, State licensing agencies, staff at
ORR grantee facilities, and others.
The work upon which this statement is based was conducted in
accordance with generally accepted Government auditing standards. Those
standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain
sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our
findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe that
the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings and
conclusions based on our audit objectives.
background
Unaccompanied children are those who arrive in the United States
without lawful immigration status and without a parent or guardian
available to provide care and physical custody for them. These children
are generally referred to ORR for care by the Department of Homeland
Security.\4\ ORR is responsible for coordinating and implementing the
care and placement of unaccompanied children.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\4\ Generally, children are to be transferred from DHS to HHS
custody within 72 hours after a determination is made that they are
unaccompanied children. In past work, we have recommended that both DHS
and HHS should collaborate to address information-sharing gaps to
ensure that ORR receives information needed to make decisions for
unaccompanied children, including those apprehended with an adult. The
departments concurred with these recommendations and they have been
partially addressed based on a number of steps DHS and HHS have taken
to better share information on unaccompanied children. As of September
2024, the departments are continuing to work on a new interagency
agreement to govern information sharing. GAO-20-245.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
ORR is required to promptly place unaccompanied children in its
custody in the least restrictive setting that is in the best interest
of the child. In addition, ORR must provide proper physical care,
including suitable living accommodations, and appropriate medical care
and educational services. According to ORR, all children in its care
receive classroom education, mental and physical health services, case
management, recreation, and unification services that facilitate their
release to family members or other sponsors who can care for them. ORR
awards grants to care providers that operate facilities to house and
care for unaccompanied children.\5\ The majority of children in ORR
custody are cared for in shelter facilities. However, some are cared
for in other settings, such as secure shelters for children with an
offender history or residential treatment centers for children with
diagnosed mental health disorders. In 2020, we reported that ORR had
awarded grants for 219 facilities operating in 25 States.\6\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\5\ The grants are cooperative agreements that are funded for a 3-
year project period. Funds are awarded for the second and third years
based on approved continuation applications, subject to satisfactory
progress by the grantee and a determination that continued funding
would be in the best interest of the Federal Government.
\6\ GAO-20-609.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
ORR and State licensing agencies each play a role in overseeing
facilities and ensuring that they meet health and safety standards,
among other things. With a few exceptions, facilities must be licensed
to operate in the State.\7\ Generally, both State licensing agencies
and ORR monitor the facilities.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\7\ In 2021, Texas and Florida State agencies that had previously
licensed ORR grantee facilities were directed to discontinue these
licenses. In States that do not allow State licensing of programs
providing care and services to unaccompanied children, ORR expects
these facilities to meet the State's licensing requirements that would
otherwise be applicable. In addition, ORR funds facilities, which may
be unlicensed, to provide temporary additional bed capacity during
emergencies or influx periods. ORR provides additional monitoring to
these unlicensed facilities.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The number of unaccompanied children referred to ORR for care has
increased substantially over time. In fiscal year 2012, nearly 14,000
children were referred to ORR. By fiscal year 2019, this number rose to
more than 69,000 children. The agency's most recent data show that ORR
cared for about 119,000 unaccompanied children in fiscal year 2023.\8\
Many unaccompanied children have been exposed to trauma and violence
and travelled great lengths to get to the United States. In addition,
unaccompanied children may be at greater risk of child trafficking
victimization.\9\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\8\ Department of Health and Human Services Office of Refugee
Resettlement, ``Fact Sheets and Data'', https://www.acf.hhs.gov/orr/
about/ucs/facts-and-data.
\9\ GAO, Child Trafficking: Addressing Challenges to Public
Awareness and Survivor Support, GAO-24-106038 (Washington, DC: December
11, 2023). Child trafficking generally refers to human trafficking
involving individuals under the age of 18. Children may be trafficked
for the purposes of commercial sexual exploitation, forced labor, or
both. Survivors of child trafficking may suffer harmful, long-lasting
effects, such as depression, suicidal thoughts, and substance use
disorders.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
orr took steps to address 2 of 3 recommendations aimed at ensuring
providers caring for unaccompanied children are qualified
Our 2020 report found that ORR's grant announcements used to
solicit facilities to provide care for unaccompanied children were
unclear about information applicants were required to submit regarding
their licensing status or related concerns and past allegations of
abuse or neglect. As a result, applicants provided inconsistent
information.\10\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\10\ GAO-20-609.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
State licensing concerns may arise when providers do not meet
certain standards, including standards related to the health and safety
of children in care. We also found that ORR did not systematically
confirm the State licensure information submitted by applicants or
document a review of their past performance on ORR grants, when
applicable.
Reviewing and obtaining consistent information on State licensure
status and grantee past performance are key parts of ensuring that ORR
providers are qualified to operate facilities to care for unaccompanied
children. Taking these steps helps ORR reduce the likelihood of
awarding grants to organizations that cannot obtain a State license or
have a history of poor performance.
To address these concerns, we made 3 recommendations to ORR. The
agency has taken steps to address 2 of them and has partially addressed
the third recommendation (see table 1).
TABLE 1: STATUS OF GAO RECOMMENDATIONS TO ORR RELATED TO ENSURING CARE PROVIDERS ARE QUALIFIED TO OPERATE
FACILITIES FOR UNACCOMPANIED CHILDREN, AS OF SEPTEMBER 2024
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Recommendation Steps taken by ORR Status
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The director of ORR should clarify ORR's recent grant announcements Open: partially addressed.
in its grant announcements the have required applicants to report We will close this recommendation
information and supporting allegations of abuse and/or when ORR releases future grant
documentation applicants are neglect, as well as any denial, announcements clarifying that
required to provide in their grant suspension, and/or revocation of applicants are to report licensing
applications with respect to their their license over the prior 5 issues at all facilities that they
State licensing status, years. operate.
eligibility, and allegations and
concerns.
The director of ORR should take ORR updated its guide for staff Closed: implemented.
steps to develop, and ensure that reviewing grant applications and
officials reviewing grant training curriculum to add
applications implement a process to instructions for assessing
verify the accuracy and licensing information included in
completeness of information grant applications. Staff are to
reported by grant applicants on determine whether the applicant is
State licensing status, currently licensed and in good
eligibility, allegations, and standing in the State in which it
concerns. is proposing to provide services.
Staff are instructed to take steps
to verify the grantee's license and
determine whether it has any
disciplinary actions against it.
The director of ORR should ensure ORR updated its staff guidance and Closed: implemented.
that the grant review process training curriculum on conducting
includes a documented review of and documenting reviews of grantee
applicants' past performance on ORR performance. ORR staff are to use
grants for those that have information from grantee quarterly
previously received grants to care progress reports to ensure grantee
for unaccompanied children. This performance is satisfactory and
could include, for example, a determine whether funding should be
systematic review of previous continued for another budget
quarterly and annual performance period. Staff are directed to pay
reports and a review of corrective particular attention to grantees'
actions issued by all ORR descriptions of any issues they
monitoring staff to all ORR-funded experienced in the past reporting
facilities previously operated by period. This includes all
the applicant. documented State licensing
allegations or concerns, any
corrective actions issued by ORR or
others, and the steps the grantee
took to resolve these issues.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source: GAO-20-609 and GAO review of Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) documentation./GAO-25-107840.
orr addressed 3 of 5 recommendations related to state licensing
citations, information sharing, and monitoring of facilities caring for
unaccompanied children
ORR facilities generally must be licensed by a State licensing
agency to provide residential care and services for unaccompanied
children, or meet State licensing requirements if they are located in a
State that does not allow State licensing of programs providing care
and services to unaccompanied children, as previously noted.\11\ States
set the minimum standards of care for their facilities, including those
related to child health and safety and physical building standards.
State licensing agencies issue citations to State-licensed ORR grantees
if licensing violations are found and grantees are expected to address
them.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\11\ ORR also requires its grantees to comply with various other
requirements, such as those related to fire, health, and other safety
standards.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Our 2020 report found 2 areas lacking clarity regarding grantees'
reporting of State licensing citations to ORR.\12\ First, ORR did not
provide clear instructions to grantees on whether and how they should
include State licensing citations in their quarterly performance
reports to ORR. Second, some ORR staff did not have a clear
understanding of what grantees should report to them about State
licensing citations. As we reported in 2020, ORR needs this information
to have a record of State licensing deficiencies and whether they were
addressed and to conduct effective oversight of ORR facilities.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\12\ GAO-20-609.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
To address these concerns, we made 2 recommendations to ORR that
have been implemented by the agency (see table 2).
TABLE 2: STATUS OF GAO RECOMMENDATIONS TO ORR RELATED TO GRANTEE REPORTING OF STATE LICENSING CITATIONS, AS OF
SEPTEMBER 2024
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Recommendation Steps taken by ORR Status
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The director of ORR should clarify ORR is using its grantee quarterly Closed: implemented.
in its instructions to grantees the performance report to collect
information they are required to information on any State licensing
report on State licensing citations citations a grantee received during
in their quarterly performance the quarter. ORR sent an email
reports. notifying grantees that they were
required either to report any State
licensing citations, suspensions,
or revocations that the grantee or
any subrecipients had received
during the quarter or affirmatively
note that no such licensing issues
had occurred.
The director of ORR should take ORR updated its staff training Closed: implemented.
steps, such as through guidance or materials to clearly state that
training, to ensure that project grantees must report a license
officers clearly understand the revocation or suspension to ORR
requirement that grantees report within 24 hours and that licensing
State licensing citations at any of citations should be reported in the
their facilities within 24 hours section of the quarterly
and include State licensing performance reports on significant
citations in their quarterly findings and events.
performance reports.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source: GAO-20-609 and GAO review of Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) documentation./GAO-25-107840.
Our 2020 report also found that information sharing between ORR and
State licensing agencies was limited. In addition, State licensing
agencies and ORR staff said that improved information sharing would
benefit their monitoring of facilities. Information sharing between ORR
and State licensing agencies is important to ensure that both entities
are aware of on-going issues at ORR facilities.
To address these concerns, we made 2 recommendations, which ORR has
partially addressed (see table 3).
TABLE 3: STATUS OF GAO RECOMMENDATIONS TO ORR RELATED TO INFORMATION SHARING BETWEEN ORR AND STATE LICENSING
AGENCIES, AS OF SEPTEMBER 2024
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Recommendation Steps taken by ORR Status
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The director of ORR should work with ORR is working to connect with State Open: partially addressed.
State agencies that license ORR- licensing agencies to establish We will close this recommendation
funded facilities to develop a plan communication channels to discuss when HHS has demonstrated its
for mutual information sharing, any questions about licensing outreach to all States where it has
including processes for ORR requirements that arise during the licensed grantee facilities about
outreach to States during the grant grant application review process. developing information-sharing
application review process and on- According to ORR, its goal is to protocols.
going information sharing on ORR develop mutually beneficial
and State monitoring processes and information-sharing relationships.
identified deficiencies. ORR has entered into a Memorandum
of Agreement with 1 State licensing
agency.
The director of ORR should ensure ORR had a list of points of contact Open: partially addressed.
that ORR provides and maintains a at 49 States' licensing agencies, We will close this recommendation
current point of contact for each as of February 2024. According to when ORR has demonstrated that it
State agency that licenses ORR ORR, it plans to update the has provided an ORR point of
grantees to facilitate information spreadsheet quarterly. contact to State licensing agencies
sharing regarding ORR-funded to whom they can direct questions
facilities. or concerns.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source: GAO-20-609 and GAO review of Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) documentation./GAO-25-107840.
With respect to monitoring, ORR requires grantees to take
corrective action to address noncompliance it identifies through
monitoring. Our 2020 report found that ORR had not met some of its
monitoring goals or notified grantees of the need for corrective
actions in a timely manner.\13\ We also found that ORR had not ensured
the facilities it funded were audited for compliance with standards to
prevent and respond to sexual abuse and sexual harassment of children
in their care, as required by ORR regulations. Without action, ORR
risked continuing to not meet its own monitoring goals and
requirements, which are designed to ensure the safety and well-being of
children in its care.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\13\ GAO-20-609.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
To address these concerns, we made 1 recommendation, which ORR has
implemented. Our recommendation called on ORR to develop a plan to
guide and focus the agency's efforts to meet its goals to:
conduct on-site monitoring visits to each facility at least
every 2 years in accordance with ORR policy,
report any noncompliance to the facility within 30 days of
the site visit, in accordance with ORR policy, and
conduct an audit of each facility's compliance with ORR
standards on preventing and responding to sexual assault.
ORR fully addressed our recommendation by developing plans to
address these issues. One plan for calendar year 2024 articulates ORR's
goals to increase its workforce capacity to meet monitoring needs and
submit monitoring reports within ORR's required time frames. It also
identifies targets, time frames, and staff responsible for meeting its
on-site facility monitoring goals. In addition, in October 2021, ORR
contracted with an outside organization to conduct compliance audits
related to preventing and responding to sexual assault, and this
contract specifies time frames for conducting the audits.
Going forward, continued work remains for ORR to meet the targets
established in its plan. According to ORR officials, they lack the
staff resources to fully meet their goals for increased monitoring of
some facilities. For example, ORR documentation shows that as of April
2024, staff had met the requirement to monitor all of its standard,
State-licensed facilities within a 2-year period. However, 24
facilities in Texas and Florida, which no longer license ORR grantees,
were overdue for the more frequent, quarterly visits ORR now conducts
to these facilities.\14\ Further, in fiscal year 2023, ORR
documentation shows that on average ORR staff took 31 days after a
monitoring visit to submit the report to the facility, instead of the
30 days required to notify each facility as outlined by ORR policy. For
7 facilities, staff took over 45 days to send the report.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\14\ For States that stopped licensing ORR grantees, ORR now
conducts quarterly monitoring visits.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
With respect to auditing facilities' compliance with standards on
preventing and responding to sexual assault, as of October 2023, ORR's
new contractor had conducted audits at all facilities that had not been
audited by the original contractor within the initial 3-year period set
in regulation, according to ORR officials.\15\ These officials told us
they anticipated audits at an additional 70 facilities would be
completed by October 2024. In addition, officials said that a newly-
formed Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect team within ORR was
working with the contractor to ensure they meet the time lines
specified in the contract going forward.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\15\ Each facility that houses unaccompanied children must be
audited at least once within 3 years of February 22, 2016, and during
each 3-year period thereafter. 45 C.F.R. 411.111(a).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
orr has partially addressed 1 recommendation related to grantee follow-
up with children and their sponsor after release from orr care
In 2016, we reported that there was limited information available
on post-release services provided to children after they leave ORR
care.\16\ Since that report, ORR has made changes to the timing and
frequency of certain post-release services.\17\ Specifically, in
November 2023, ORR reported that post-release services providers would
become responsible for a series of 3 virtual check-ins with all
children and sponsors.\18\ These providers would be expected to confirm
that children are residing with their sponsors, enrolled in and
attending school, aware of upcoming court dates, and healthy and safe.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\16\ GAO-16-180.
\17\ At the time of our 2016 report, ORR provided post-release
services to a small number of children, such as those who were victims
of trafficking. ORR also conducted safety and well-being calls for all
unaccompanied children released to sponsors. ORR guidance required the
calls to occur 30 days after children were released from ORR care to
sponsors. Staff were required to make a reasonable effort to contact
the children and document the results of the call in the children's
case files.
\18\ From November 30, 2023 through July 31, 2024, unaccompanied
children were most commonly released from ORR care to a sponsor that
was a parent or legal guardian, according to ORR data.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Our recommendation from 2016 remains relevant. We recommended that
ORR develop a process to ensure all information collected through its
post-release efforts are reliable and systematically collected. Doing
so, would allow this information to be compiled in summary form and
provide useful information to other entities internally and externally.
ORR has begun taking some actions to address this recommendation,
including awarding a contract in September 2023 to revamp its case
management system known as the UC Portal. According to ORR, the
contractor will replace and build technology to support the recent
expansion of post-release services. The agency reported that responses
from the virtual check-ins, including information on services provided,
will be collected directly into the UC Portal.\19\ In November 2023,
ORR updated the UC Portal to include additional tracking of children
post-release, including screens to update the child's current location,
history of the child's moves, and whom the child is living with.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\19\ According to ORR's Policy Guide, post-release services may
include linking families to educational and community resources, home
visits, case management, in-home counseling, and other social welfare
services, as needed.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
ORR reported that by the end of 2024, the Portal will be updated
further to enhance and digitize information on post-release services.
We are continuing to monitor ORR's efforts to address this
recommendation and will close it once ORR completes improvements to the
UC Portal and demonstrates that it can use the portal to collect
reliable post-release services data and disseminate it internally and
externally, as appropriate.
Chairmen Higgins and Bishop, Ranking Members Correa and Ivey, and
Members of the subcommittees, this completes my prepared statement. I
would be pleased to respond to any questions that you may have at this
time.
Mr. Higgins. Thank you, Ms. Larin.
I now recognize Ms. Rodas for 5 minutes to summarize her
opening statement.
STATEMENT OF TARA LEE RODAS, PRIVATE CITIZEN, FORMER DEPUTY TO
THE DIRECTOR OF THE FEDERAL CASE MANAGEMENT TEAM, U.S.
DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES
Ms. Rodas. Good afternoon, Chairman Higgins, Chairman
Bishop, Ranking Member Correa, Ranking Member Ivey, and
distinguished Members of the committees. I thank you for
inviting me to testify at this critical hearing on the crisis
of trafficked, exploited, and a staggering 320,000 missing
migrant children.
Today, my goal is to spark action to rescue children,
prosecute traffickers, and dismantle trafficking
infrastructure. We must prevent children from being lost into
slave labor, commercial sex, organ harvesting, and other
unspeakable evils.
Migrant children are working overnight shifts in
slaughterhouses and factories, and some may die today because
they don't have the knowledge or skills to do the job that
they're supposed to be doing, but they're doing it because they
need to repay debts to their smugglers and traffickers.
Children, boys and girls, are being sold for sex. Just last
month, I spoke with a care provider in Florida who told me
about cases of migrant children as young as 8 with sexually
transmitted diseases--8 years old.
Last week, I spoke with a private investigator in Texas who
shared challenges trying to find an emergency shelter for this
one girl--she's only 12--an unaccompanied minor who was 9
months pregnant and about to go into labor.
How did we get here? How did we get here?
For over a decade, the United States Department of Health
and Human Services has been responsible for the suffering of
countless children. HHS has a 10-year, demonstrated record of
losing children to sponsors who abuse, exploit, traffic, and
harm children in unthinkable ways.
Now, to be fair to HHS, they are not an investigative or
law enforcement agency. HHS simply does not have the knowledge,
skills, ability, or the tradecraft to protect children from
traffickers.
Child trafficking has evolved into an international
syndicate of gangs and cartels. It's highly organized and
efficient. It mirrors the tactics and operations of terrorist
organizations.
Smugglers and traffickers have moved more than 500,000
children. They flooded across our borders, and we have
delivered them to criminals and traffickers and members of
transnational criminal organizations, who are using the UC
program as a white-glove delivery service of children. Criminal
sponsors are defrauding the U.S. Government by using this
Government program as a logistical chain in their trafficking
operation.
These children are not merely victims; they are hostages of
transnational criminals and the financial backbone of material
support for organizations seeking to profit off of the lives of
children. This simply must change.
Now, there is hope if we act with urgency. Let's implement
simple safety measures like DNA testing for children and their
sponsors. Let's implement stringent--stringent--penalties, like
prison, for sponsors who are unable to produce the children
they are in charge of.
Again, there's hope if we act, but action must include
oversight, transparency, and accountability.
Now, according to oversight conducted by Senator Grassley,
who's been a true champion of these endangered children, HHS
failed to fully comply with subpoenas that were issued by DHS
to investigate evidence of child exploitation the Senator
referred to law enforcement earlier this year.
That's just simply unacceptable. HHS should be commanded to
comply with the Inspector General Empowerment Act to enable
cross-agency data sharing.
Let's treat child trafficking as the national security
threat that it truly is. Let's mobilize the full power of our
intelligence and law enforcement communities to dismantle these
criminal networks.
No. 1, we can elevate the activity of child trafficking on
the NIPF, which is the National Intelligence Priorities
Framework.
No. 2, we can designate child trafficking as a terrorist
activity so that centers like the National Counterterrorism
Center, the Terrorist Screening Center, the National Targeting
Center can provide the manpower, the tradecraft, and immediate
implementation of targeting these trafficking networks.
Every child lost to the current system is a tragedy. We
cannot be a Nation that looks the other way. We have a moral
imperative to care for children that the Government takes into
custody. The time to act is now. Children are in need now.
Children are depending on you now.
I thank you for your time and your attention to this crisis
of these trafficked, exploited, and missing children. I am
happy to answer any questions that you may have.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Rodas follows:]
Prepared Statement of Tara Lee Rodas
Tuesday, November 19, 2024
Chairman Higgins, Chairman Bishop, Ranking Member Correa, Ranking
Member Ivey and distinguished Members of the committee: Thank you for
inviting me to testify at this critical hearing on the crisis of
trafficked, exploited, and missing migrant children. Chairman Bishop, I
thank you for joining Senator Grassley and more than 40 other
legislators in signing the letter to President Biden and Vice President
Harris urging them to stop covering up the migrant child crisis.\1\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Grassley Leads Bicameral Colleagues in Calling Out Abuses in
the Biden-Harris Unaccompanied Migrant Children Program (senate.gov).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Today, my goal is to spark action: (1) action to rescue children
and (2) action to prevent children from being lost in slave labor,\2\
commercial sex,\3\ organ harvesting,\4\ and other unspeakable evils.\5\
\6\ Prior to action, it's critical to obtain a comprehensive and
detailed understanding of the data and information from all parties
involved, including but not limited to HHS, DHS, and DOJ, as authorized
under the Inspector General (IG) Empowerment Act of 2016.\7\ \8\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ Grassley Highlights Exploitation and Abuse of Migrant Children
During Senate Roundtable.
\3\ Ibid.
\4\ Central American trafficker describes what happens to children
at the hands of cartels (youtube.com).
\5\ https://youtu.be/Mp9E5nkr-wQ?si=m1k_l3jK-28Rbva.
\6\ RECORDS: HHS Sent Unaccompanied Minors to Sponsors with MS-13
Ties, Potential Trafficking Rings (senate.gov).
\7\ CIGIE Statement on the Signing of the IG Empowerment Act.pdf
(ignet.gov).
\8\ BILLS-114hr6450enr.pdf (Congress.gov).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Today, as we speak, children are preparing to work grueling
overnight shifts in slaughterhouses, restaurants, and factories.\9\
Some children may die today in jobs they don't have the knowledge or
skills to do \10\ in order to repay never-ending debts to their
smugglers and traffickers.\11\ Today, children are being sold for
sex.\12\ Some children, girls and boys, will get sexually transmitted
diseases.\13\ Some girls--as young as 12, 11, or even 10 years old--
will give birth to children of their own. ``Forced labor and
prostitution among underage migrants have more than tripled under [the
current administration].''\14\ Today, desperate children will call
hotlines, to report they are being abused, neglected, and
trafficked.\15\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\9\ Slaughterhouse series/NBC News.
\10\ Children Risk Their Lives Building America's Roofs--The New
York Times (nytimes.com).
\11\ Finding The Feds' Missing Children/CHILD TRAFFICKING IN
AMERICA (muckraker.com).
\12\ U.S. Department of Health & Human Services Whistleblower
Reveals `Tax Dollars' Spent to `Put Migrant Children in the Hands of
Criminals'/Project Veritas.
\13\ Health Department released thousands of illegal immigrant kids
with latent tuberculosis infections--Washington Times.
\14\ Inside America's Fastest-Growing Criminal Enterprise: Sex
Trafficking/The Free Press.
\15\ Alone and Exploited--The New York Times (nytimes.com).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
For at least a decade, the United States Department of Health and
Human Services (HHS) has been responsible for the suffering of
countless children.\16\ This assessment is based solely on the
information currently available;\17\ however, it has been established
that the unknown factors significantly outweigh what is known. This
MUST change.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\16\ Majority & Minority Staff Report--Protecting Unaccompanied
Alien Children from Trafficking and Other Abuses 2016-01-282.pdf
(senate.gov).
\17\ 21st SW Grand Jury Releases Shocking Report/My Florida Legal.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
I'm confident we all agree that children should be protected and
defended. HHS has failed at that mission. HHS has a 10-year
demonstrated record \18\ of losing children to sponsors who traffick,
exploit, and harm children in unthinkable ways (see 2-Page Fact Sheet).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\18\ Overwhelmed Federal officials released immigrant teens to
traffickers in 2014--The Washington Post.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
To be fair, HHS is not an investigative or law enforcement
agency.\19\ They simply do not have the knowledge, skills, ability, or
tradecraft to protect children from traffickers. President-elect Donald
Trump's nominee for HHS Secretary, Robert Kennedy, Jr., is aware of
this crisis and his talented team is discussing solutions to end this
crisis.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\19\ carey-testimony.pdf (house.gov).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Child trafficking has evolved into an international syndicate of
gangs \20\ and cartels that is highly organized and very efficient.
Smugglers and traffickers, during this administration, have moved many
of the more than 500,000 unaccompanied children that have flooded
across the U.S. Southern Border.\21\ James O'Keefe's film ``Line In The
Sand'' shows exactly how children are moved through a vast network of
NGO's and delivered to sponsors.\22\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\20\ Gangs and Human Trafficking/National Gang Center (ojp.gov).
\21\ Scott, Grassley, and Bicameral Colleagues Call Out Abuses in
the Biden-Harris Unaccompanied Migrant Children Program--U.S. Senator
Tim Scott of South Carolina (senate.gov).
\22\ Line in the Sand Movie.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sadly, due to the failed open border policies of the Biden-Harris
administration, we have delivered these unaccompanied children to
criminals, traffickers, and members of transnational criminal
organizations \23\ who are using the UC Program as a white glove
delivery service of children. These criminal sponsors are defrauding
the U.S. Government by using the UC Program as the logistical chain of
their child trafficking operation.\24\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\23\ (460) DHS Insider Blows Whistle on Int'l Child Sex Trafficking
Gangs Exploiting `Reasonable Fear' Loophole--YouTube.
\24\ rodas-testimony.pdf (house.gov).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In June 2021, while serving at Pomona Fairplex Emergency Intake
Site (EIS) as the deputy to the director of the Federal Case Management
Team, I (and the Team) began reporting suspicious sponsor and suspected
trafficking cases. In June 2021, we thought less than 50 children were
affected. After funneling more than 8,300 children through the EIS in
less than 6 months, we knew thousands were affected. In February 2023
we learned from Hannah Dreier at the NYT that 85,000 children were
missing.\25\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\25\ Alone and Exploited--The New York Times (nytimes.com).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yet no action has been taken to rescue children. No action was
taken to prevent other children from being lost in slave labor,
commercial sex, organ harvesting, and other unspeakable evils.
Then, in July 2024, we learned that the Biden-Harris administration
has lost track of more than 320,000 children.\26\ \27\ \28\ HHS ignored
warning signals, demonstrated they were unable to identify trafficking
patterns and went so far as to establish a fundamentally flawed
rule,\29\ which demonstrated a clear inability to comprehend the
emerging threat landscape, accurately identify trafficking patterns,
and recognize critical indicators and warnings. Meanwhile, forced labor
and prostitution among underage migrants has more than tripled.\30\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\26\ Biden-Harris admin loses track of 320,000 migrant children--
with untold numbers at risk of sex trafficking and forced labor
(msn.com).
\27\ Management Alert--ICE Cannot Monitor All Unaccompanied Migrant
Children Released from DHS and U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services' Custody.
\28\ https://x.com/MJTruthUltra/status/1845201479818412334 [Bob
Unanue, CEO of Goya Foods].
\29\ Grassley and Senate Republicans Demand Changes to Biden Admin
Rule Endangering Safety and Wellbeing of Unaccompanied Alien Children.
\30\ Inside America's Fastest-Growing Criminal Enterprise: Sex
Trafficking/The Free Press (thefp.com).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
It's astonishing. How can this happen? It happens because HHS lacks
oversight, transparency, and accountability.
HHS must commit to oversight, transparency, and accountability.
The UC Portal database is the official system of record for the UC
Program. Currently, HHS denies direct access to the UC Portal data to
law enforcement and others who could use it to identify trafficking
activity, rescue exploited children and conduct critical oversight of
the UC placement program.\31\ But, there are simple data sharing and
data analytics solutions \32\ that will lead to the rescue of children,
the prosecution of criminal sponsors & traffickers, and the dismantling
of trafficking infrastructure.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\31\ Grassley Leads Bicameral Colleagues in Calling Out Abuses in
the Biden-Harris Unaccompanied Migrant Children Program (senate.gov).
\32\ Statement of Michael E. Horowitz, concerning ``Overseeing the
Overseers: Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and
Efficiency @ 10 Years'' (pandemicoversight.gov).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Data from the UC Portal database needs to be examined by expert
data analysts in the inspector general (IG) community. The IG
Empowerment Act of 2016 granted IGs the ability to request and match
datasets across Federal agencies by exempting IGs from the Computer
Matching Act.\33\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\33\ BILLS-114hr6450enr.pdf (Congress.gov).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Children could be rescued, criminal sponsors and traffickers could
be prosecuted, and trafficking networks could be dismantled if the IG
had direct access to data in the UC Portal database and could match it
with other data at agencies, not limited to but including, DHS and DOJ.
It's unthinkable that HHS Secretary Becerra is withholding critical
information regarding children and their sponsors, that could save the
lives of children.\34\ \35\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\34\ April 17, 2024--Attorney General Miyares Demands Biden
Administration Address Missing Migrant Children Crisis (state.va.us)
\35\ 02-22-ia-ms-ut-dhs-fbi-auc-final.pdf (scag.gov).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
It's devastating to know that after nearly 3\1/2\ years of sounding
the alarm, no significant action has been taken to rescue children.
According to oversight conducted by Senator Grassley, who has been a
true champion for these endangered children for the last decade, HHS
failed to fully comply even with subpoenas issued by DHS as it
investigated evidence of child exploitation he referred to law
enforcement earlier this year.\36\ At least in part because of this
obstruction, law enforcement was able to find less than 4 percent of
their targets (children and sponsors).\37\ This must stop, and sharing
of this data will help stop it.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\36\ Grassley Alerts DHS, FBI to Evidence of Human Trafficking;
Calls for Immediate Action to Locate & Rescue Migrant Children
(senate.gov).
\37\ Grassley Leads Bicameral Colleagues in Calling Out Abuses in
the Biden-Harris Unaccompanied Migrant Children Program (senate.gov).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In the new administration, there are simple fixes that Border Czar
Tom Homan, HHS Secretary Robert Kennedy, Jr., DHS Secretary Kristi
Noem, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, and others can
do to defend and protect children:
implement simple safety measures to include but not limited
to DNA testing
implement stringent penalties, including but not limited to
imprisonment for sponsors who are unable to account for a
child's whereabouts
hold release of all children until we rescue the missing
children
order HHS to share their data and comply with The IG
Empowerment Act \38\ \39\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\38\ CIGIE Statement on the Signing of the IG Empowerment Act.pdf.
\39\ BILLS-114hr6450enr.pdf.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
elevate the activity of child trafficking on the National
Intelligence Priorities Framework \40\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\40\ ICD_204_National_Intelligence_Priorities_Framework_U_FINAL-
SIGNED.pdf (NIPF).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
designate child trafficking as a terrorist activity so that
centers such as the National Counterterrorism Center \41\CTC),
Terrorist Screening Center \42\ (TSC), and National Targeting
Center \43\ (NTC) can provide manpower, tradecraft, and
immediate implementation of targeting trafficking networks.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\41\ NCTC Home.
\42\ Terrorist Screening Center--FBI.
\43\ CBP National Targeting Center/U.S. Customs and Border
Protection.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In closing, I'm confident we all agree that children should be
defended and protected. I'm eager to work with you to:
1. Rescue Children
2. Prosecute Traffickers and other Criminal ``Sponsors''
3. Dismantle Trafficking Infrastructure.
Thank you for your time and attention to the crisis of trafficked,
exploited, and missing migrant children.
I'd be happy to answer any questions you may have.
2-Page Overview of Child Trafficking in HHS's Unaccompanied Children
(UC) Program
summary
Smugglers and child traffickers are recruiting, harboring, and
transporting children to the United States; using force, fraud, and
coercion; for the purpose of involuntary servitude, debt bondage,
slavery, commercial sex, and possibly forced organ harvesting. By
exploiting flawed policies and deficiencies in the U.S. Department of
Health and Human Services' (HHS) Administration for Children & Families
(ACF) Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) Unaccompanied Children (UC)
Program, a sophisticated network of smugglers and traffickers are using
the U.S. Government as part of the logistical chain of their child
trafficking operation. Although the causes of the recent surge of
Unaccompanied Children (UCs) is debated, all stakeholders agree one
reason migrant children make the perilous journey to the United States
is they are ``brought into the United States by human trafficking
rings.'' (As per HHS's Fact Sheet).
documentation of a dark decade of child trafficking in hhs's uc program
2014 newspaper article highlighting the failures of HHS to
protect minors from trafficking: Overwhelmed Federal officials
released immigrant teens to traffickers in 2014--The Washington
Post
Senator Rob Portman's opening remarks at the 2016
Congressional hearing on HHS placement of migrant children
highlighting how HHS placed UCs in the hands of traffickers:
Portman's Opening Remarks--HHS Puts Children in the Hands of
Traffickers
The 2016 Congressional report highlighting HHS's failure to
protect children from trafficking: Majority & Minority Staff
Report--Protecting Unaccompanied Alien Children from
Trafficking and Other Abuses 2016-01-282.pdf (senate.gov)
The FRONTLINE documentary ``Trafficked in America''
highlighting how teenagers from Central America were smuggled
into the United States by traffickers who promised them jobs
and a better life--only to force them to live and work in
virtual slavery to pay off their debt. Trafficked in America
(full documentary)/FRONTLINE_YouTube
August 21, 2021 and October 21, 2021 interviews of DHS
Whistleblower, Aaron Stevenson, who exposed how MS-13 and other
Transnational Criminal Organizations are sponsoring children
through the HHS UC Program.
DHS Insider MS-13 (August 2021 interview in the shadows)
DHS Insider Goes PUBLIC (October 2021 on the record)
U.S. probes trafficking of teen migrants in August 2021
Trafficking Teen Migrants for Poultry-Plant Work
August 2022 news article on HHS's child trafficking
operation: child-trafficking-operation-at-southern-border
August 2022 interview of Whistleblower from MVM (the
contractor responsible for transporting UCs around the country
in the middle of the night) highlighting how UCs are delivered
to sponsors the UCs don't know: https://youtu.be/B2IU9FvIJtc
August 2022 interview with a Central American trafficker
describing the horrifying realities Unaccompanied Children face
in the United States to include labor trafficking, sex
trafficking, and forced organ harvesting: https://youtu.be/
ksJkZeHxk1s
November 29, 2022 press release and shocking video expose
(PART 1) on child trafficking by Project Veritas: PV_Child
Pimped Out for Sex
November 30, 2022 shocking video expose (PART 2) detailing
how traffickers exploit illegal child labor with social
security fraud; minor forced to pay back `debt': PV_Traffickers
Exploit Illegal Child Labor
January 19, 2023 video highlighting how at least 50 migrant
children were found working graveyard shifts cleaning Midwest
slaughterhouses: https://youtu.be/7haUShzBsrc
Feb 28, 2023 NYT article ``Alone and Exploited, Migrant
Children Work Brutal Jobs Across the US'' exposing how migrant
children are working and dying in the United States. NYT-
Alone_and_Exploited
March 1, 2023 NBC report titled ``Feds expand probe into
migrant child labor in slaughterhouses'' probing how children
from Central America were brought to the United States to work:
https://youtu.be/EjXgGIZISrM
March 6, 2023, Aaron Stevenson & Tara Rodas (aka ``Double
Trouble'') on the Kyle Seraphin Show: Double Trouble
March 29, 2023 3rd Presentment of the Florida Statewide
Grand Jury: FLGrandJuryPresentment-3-29-23
April 12, 2023 USDA letter to Members of the Meat and
Poultry Industry warning them to crack down on illegal child
labor. Combating illegal child labor (usda.gov)
April 12, 2023 NBC news ``A 16-year-old says he's still
cleaning a Kansas slaughterhouse months after his employer was
fined for employing kids'' exposing Dept of Labor's inability
to control illegal child labor. 16-Year-Old_Slaughterhouse
April 12, 2023 War Journalist shows Rape Kits for migrants
that are paid for with Government money. Michael_Yon-Rape Kits
Given to Migrants
April 13, 2023 NBC news segment identity-theft-linked-to-
illegal-work-in-slaughterhouses
April 17, 2023 Letter from Florida AG Moody to Congress
regarding HHS's & DHS's trafficking of UCs: 4-17-23
Letter_AG_Moody
April 17, 2023 NYT article, ``As Migrants Were Put to Work,
US Ignored Warnings.'' NYT-US Ignored Warnings
April 26, 2023: Testimony before the House Judiciary
Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and
Enforcement will hold a hearing on ``The Biden Border Crisis:
Exploitation of Unaccompanied Alien Children''
Link to Mrs. Rodas' Testimony: Tara Lee Rodas Full Opening
Statement
Link to full Congressional hearing: https://www.youtube.com/
live/Ehul6b-t09M?feature=share
July, 26, 2023 interview of 2-time whistleblower, Carlos
Arellano, on The Kyle Seraphin Show: https://rumble.com/
v32dld0-nyc-migrant-hotel-whistleblower-carlos-arellano-speaks-
out.html. This clip shows workers at the Row NYC complaining
about safety concerns: https://youtu.be/A88SHSGrHDU
October 2, 2023 Muckraker Twitter (X) undercover report
``Federal Child Trafficking Pipeline Exposed.'' https://
rumble.com/v3mfhq7-Federal-child-trafficking-pipeline-exposed-
the-real-sound-of-freedom-muckra.html
October 16th promo for ``Police State.'' Aaron Stevenson &
Tara Rodas were featured together: Twitter Promo-Police State
October 27th expose by America's Future of 4 HHS
Whistleblowers: Where Did The Children Go?_Americasfuture.net
October 30, 2023, 4th Presentment of the Florida Grand Jury
Florida-4th-Presentment-of-the-21st-Statewide-Grand-Jury
Nov 3rd Press Release & Call to Action by America's Future
on HHS's proposed rule change that would make trafficking of
the children more easy: Press Release: America's Future Issues
Call To Action: Oppose HHS's Proposed Rule
November 29, 2023 Aaron & Tara on the Kyle Seraphin Show
Opposing HHS's Proposed Rule Change: Kyle Aaron Tara
December 18, 2023 MSNBC expose titled ``Slaughterhouse
Children.'' Slaughterhouse Children: Child Labor Exposed
December 28, 2023 article by Hannah Dreier of the NYT:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/12/28/us/migrants-
children-
data.html?unlocked_article_code=1.K00.TtLo.xM2tex0SU_Cv&smid=url
-share
August 8, 2024 article in NY Post: Biden-Harris admin loses
track of 320,000 migrant children (nypost.com)
August 19, 2024 DHS OIG Report: Management Alert-ICE Cannot
Monitor All Unaccompanied Migrant Children Released from DHS
and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Custody
September 25, 2024 expose: Finding The Feds' Missing
Children/CHILD TRAFFICKING IN AMERICA (muckraker.com)
October 14, 2024 expose in the Free Press: Inside America's
Fastest-Growing Criminal Enterprise: Sex Trafficking/The Free
Press (thefp.com)
A sampling of the evidence above shows that HHS has lost control of
the UC Program. Immediate steps must be taken to safeguard vulnerable,
migrant children who come into the custody of HHS. It is unacceptable
for a Federal Government agency to place children in the hands of
unvetted and unsafe ``sponsors'' who are criminals, traffickers, and
members of Transnational Criminal Organizations (TCOs). HHS is
distributing migrant children across the country (though a
sophisticated delivery network), bypassing State authorities in a
secretive manner with limited transparency and inadequate oversight.
This lack of openness, consent, and coordination is unacceptable and is
contributing to the abuse, neglect, sexual exploitation, and
trafficking of migrant children.
congressional action
1. 12/5/22: Letter from 3 U.S. Senators to the U.S. Senate
Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
requesting a hearing to investigate Mrs. Rodas' claims:
79E2D68B-E48E-4FC2-8A52-879041840686 (senate.gov)
2. 12/5/22: Letter from 5 U.S. Senators to HHS Secretary Becerra
requesting a response to Mrs. Rodas' allegations: BEEFDA90-
4130-4BAF-BBAA-8F5080C35930 (senate.gov)
3. 4/26/23: House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity,
Security, and Enforcement hearing ``The Biden Border Crisis:
Exploitation of Unaccompanied Alien Children,'' (1) Tara Lee
Rodas Full Opening Statement (2) Full Congressional hearing:
https://www.youtube.com/live/Ehul6b-t09M?fea- ture=share
4. 9/12/2023: Press conference outside the U.S. Capitol, Rep. Smith
announced new legislation called the ``Safeguarding Endangered
Children, Unaccompanied and at Risk of Exploitation Act of
2023'' aka the ``SECURE Act of 2023.'' Ex-DHS agent who
inspired `Sound of Freedom,' GOP rep demand Biden admin find
85K `missing' migrant kids/Fox News
5. 9/13/2023: Testimony before the Committee on Homeland Security:
An Unbearable Price: The Devastating Human Costs of the Biden-
Mayorkas Border Crisis--Committee on Homeland Security
(house.gov)
6. 9/14/2023: Testimony before the House Foreign Affairs
Subcommittee on Global Health, Global Human Rights, and
International Organizations: Children Are Not for Sale
7. 12/4/2023: Press Release from Senator Grassley's office opposing
HHS's Proposed Rule Change: Grassley and Senate Republicans
Demand Changes to Biden Admin Rule Endangering Safety and
Wellbeing of Unaccompanied Alien Children
8. 1/22/2024: Press Release from House Judiciary Committee:
Chairman Jordan Subpoenas HHS Secretary Becerra for Information
on Criminal- and Gang-Affiliated UACs, Placement of UACs/House
Judiciary Committee Republicans
9. 1/24/2024: Press Release from Senator Grassley: Grassley Alerts
DHS, FBI to Evidence of Human Trafficking
Data Fidelity, Data Fusion, Data Distribution A PACE-Like Solution to
Combat Child Trafficking
by Aaron Stevenson (former DHS intel) and Tara Rodas (former HHS
detailee)
key takeaways
A PACE-like entity can centralize and fuse data across DHS,
DOJ, HHS, and other agencies to uncover patterns in child
trafficking networks that isolated systems cannot detect. This
will create the ability to both (1) rescue children and (2)
prevent other children from being lost in slave labor,
commercial sex, organ harvesting, or other activities.
By streamlining the flow of intelligence through watch-list
packages, the PACE-like system enables real-time collaboration
between Federal, State, and local law enforcement to respond
swiftly to trafficking threats.
Integrating contractor and NGO performance data allows a
PACE-like model to proactively identify fraud, waste, and
abuse, enhancing accountability and safeguarding resources
intended for vulnerable children.
Just as the PRAC's PACE offered a solution to pandemic-related
oversight challenges, a similar approach can be applied to address the
trafficking of Unaccompanied Children, where the need for coordinated
data analysis and integration across agencies is critical.
The solution to the trafficking crisis of Unaccompanied Children
(UC) shares significant parallels with the challenges faced during the
pandemic response, particularly in terms of resource distribution and
oversight. During the pandemic, multiple Government agencies struggled
to track and account for large-scale disbursements of relief funds, due
to disjointed systems and lack of coordination.
The Pandemic Analytics Center of Excellence (PACE) at the Pandemic
Response Accountability Committee (PRAC)--using the best practices from
the former Recovery Accountability and Transparency (RAT) Board's
Recovery Operations Center (ROC), which supported OIGs in oversight of
the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009--emerged as an
effective solution to these problems, empowering oversight through the
consolidation of data from different agencies. The PACE utilized
advanced data analytics to detect fraud, waste, and abuse, identifying
patterns that individual departments or contractors alone could not.
A PACE-like entity operating under the framework of the Council of
the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency (CIGIE) could be
critical in addressing the growing issue of child trafficking by
harmonizing the efforts of different agencies involved. Such an entity
would play a vital role in fusing information from various Government
departments, identifying trafficked children and sponsors, and pushing
vital intelligence to law enforcement at all levels.
data integration for identifying trafficked children and sponsors
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Department of
Health and Human Services (HHS) currently manage the process for
handling Unaccompanied Children who cross the border. The children are
initially apprehended by Border Patrol (BP) and/or Customs and Border
Protection (CBP) under DHS, held for up to 3 days, and then transferred
to HHS custody. HHS is responsible for placing these children with
sponsors, often relying on contractors to manage case files and perform
the necessary due diligence.
However, existing challenges are threefold:
HHS lacks access to critical datasets from other agencies
like DHS, the Department of Justice (DOJ), and State or local
law enforcement databases
HHS lack tradecraft and ability to identify trafficking
patterns
DOJ/DHS/non-Federal law enforcement have demonstrated an
inability to accurately and timely find trafficked children
HHS remains an unresponsive entity to adhere to subpoenas.
This fragmentation creates gaps which traffickers have operated
freely.
A PACE-like entity could solve this by centralizing access to these
disparate datasets, creating a comprehensive, real-time database that
includes immigration data (DHS and layered through numerous
compartments), criminal records and unclassified intelligence
information of transnational criminal organizations (DOJ), sponsor
verification data (HHS), and more. By aggregating data from across
these Federal departments and integrating it, this entity would enable
the capabilities to quickly, efficiently, and thoroughly identify the
children and sponsors for accountability and if necessary, recovery
operations. This entity could identify patterns and anomalies in the
sponsor system that suggests trafficking activity, such as (but not
limited to):
Multiple children placed with a single sponsor
A pattern commonly associated with trafficking networks
Sponsors with criminal records or known ties to human
trafficking
Data integration could flag potential traffickers that
might have otherwise been missed in isolated departmental
checks
Frequent movement between States or sudden transfers of
sponsorship
Another red flag that could indicate trafficking networks
shuffling children to avoid detection.
By merging all this information, the PACE-like entity would create
a comprehensive and constantly updated footprint of child placements,
ensuring that trafficked children and fraudulent sponsors are more
quickly and accurately identified.
Once the PACE-like entity successfully identifies suspicious
patterns and trafficked individuals, the next vital step is to ensure
that this intelligence is swiftly communicated to the appropriate law
enforcement agencies for action.
data sharing and law enforcement collaboration
Once the PACE-like entity identifies suspicious patterns or
confirmed cases of trafficking, it must act quickly to distribute this
information to law enforcement agencies. A key function of this model
would be the creation and dissemination of ``watch-list packages'' (CBP
conducts transnational organized crime [TOC] watchlisting) for Federal,
State, and local law enforcement. This would mirror the pandemic-era
data-sharing approach, where Federal agencies used tools like the PACE
to push important fraud data to local levels.
In practice, this would work as follows:
Watchlist Packages
Whenever the PACE-like entity identifies a suspicious
sponsor or trafficking network, it can automatically
generate a detailed watch-list package, which includes all
relevant data (criminal history, sponsor records, movement
patterns, etc.) and flags the individual or group for
immediate investigation.
Interagency Data Flow
These packages could be pushed to agencies ranging from
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to State and
local police, who would be equipped with the necessary
intelligence to track down traffickers or intervene before
children disappear into exploitative networks.
Real-Time Alerts
Law enforcement could be alerted in real-time to emerging
threats or anomalies. This allows immediate action on
suspicious sponsor applications or child transfers,
improving response times and potentially preventing
trafficking incidents.
This systematic flow of information would allow Federal, State, and
local agencies to operate cohesively in targeting traffickers. The
ability to access unified data from multiple agencies and quickly
disseminate it to law enforcement will ensure that critical information
doesn't slip through bureaucratic gaps, as it often does in the current
system.
While timely information sharing with law enforcement is crucial
for addressing immediate threats, the PACE-like entity's role extends
further--identifying and mitigating fraud, waste, and abuse in the
broader system, especially within NGO's and contractors tasked with
handling these vulnerable children.
detecting fraud, waste, and abuse in ngo's and contractors
Much like how PACE was instrumental in identifying fraudulent
contractors and bad actors during the pandemic, a PACE-like entity
overseeing child trafficking could identify cases of fraud, waste, and
abuse among the non-governmental organizations (NGO's) and contractors
tasked with managing the care and placement of children. Currently,
these organizations operate under HHS and often rely on case workers,
some of whom are volunteers or contractors, to verify sponsor
information and manage child cases.
The complexity of these contracts--ranging from case management to
transportation and service delivery--presents ample opportunity for
exploitation, especially if oversight is weak. A PACE-like model can
apply the same pattern analysis and fraud detection techniques used to
uncover financial fraud during the pandemic to track misuse of
Government resources in this context, which would include (but not
limited to):
Analyzing Contractor Performance
By integrating contract and case management data, this
entity could identify patterns of underperformance or fraud
by NGO's and contractors, such as mismanagement of cases,
improper screening of sponsors, or the misallocation of
funds intended for child services.
Spotting Fraudulent Activity
The PACE-like entity could also identify contractors or
NGO's with unusually high rates of sponsor placements that
later turn out to be fraudulent, suggesting complicit
behavior or negligence in vetting. Using a combination of
contract data, payment information, and case outcomes, this
entity could flag bad actors and push that information back
to HHS for contract termination or legal action.
Reducing Waste
By automating the analysis of contracts and service
delivery outcomes, this entity could also help reduce waste
and improve the efficiency of the system, ensuring that
funds allocated for the care of Unaccompanied Children are
spent effectively and not lost to inefficiency or
corruption.
By tackling these systemic inefficiencies and potential abuses, the
PACE-like entity ensures a more transparent and accountable framework,
setting the stage for a comprehensive solution to combat child
trafficking and better protect unaccompanied minors.
lasting impact
In addition to its primary role of identifying trafficked children
and fraudulent sponsors, the PACE-like entity would play a crucial role
in shaping and informing border policies to prevent trafficking before
it occurs. By analyzing large datasets and detecting patterns of
exploitation, this entity can provide key insights and recommendations
that drive the creation of best practices at the border.
One significant policy enhancement that could be supported by this
entity is the implementation of mandatory DNA testing for individuals
claiming to be relatives of unaccompanied minors. Currently, sponsors
can sometimes falsely claim familial ties, which traffickers exploit to
gain custody of children. Mandatory DNA testing would help confirm
familial relationships, drastically reducing fraudulent claims. By
analyzing data from such tests in combination with other records, the
PACE-like entity would be able to monitor trends and continuously
refine screening processes to make them more effective.
Additionally, this entity could guide data collection efforts at
the border, recommending the capture of biometric data (e.g.,
fingerprints, facial recognition) and cross-referencing it with
criminal records and watch lists from DOJ and DHS databases. This
integration of data collection practices would ensure that individuals
attempting to exploit or traffic children are flagged before they can
enter the system.
Through its insights, this entity could advocate for other key
policy recommendations, such as (but not limited to):
Continuous vetting procedures for sponsors, which include
background checks across multiple agency databases.
Continuous monitoring of sponsor-child relationships post-
placement, to identify any red flags of trafficking or abuse.
Inter-agency collaboration protocols, ensuring that border
officials, case workers, and law enforcement agencies follow
consistent and thorough screening methods to prevent
trafficking.
By continuously refining these practices based on emerging
trafficking patterns, the PACE-like entity would not only respond to
trafficking incidents but also prevent future cases by shaping more
robust, data-driven policies at the border.
conclusion
The creation of a PACE-like entity under CIGIE could significantly
enhance the ability to combat child trafficking by centralizing and
analyzing data from across Government departments, identifying
trafficked children and fraudulent sponsors, and pushing critical
intelligence to law enforcement. The integration of data sets from DHS,
DOJ, HHS, and other sources would allow for a more holistic view of
trafficking networks and improve the identification of fraud, waste,
and abuse within the system. By providing law enforcement with real-
time, actionable intelligence and rooting out bad actors among NGO's
and contractors, this approach could help protect vulnerable children
and bring traffickers to justice.
Systems of Data
HHS
DHS
DOJ
And other various agencies.
Mr. Higgins. Thank you, Ms. Rodas.
Members will be recognized by order of seniority for their
5 minutes of questioning. An additional round of questioning
may be called after all Members have been recognized.
I need to advise Members, we have votes scheduled for 4
o'clock, so I'm going to be strict about 5 minutes. Please
watch the clock, keep your questioning to 5 minutes.
I now recognize myself for 5 minutes of questioning.
America needs to understand that the historical model of
the cartel operations has changed quite drastically in the last
4 years.
We had always envisioned that the criminal cartels,
essentially born in their modern form in the 1980's and 1990's,
have taken control of the criminal operations and the pipelines
for drugs and human beings across Central America and Mexico up
to our entire Southern Border, which is 1,954 miles of
sovereign border. As Americans, we envision the cartels operate
south of that border. They traffic drugs and human beings to
the border, they make a lot of money doing it, it's all
criminal, they're brutal. We have envisioned that there was
always a measure of sovereign protection of our Nation at the
Southern Border and cartel operations sort-of stopped.
We also recognize that, within the interior of our country,
we have traditional criminal networks that exist in our
densities of population, commonly run by gangs. Those
operations, although similar to cartel operations, were not
nearly as organized or incredibly well-funded, but they
operated independently of the cartels in many, many hundreds of
factions across the country.
What America has to understand right now is that the cartel
operations now operate across the entire United States, and
their pipelines continue through Central America and Mexico,
across our Southern Border, into our major cities. I have
reports of entire buildings held by cartels, old hotels and
apartment complexes the cartels are buying for cash, taking
possession of for cash. They are running their operations out
of there--not one, but several buildings like that in the
density of population, a network of sexual slavery operations
and drug distribution operations, each easy to walk away from
on short notice of a pending raid by law enforcement.
America has to understand that this has happened; that,
historically, the cartels would bring their product--human
beings and drugs--to the Southern Border, there'd be some level
of interaction by CBP, by Federal law enforcement, State and
local law enforcement, and then unaccompanied children would be
processed through HHS and turned over to nongovernmental
organizations, where they would be turned over to family
sponsors, either family or non-family, but sponsors that were
vetted in some manner.
This is a memorandum of understanding that operated for a
long time--it was quite significant--between the Office of
Refugee Resettlement and United States Department of Health and
Human Services, the beginning process by which unaccompanied
children were delivered to sponsors that were vetted.
Because of the volume of children that were coming across
in the last 4 years--and a part of that, the HHS and DHS joint
statement of termination of this agreement--and this is from
March 2021, my brothers and sisters. This was a policy decision
to step away from the strict means by which these children were
monitored and controlled. What it was replaced with was this
Sponsor Care Agreement--there's nothing to this; it's 3\1/2\--2
pages of nothing--that the criminal networks can easily take
advantage of. So we have now delivered hundreds of thousands of
unaccompanied children to unvetted sponsors that have enslaved
them across our country.
Ms. Hopper, you have done some brilliant research on the
connection between trafficking--human trafficking--south of the
border and as it networks into our country. Please expound upon
what I've been discussing today.
Ms. Hopper. Thank you, Chairman Higgins.
You're correct, the terrorists, the cartels--sorry, the
terms are interchangeable to me--they do know our policies and
the 94 actions that were rescinded upon the new current
administration coming in.
They actually do use our programs and the manner in which
we process unaccompanied children against us. They actually use
Border Patrol and refer to them as ``migrant Uber.'' They know,
once migrants cross the border, it's one phone call away; the
Border Patrol picks them up and processes them. Then they know
to write the number and name of the sponsor of the child--
sorry.
Mr. Higgins. I'm not stopping you. I'm just telling you
we're out of time here.
Ms. Hopper. Oh. Sorry.
Mr. Higgins. Thank you, ma'am.
My time has expired, and I recognize the Ranking Member,
Mr. Correa, for 5 minutes of questions.
Mr. Correa. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I hear your testimony, and anybody who's listening to your
testimony has to cringe, to think of what you're saying and the
words, what they mean.
Looking at some data, the biggest number, the biggest group
of sex-trafficked minors, reported cases, are American-citizen
children of the United States. So the Chairman's discussion
that this is an international ring operating--rings, I should
say--operating across international lines is absolutely
correct.
We have a lot of work to do. We're going to have to work
with our partners to make sure we begin to address this
challenge.
You know, last week, I heard David Beasley, former Governor
of South Carolina, speaking. He was at The Aspen Institute
talking about hunger in the world. It was interesting because,
at this lecture, it was standing-room-only. We had Senators and
Congress Members there listening to his discussion.
His message was a sad one. It was a message, a warning to
us. He was telling us that hunger around the world is only
going to get worse. The situation around the world is in a
crisis mode, and as soon as parts of the world like Africa and
the rest of Latin America begin to really starve, heaven help
us.
If you don't take my word for it, take his. He won a Nobel
Prize recently. He is former head of the U.N. world food relief
organization.
I say this to you because, again, during my opening
statement I said, we've got to figure out the roots of this
challenge. We can shut off the border. We'll do that. I doubt
if it's going to work. You're still going to have children
being trafficked. There's always a way when there's a profit to
be made.
So, in my 3 minutes I have left, I'm going to--very complex
issue, trying to break it down into little pieces. But I'm
going to ask each one of you, very succinctly, tell me, what
would you do that would be quick and effective to stop sex
trafficking?
Mr. Carrell? In a few words, a couple of sentences.
Mr. Carrell. Yes, sir.
In order to stop child sex trafficking coming across the
border, the border must be closed, period.
Mr. Correa. To tourists? To commerce? All of the above?
Mr. Carrell. Sir, we have ports of entry. That's where we
come through, ports of entry. We don't come----
Mr. Correa. Thank you.
Mr. Carrell [continuing]. Through a steel fence. No, thank
you.
Mr. Correa. Ms. Hopper, what would you say? What would your
answer be?
Ms. Hopper. To actually build on what Mr. Carrell was
saying, once the borders are closed, reinstate DNA testing.
Mr. Correa. Thank you.
Ms. Larin.
Ms. Larin. You know, we found that child trafficking is
complex. It involves law enforcement, it involves services to
children, it involves multiple programs across the Federal
Government. I think better coordination between those programs
will help.
Mr. Correa. Ms. Rodas.
Ms. Rodas. I believe we must designate child trafficking as
a terrorist activity. This would unlock critical
counterterrorism tools, including expanded intelligence
collection, interagency collaboration, and financial sanctions
to dismantle trafficking infrastructure through interagency
cooperation.
Mr. Correa. Would that include additional resources?
Ms. Rodas. No.
Mr. Correa. OK. Thank you.
Ms. Larin, I'm going to focus on you in the last minute I
have.
Twenty-twenty, GAO identified a host of problems with the
Trump administration management of temporary shelters: failing
to check State licenses of providers who ran these shelters,
failing to conduct audits to ensure the facilities met
standards, insufficient information sharing with their
agencies.
Anything happen with that? Were those issues taken care of?
Ms. Larin. Yeah. As I mentioned in my testimony, we made 8
recommendations covering all of those deficiencies that we
found in our work during 2018 and 2019. Of them, 5 of the
recommendations have been closed as implemented, and 3 of the
recommendations are still open but progress has been made to
address them.
Mr. Correa. Which ones would those be, in the last 30
seconds here?
Ms. Larin. I'm sorry?
Mr. Correa. Which of the 3 recommendations are still open?
Ms. Larin. There's still recommendations open related to
maintaining--ensuring that policies are being followed and
maintaining records accurately.
Mr. Correa. Thank you very much.
Mr. Chairman, I'm out of time. I yield.
Mr. Higgins. The gentleman yields.
Mr. Bishop is recognized.
Mr. Bishop. So, Mr. Carrell, we're hearing some amazing
things today: children being sacrificed to harvest organs. Of
course, somebody said they don't--Mr. Ivey said he's not so
sure about that. You've got the amazing 8-year-old with
sexually transmitted diseases, 12-year-old 9 months pregnant.
My colleagues on the Minority are very concerned, though,
about your language. What do you think of that?
Mr. Carrell. I find it fascinating and interesting that,
after hearing about all this testimony--and, right now,
thousands of children are being raped; that's just statistical
probability, 100 percent. Children are being murdered. I'm
going to quote President Trump when he said, ``A lot of these
children are already dead.''
What I find fascinating is, all of this that we've got to
talk about, all this tragedy that we're dealing with, and we
want to talk about what I said about Speaker Johnson in a
podcast that I don't even remember.
I think maybe it goes back to the Congressman. Would he
like to ask me a question that has any relevance to helping
secure these children?
Then you go back further, sir. The reason why we are in
this position is because we destroyed the border--not just the
Southern Border, the Northern Border, and both coastlines.
This is a tragedy. It is treason, because this is not bad
policy or bad mistakes or somebody's incompetent; this is
intentional. So, when you do intentional acts against your
Nation, that is treason.
I'll be glad to talk about Speaker Johnson and him funding
NGO's to the hilt. I would love to talk about that as well.
Mr. Bishop. Ms. Hopper, I sat in another briefing on this
subject, and one of the witnesses there, a libertarian guy as I
recall, sort-of said, these people that have all gone off-grid,
the people that ORR can't contact, that there's no problem, and
if they don't want--they sort-of live--they don't want to have
contact with official sources, but they're fine.
I find that to be amazing, but can you respond to that? I
mean, you've seen a fair number of things, it sounds like.
Ms. Hopper. So, if American citizens can't deflect from
agencies like CPS and just respond and say, ``Oh, these
children are fine, you don't need to do a home check'' or
foster-care checks or welfare checks on American citizens, and
you don't take American citizens' words that the children are
fine, why would you take the word of a sponsor who you don't
know, don't have accurate background records?
If they are an illegal migrant, many background checks
haven't been done on them. So we are handing kids over to known
MS-13 members and known pedophiles.
So I'm sorry, I'm not willing to take someone's word that
the child is OK.
Mr. Bishop. Isn't that unbelievable, callous indifference,
to take the position that these people are just, you know, not
wanting to be in touch with authorities? Isn't that a horrific
disregard of human beings that you know are being abused and
suffering? Would you agree?
Ms. Hopper. I agree.
Mr. Bishop. Ms. Rodas, what--one of the--Mr. Correa, I
believe, just made the point that the United States is already
the--I think he said the leading location of sex trafficking in
the United States. We've been having whatever resources are in
law enforcement already sorely tested.
What will happen to the American children that might be
rescued from sex trafficking if our already over-taxed, over-
burdened law enforcement resources have to bear this additional
immense burden? What's going to--aren't they all going to
suffer, all the children who would benefit from those services,
if you just have more and more of them, unless we can pay more
and more?
How much would it cost, how many trillions of dollars would
it cost to stop this entirely?
Ms. Rodas. Well, I would submit that you could save a few
billion dollars by not running the program in the manner that
it's being run.
I'm very unclear as to why we're luring children to the
United States to be the white-glove delivery system of these
children to known MS-13, 18th Street Gang, Russian Balkan crime
syndicates, and other unsavory characters?
We've known since February 2021, when DHS whistleblower
Aaron Stevenson came forward, we've known since 2015, when DHS
whistleblower Jason Piccolo came forward, that children are
being used. So we----
Mr. Bishop. My time's expired.
Ms. Rodas. Yes, sir.
Mr. Bishop. Very well said. Someone may get a chance to
follow up.
I yield back.
Mr. Higgins. The gentleman's time has expired.
Mr. Ivey is recognized.
Mr. Ivey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Ms. Rodas, you picked up 2 books there. What were they?
Ms. Rodas. So this book is actually called ``Out of the
Shadows'' by Dr. Jason Piccolo. He was the very first
whistleblower, in 2015, so prior to when the Chairman
referenced the severing of the DHS and HHS information-sharing
agreement because they didn't want chilling on their sponsors.
At one point, this brave whistleblower, when he was looking
and had the ability to look at the data, said, hey, we are
giving children to criminals and pedophiles and traffickers.
That was 2015.
Mr. Ivey. OK. That was 2015.
What was the other book I think you had?
Ms. Rodas. Oh, it wasn't a book, sir.
Mr. Ivey. Oh, I'm sorry.
Ms. Rodas. No, I referenced Aaron Stevenson, who is the DHS
whistleblower from 2021.
Mr. Ivey. Uh-huh.
Ms. Rodas. He was the TOC Mission expert--that's the
Transnational Organized Crime Mission expert. He identified the
very first time in the history of the program that a TOC
member, because of all the relaxation of the vetting, was able
to sponsor a child.
That brave whistleblower lost his job for coming forward to
expose child sex trafficking.
Mr. Ivey. All right.
Let me ask a couple of questions to follow up on what I
think I've heard. I think you and Ms. Hopper mentioned resuming
DNA testing----
Ms. Rodas. Yes, sir.
Mr. Ivey [continuing]. As steps that should be taken?
Prison for sponsors who lose their--I wrote ``charges,''
but unaccompanied children--I think that was you, Ms. Rodas--as
a solution?
Ms. Rodas. Yes.
Mr. Ivey. OK.
Do you know if there's Federal law that covers that, or do
you think Federal law would need to be implemented to address
that?
Ms. Rodas. We would probably need to say--yeah, we would
need to put in a law, because it doesn't currently exist.
I think it's very important for people to understand----
Mr. Ivey. All right.
Ms. Rodas [continuing]. Just like PRS is not enforceable--
--
Mr. Ivey. Fair enough. I'm running out of time. I
apologize.
You also mentioned that you thought this was a 10-year
problem. You raised concerns about HHS not having the tools or
the expertise to address some of these problems because of the
cartel involvement, I take it, that has become part of this?
Ms. Rodas. Well, even Mr. Carey, who used to formally be
with HHS, he's even said, they're not law enforcement. They
know----
Mr. Ivey. OK.
Ms. Rodas [continuing]. They're not law enforcement.
Mr. Ivey. So that would be DOJ, then, potentially, or other
law enforcement entities that should be more involved with
this?
Ms. Rodas. Absolutely.
Mr. Ivey. All right.
Then--boy, I think this was Ms. Larin?
You mentioned--to Mr. Correa too--that some of the changes
that had been made--more accurate licenses, better information
regarding past allegations of misconduct--because sometimes
entities would, even though they'd been identified for
misconduct, would still be receiving unaccompanied children--
that that needed to be addressed.
Is that fair?
Ms. Larin. Yeah, that's correct.
Mr. Ivey. All right.
Then you said something about improving the ability to
confirm that kids are in school, aware of their court dates and
the like.
I was curious about how that would be done. Would that--
you'd have to increase the number of people who have oversight
over these children? Or how would that work?
Ms. Larin. I mean, what we're really asking for is
documentation. We're asking that, when they reach out and
children receive post-release services, HHS keeps a record of
that so that they can show which kids have gotten the services,
which haven't.
Mr. Ivey. I see. So when the----
Ms. Larin. That's what they haven't been able to do.
Mr. Ivey [continuing]. Kids reach out, if they call, for
example, that that would be tracked?
Ms. Larin. Exactly.
Mr. Ivey. OK.
Then, Mr. Carrell--I apologize; I'm running out of time--
you had 3 points--well, first of all, let me--let's--the organ
harvesting issue.
So, Ms. Hopper, I think you identified issues, but I think
the ones you mentioned were in Mexico. Are there any you're
pointing to in the United States? Not that that makes it
better, but I just want to make sure we know what we're talking
about here.
Ms. Hopper. You are correct. You had mentioned that there
were no footnotes. I was not going to put an incarcerated
cartel member's information out there, but that would be the
footnote.
However, they were harvested for buyers that were in the
United States looking for those organs.
Mr. Ivey. Well, for footnotes, what I would mean in that
instance would be, for example, if there are cases that have
been brought to prosecute, you could cite those.
But the fact that--I just want to nail down, they are not
in the United States.
Mr. Carrell, you made an allegation about organ harvesting
as well. Are you saying that's taking place in the United
States or somewhere else?
Mr. Carrell. In my documentary, I interview multiple
people----
Mr. Ivey. Please give me the quick answer.
Mr. Carrell. Yes, this is happening in America. To deny
that is----
Mr. Ivey. I'm not asking you to deny it. But have any
charges been brought against anyone for doing that?
Mr. Carrell. I don't know that right now, sir.
Mr. Ivey. OK.
Then you mentioned that, as your 3 parts to your solution,
every single one of the 550,000 unaccompanied children should
be identified.
After they are identified, what is the next step in the
process that would happen there? What happens to those kids
after we identify them?
Mr. Carrell. We make sure they're safe.
Mr. Ivey. By--in what way? What do you have in mind?
Mr. Carrell. What do you mean by ``what''--I don't
understand the question, by what way?
Mr. Higgins. The gentleman's time has expired.
Mr. Carrell. I don't understand.
Mr. Higgins. The gentleman's time has expired.
Mr. Guest is recognized for 5 minutes for questioning.
Mr. Guest. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Carrell, first, I want to thank you for your 24 years
of service to your country and for all that you are doing to
call attention to the crisis along our Southwest Border.
Ms. Hopper, I also want to thank you, as well, and direct
my questions first to you, Ms. Hopper.
You state in your written testimony, you talk about this
not being a political issue, that this is, in fact, a
humanitarian crisis that has costed the lives of countless
children. You go on to talk about the devastation that you've
seen first-hand and that you have seen cartel members operating
with impunity along our Southwest Border.
We are well aware of human trafficking and the number of
individuals who are brought into the country illegally, both
children and adults, some of those forced into modern-day
slavery to pay back the cost of their safe travel across the
border.
We're also very well aware of sex trafficking. We're aware
that individuals are brought into the country and they're sex-
trafficked once they are--sex-trafficked once they've entered
the country.
You do a great job in your report talking about issues of
sexual violence that occur during transit. You talk about
that--you say here that there's a disturbing aspect of cartel
operations and the sexual exploitation that occurs at specific
points along the smuggling route. You even refer to those as
what are known as ``rape trees,'' where young women and in some
cases possibly young men are sexually assaulted by those
individuals that are giving them passage across the border.
So, while we as the committee are well aware of those
allegations, you also bring up another disturbing, shocking new
category, I guess, if you will--and I think, Mr. Carrell, you
may have addressed that briefly as well--involving the
harvesting of organs and that drug cartels are now moved into
this new category of activity involving organ harvesting.
In many cases, it seems like, from reading your testimony--
I'm going to ask you to expand on that in just a minute--that
these are migrants who are attempting to travel into the United
States--that drug cartels are, in cases, harvesting organs of
those individuals. You said that this is a common practice that
occurs at both veterinarian clinics and hospitals, I'm assuming
there in Mexico.
You even talk about a report from August 2024 where there
were 2 American college students who were there in Mexico who
were drugged, with the belief that they were to be apprehended
so that their organs could be harvested.
So, as we move into this, I just want to give you a minute
to enlighten our committee about what you have found as it
relates specifically to drug cartels, which are now moving into
this disturbing new arena of harvesting organs of individuals
attempting to come to the United States.
Ms. Hopper. Thank you for the opportunity to expand on
that.
During the interview with the former Sinaloa Cartel
affiliate, he expanded on a lot of these, a lot of what you
highlighted.
He expanded on the fact that these migrant children,
especially if they're traveling without their parent, there is
no way to communicate whether they've made it through their
journey or not. If a cartel member or a smuggler gets a call
that there is a specific organ that they're looking for, they
will scout out those organs, and especially focus on migrant
children, namely for the fact that they are vulnerable, they're
unable to fight back, and, you know, as horrid as it sounds,
their organs are more, you know, intact and in better shape.
So there is no way to communicate with these children once
they've crossed into the border, so they kind-of disappear
along the way.
Mr. Guest. Mr. Carrell, let me ask you, since you've also
talked on this subject, briefly, do you agree with the
assessment of Ms. Hopper on the organ harvesting? Do you have
anything that you would like to add?
Mr. Carrell. Organ harvesting is real. To think that it's
not--that we're trafficking--this Federal Government is
bringing children over that are being lost, sexually mutilated,
sexually raped, murdered, and then we're shocked or appalled
that there could be organ harvesting?
The people I've interviewed, multiple people, said--and I
asked them, is this an anomaly, is this a one-off? No. This is
pervasive and is growing daily.
Mr. Guest. Thank you.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Mr. Higgins. The gentleman yields.
Mrs. Ramirez is recognized for questions.
Mrs. Ramirez. Thank you, Chairmen and Ranking Members.
You know, I'm not surprised that my Republican colleagues
here, including one who has so candidly and callously posted
racist tweets about Haitian immigrants, are calling up yet
another witness with no credibility on the hearing topic, who
believe in conspiracy theories, write about it and promote
lies, all to write extremist ideologies, to be here.
On your X account, Mr. Carrell, formerly Twitter, you
asked, ``What is treason?'' Well, let me answer for you. This
right here, this is treason.
In one of your tweets, you claimed violent January 6th
rioters who destroyed public property and attempted to stop a
democratic transition of power as ``political prisoners.'' I
find it to be shameful that a former law enforcement agent
would defend a mob who beat law enforcement officers protecting
this very building.
In another post, you write, ``Mass deportations will be
swift, but they will be deadly.'' Actually, I agree with you on
that; they will be deadly. So I find it unforgivable that you,
Trump, and Republican Members of this committee would even
advocate for it.
In another post, you say, we should destroy the Federal
Government and that the Federal Government is the enemy. I find
it odd, considering you were once a Federal employee and you've
been begging to come back into the incoming Trump
administration for a new job.
Last, you posted that the Federal Government is the
epicenter of pedophilia--an outright falsehood, with perhaps
the exception of Trump's stellar Attorney General pick.
I have no questions for you. No one serious about our role
here should be asking you questions. Your misleading statements
are counterproductive.
This committee, tomorrow, is supposed to be having--
although I'm hearing we may not have--a committee hearing on
worldwide threats. To me and so many others, the fearmongering,
the racist ``invasion'' rhetoric that you and extremist
Republicans spread, in my opinion, is probably the truest
threat to our homeland.
So, Ms. Larin, I want to ask you a question.
First, let me start by saying, more than 4,000 children
were forcibly separated from their parents under Trump's family
separation policy, including infants who were literally removed
from their mothers' arms.
Because of that administration's cruelty and incompetence,
more than 1,400 of these children still have not been reunited
with their parents more than 6 years later. They may never be
reunited with their parents.
Trump has said that he will do it again; he will deport and
separate families.
Ms. Larin, can you tell us why it's been so difficult to
reunite children separated under President Trump?
Ms. Larin. You know, there are several reasons.
First, there was no planning before the separation policy
was put in place, so DHS and ORR didn't have an opportunity to
put procedures in place to track the children.
There was no database that both agencies could access and
share to track the whereabouts of the children. In HHS's
database, ORR's database, there was no field to indicate even
whether a child had been separated from a parent.
So it became a very labor-intensive paper process to
reunite children with their family members that has taken many
years and, as you say, is on-going.
Mrs. Ramirez. Do you think that particularly the babies,
the toddlers, the 1-year-olds who were ripped away from their
families will ever be reunited?
Ms. Larin. They were particularly difficult to reunite
because they could not advocate for themselves.
Mrs. Ramirez. Yeah. Thank you.
Look, folks, you're going to--you have a trifecta. You'll
have an opportunity to pass solutions. We want to address the
issues, and, look, I'm the first to tell you, I don't want to
hear about one woman being raped crossing that border. My
mother experienced it while pregnant with me, crossing that
border.
So let me tell you something. If you decide that you are
going to be the party that's going to bring solutions and
create the legal pathway so no child is kidnapped, raped, or no
woman is, then I look forward to working with you on that.
But if all we're going to continue to do in this committee
is bring people here who continue to dehumanize children and
families who are risking everything because they have lost
everything crossing that border, then I'm going to continue to
push back and fight back.
Because I actually understand what's happening in these
countries. I have visited these countries. I want to get to the
root cause of migration. I want to get to solutions. You've
been talking about policy solutions; you're----
Mr. Higgins. The gentlelady's time has expired.
Mrs. Ramirez [continuing]. Going to have the opportunity to
do it.
Mr. Higgins. The gentlewoman from Georgia, Ms. Greene, is
recognized for 5 minutes.
Ms. Greene. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The root cause of migration is a Federal Government that
has legalized an invasion into this country. That's the root
cause.
You talk about treason. I can tell you right now, I
consider that treason against American citizens. This has been
an invasion in this country, and the cartels have benefited by
tens of billions of dollars.
Mass deportations cannot happen fast enough, not fast
enough, not for the cartels, terrorist gangs, and criminals
that have made billions and billions of dollars, and children
have been the biggest victims of it.
Human trafficking is a $150-billion-a-year industry. In
2021, Georgia had one of the highest number of cases per capita
that were reported through trafficking hotlines. Approximately
one-third of all human-trafficking victims are children.
The United States is one of the top destinations for human
trafficking and is among the largest consumers of child sex.
That is sick. The average age of entry into the commercial sex
market is 12 years old.
Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have been complicit--
complicit--just as you testified, Mr. Carrell, in making the
United States Federal Government the world's largest child-sex-
trafficking organization in modern history. My God, what has
happened to our country?
This administration has adhered to our enemies and allowed
cartels and coyotes to make around $13 billion a year in human
trafficking alone. Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and Mayorkas have
allowed over 500,000 unaccompanied alien children to cross our
border.
As Mr. Carrell testified, the probability that thousands of
these alien children are being raped at this very moment is 100
percent.
Ms. Rodas, you further highlighted that when we learned in
February 2023 that 85,000 of these children were missing, zero
action was taken to rescue the children, and zero action was
taken to prevent other children from being lost in slave labor,
commercial sex, organ harvesting, and other unspeakable evils.
I don't care if the organ harvesting happened in Mexico. If
the buyers are in the United States, we've got a serious
problem.
Consequently, more than a year later, in July 2024, we
learned that this administration has lost track of more than
320,000 children. How on Earth do we do that?
The failures, that's how. These are the results of Democrat
policies. The Democrats want to claim moral superiority and
accuse us of family separation policies. Well, they are the
party of child sex trafficking. The American people spoke out
about that on the election.
Surrendering control of our borders to the cartels,
expediting vetting processes, and refusing to share data with
law enforcement so they can dismantle the trafficking
infrastructure are the policies of Democrats. More than 100
children being released to the same address in Austin, Texas,
is a policy of the Democrats.
Mr. Carrell, in your documentary, ``What Is Treason?'',
there are some very heart-wrenching claims about the
trafficking of unaccompanied children. Several of the most
disturbing claims we heard are: Religious organizations and
NGO's are operating as co-conspirators. These organizations are
used as the pipeline to traffic the children to the end abuser,
in many instances. Other disturbing claims made include
pedophilia rings purchasing children, as well as organ
harvesting.
Can you please talk in specifics about the evidence and
finding of your research that have led you to these
conclusions?
Mr. Carrell. That's a great question, because the problem--
the Federal Government does not have the ability, the capacity,
or the manpower to move 30 million people that have crossed the
border in the last 4 years into America. They can't. So who do
they partner with? The Federal Government partner with the
NGO's, all cloaked under the umbrella of religion.
Ms. Greene. They're paying them with American tax dollars,
by the way.
Mr. Carrell. We are talking about--this is Joe Biden's
numbers and statistics. In 4 years, he will have spent over
$700 billion on illegal immigrants, to surpass $1 trillion.
That's the range that we have.
I'm telling you, these NGO's are making tens and hundreds
of billions of dollars, and they are the traffickers.
Ms. Greene. But, Mr. Carrell, can you talk specifically
about the organ harvesting? Where do we find evidence of this?
Who do we need to talk to?
Mr. Carrell. Well, this is just like somebody says, ``Well,
show me where the drug cartels are.'' They're not showing you
where they are. The organ harvesting is not going to--they're
not going to show you. It's not ``60 Minutes.'' They're not
going to come and show you, ``Hey, this is what we're doing,
this is how it's going.''
Ms. Greene. Uh-huh.
Mr. Carrell. I'm talking to people that are inside the
belly of the beast that are hunting children down to save them,
to going after organizations that go after the----
Mr. Higgins. The gentlewoman's time has expired.
Mr. Carrell. This is happening in America. Undeniable.
Ms. Clarke. Thank you, Mr. Chairman----
Mr. Higgins. Representative Clarke is recognized for 5
minutes of questions.
Ms. Clarke. Yes, thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I thank the
Ranking Members.
The energy in this room is just so toxic. But let me share
facts.
President-elect Trump and his would-be newly-appointed
border czar, Tom Homan, who is known as the ``father of family
separation,'' falsely claimed that people will not come to the
United States border if they know they will be ripped apart
from their family.
Yet, under their watch and the cruel policies, illegal
entry at the border increased dramatically under Trump's first
term, before the pandemic halted migration around the world.
Fact.
Caring for children was not and is not a priority for the
Trump administration. The Trump administration had no plans for
how to care for the children they ripped away from their
parents. GAO found that the Trump administration had no
contingencies in place to deal with the thousands of children
they separated from their families, and this is why children
remain separated to this day.
So, Ms. Larin, could you explain more about what GAO found
and why this became such a large problem?
Ms. Larin. Yeah, we looked at the family separation policy
back when it was happening, and, as I mentioned before, we
found that there was a lack of planning; there was a lack of
consistent data that DHS and HHS had on these children; there
was no way to record which children had been separated from
their parents.
Yeah, the separation policy created a crisis at ORR because
they weren't prepared for the number of very young children.
Most shelters were really geared toward 13- to 17-year-olds and
weren't really ready to take care of infants and young
children. So they really had to scramble to be able to do that,
and it created a crisis.
Ms. Clarke. This is a fact.
My Republican colleagues pretend to care about children,
but their actions say otherwise. They defended President-elect
Trump's family separation policy, put kids in cages, joked
about it, and left kids at the mercy of the cartels by making
them wait in Mexico under the Migrant Protection Protocols.
Just this Congress, they tried to undo protections for
children in the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization
Act. Why don't we hear Republicans talk about the harm that
those policies do to children? Hm.
When they have full control of the Government next
Congress, I hope to see my colleagues take actions to make
children safer.
Director Larin, your agency completed a report in December
2023 that analyzed Federal efforts to counter child trafficking
and made several recommendations.
Ms. Larin, can you speak to those recommendations and how
the Biden administration has made efforts to resolve them?
Ms. Larin. Yeah. We found that, while there are a number of
programs that serve all human-trafficking victims, including
children, there were 6 programs specifically in the Federal
Government, both at the Department of Justice and at HHS, that
are focused on children. What we recommended is that an
interagency task force be formed to ensure that those efforts
are coordinated so that children who are victims receive the
services that they are entitled to.
That recommendation to both DOJ and to HHS has been
implemented. There is an interagency task force to coordinate.
Ms. Clarke. Very well.
Are you aware of whether concerns about the lack of
contingencies and appropriate planning were raised before
family separation was implemented?
Ms. Larin. Yeah. The lack of planning meant that the
agencies had to figure it out on the fly. That was really--the
key deficiency was a system for tracking where the children
were. That's what didn't exist, because there was no time to
plan for it.
Ms. Clarke. Well, I thank you very much for your response.
Mr. Chairman, I think that, you know, this is a very
serious issue, but the way that this committee has conducted
this hearing, bringing entertainment to the table to share with
us their opinions and opine without facts, this committee has
never done that. I see that that's the rabbit hole we're going
down. Mr. Chairman, we need to put this in check before it gets
out of hand.
I yield back.
Mr. Higgins. The gentlelady yields.
The gentleman from Mississippi, Mr. Ezell, is recognized.
Mr. Ezell. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
It's pretty obvious today that we have a lot of differences
of opinions. I've spent my entire life until coming to Congress
as a police officer, a sheriff, a chief of police, and I have
seen first-hand--I have held a victim's hand who has been
violently raped and abused. Let me tell you something: It is
the worst thing you will ever witness in your life, to see a
victim of rape and terrible abuse. There's nothing that can
compare to it except for murder, and that victim is no longer
able to speak. But I have seen first-hand just how terrible it
is.
So, no secret here that the border's wide open. It's no
secret that everything has been going on for the last 3\1/2\
years.
What I've heard today--Ms. Larin, with all due respect,
I've heard you answer questions several times about lack of
planning on the Trump administration for whatever failures they
had.
So tell me what some of the planning, successful planning,
that we have seen over the last 3\1/2\ years out of this Biden
administration to stop some of these hundreds of thousands of
people coming across this border. What have this Biden
administration done in the last 3\1/2\ years to plan and to
stop what we have seen?
Ms. Larin. Yeah, I can't speak to border-control issues.
Mr. Ezell. Uh-huh. OK. But what I've heard you say multiple
times: a lack of planning, a lack of planning. I haven't seen
very much planning coming out of this administration.
So what I'd like to go into, what I'd like to ask Mr.
Carrell and anybody else that would like to answer this: Can
you name some of these NGO's that have specifically taken these
hundreds of millions of dollars and not used it to protect
these children?
Mr. Carrell. Catholic Charities. Lutheran Family Services.
Jewish Family Services.
I spoke to a gentleman that works in DHS; he actually sends
the electronic fund transfers. I asked him, ``Sir, tell me, who
do you send--who are you responsible for, and how much is the
largest check you've cut?'' He said, ``I am over Jewish Family
Services, and I cut a check for $600 million.'' I said, ``Is
that for, like, 3 years?'' He told me, ``J.J., get in the game.
That's 2 or 3 months, and it's renewable.''
That's one NGO.
I said, ``Well, Catholic Charities is bigger than Jewish
Family Services.'' ``Yes. They get the same or more.''
You're talking about billions upon billions of dollars
given to NGO's to further the trafficking of all--of everyone
crossing the border, to include children.
Mr. Ezell. Uh-huh.
Ms. Rodas, I understand you were on detail to care for and
place children entering into the United States via the
Southwest Border with sponsors in the United States.
While serving on detail at HHS, I understand you sounded
the alarm about how HHS handled these unaccompanied children.
Thank you for your bravery.
Do you believe any of these concerns were taken seriously?
Ms. Rodas. Congressman, no, sadly, I don't.
As I was raising the alarm, along with other wonderful
people who were on the site--Deb White, a fellow
whistleblower--we were told, ``You are not to be investigating
the sponsors. Your job is to get the child to that sponsor.''
When we had children who were going to addresses that we
had already ID'ed as having multiple children, and I'm talking
to the boss, who is an attorney, my superior, the director, she
said, ``Tara, you need to understand, at HHS, we only get sued
if we keep kids in care too long. We don't get sued by
traffickers.''
That is appalling, that I heard from a Federal Government
employee regarding children who we knew were going to addresses
that were already under investigation. I've never witnessed
anything in my whole life, and had I not seen it with my own
eyes, I'm not sure I could believe it.
Mr. Ezell. What happened as a result of you pushing the
envelope?
Ms. Rodas. Well, I wasn't the most popular person on the
site.
But when DHS whistleblower Aaron Stevenson sounded the
alarm and went public in August 2021 and I saw that they were
MS-13 and 18th Street Gang--my husband is from El Salvador, so
I know that this is not a good thing, to be giving children to
MS-13--they discovered that I went to the Department of Justice
Office of Inspector General and HHS Office of Inspector
General, and it took them less than 20 days to falsely accuse
me of wrongdoing, threaten me with investigation, walk me off
the site, the ``perp walk'' in front of your peers, and take my
badge.
So that's how much they appreciated that I was revealing
that children were being sponsored by MS-13.
Mr. Ezell. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Mr. Higgins. The gentleman yields.
The gentleman from New York, Mr. Suozzi, is recognized.
Mr. Suozzi. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I want to also wish my best wishes to Mr. Bishop. I
really--whenever anyone asks me about him, I said, he's really
a very smart guy. You've got a lot of tremendous ability.
I want to thank the witnesses for being here today.
I have to tell you, I'm very sad, the whole thing's very
sad. I look up at the Capitol dome sometimes, and I'm inspired
by it every time I look at it, but I think to myself, boy, that
really hides a lot of dysfunction. You come into a beautiful
hearing room like this, you see the drapes and the chandeliers
and this dais, and it seems, you know, so wonderful, and
there's a lot of dysfunction.
It's sad, the stories everybody's telling here today about
kids being raped, people being trafficked, organs being
harvested, families being separated, kids in cages, parents
worried about their children, people trying to make money off
of other people's misery. All we do is, we--I heard a lot of
stuff I agree with here today, but all we do is point fingers
at each other.
Ms. Rodas, you talked about a whistleblower in 2015 talking
about sex trafficking. It didn't start all of a sudden one day
on January 20, 2021. It's been going on for decades. We spend
all of our time blaming each other and trying to point at
bogeymen instead of doing our jobs in the U.S. Congress to try
and find agreement with each other.
I've got great friends on the other side of the aisle.
We've been talking about what can we do to find some common
ground to secure the border, to fix the broken asylum system,
to treat people like human beings and address some of the
thorny problems related to DACA and TPS and farm workers and
health care workers and Afghan readjustment. We've got a lot of
common-ground agreement.
But people are terrified, on both sides of the aisle, of
speaking up, because they're afraid that the extremists in
their party are going to cut their legs off if they dare try to
work with the other side.
The toxicity that we hear in this hearing room and in the
media constantly, instead of trying to actually solve the
problem, where these kids are suffering every day, where
families are suffering--blame, blame, blame, blame. We've got
to do our jobs to find common ground to help people that are
suffering.
We can find clever things for us to say about you guys and
for you to say about us. ``Ha, I got him. I showed him.''
``Look what I got you on. I got you on one.'' Let's do our
jobs. Let's solve the problem.
So thank you to the witnesses for being here today. I know
many of you have devoted your lives to try to address these
problems. I appreciate it.
I've only got a minute and a half left, but--I'm not even
sure what to ask you, really, other than, what's the one thing
you'd like us to do, Ms. Rodas? What's the one main thing you
want us to do?
Try and do it quick so I can give everybody a shot to
speak.
Ms. Rodas. For me, I'm going to stick with that we need to
designate child trafficking as a terrorist activity. I think
this would unlock the critical counterterrorism tools, expanded
intelligence, interagency collaboration----
Mr. Suozzi. All--all complicated things. It's so
complicated to deal with these problems. You cannot solve
complicated problems in an environment of fear and anger and
blame. You can only do it when people who are reasonable are
willing to sit down across from each other and say, I think
this; or, I think that; well, how about this; or, how about--
and find common ground.
So thank you, Ms. Rodas.
Ms. Rodas. Thank you.
Mr. Suozzi. Ms. Larin, do you want to say anything?
Ms. Larin. Yeah. I would say, the key is oversight. We have
programs that are in place, and the problems occur when the
implementation is not done correctly.
Mr. Suozzi. Who do we need to do the oversight? The
Congress needs to do the oversight? Or do we need--is there--
Inspector General? Who should be doing a better job of
oversight?
Ms. Larin. Yes. All of the above.
Mr. Suozzi. Thank you, Ms. Larin.
Ms. Hopper, are you back to DNA?
Ms. Hopper. I would like to echo what Tara said as far as
designating these organizations as terrorists.
Mr. Suozzi. Thank you very much, Ms. Hopper.
Mr. Carrell.
Mr. Carrell. Yes, sir. The root cause of all this is the
open borders and the----
Mr. Suozzi. We have to secure the borders. There was a
bipartisan deal to secure the borders. I've got a new proposal
to secure the borders. No asylum applications in between the
ports of entry; that's what I'm in favor of. No Executive
Order, no--Congress says, no asylum applications in between the
ports of entry.
Let's create Safe Mobility Offices. You want to do ``Remain
in Mexico''? I don't want you to remain in Mexico. I want you
to remain in other countries all throughout the world and apply
there, and if you apply there and you get denied, you don't
come in; if you get accepted, you come in. Safe Mobility
Offices throughout the country.
Thank you, Mr. Carrell.
Mr. Higgins. The gentleman's time has expired.
Mrs. McIver is recognized for 5 minutes for questions.
Votes have been called, and we're trying to close out
quickly.
Mrs. McIver. Thank you, Mr. Chairmen and Ranking Members
and our witnesses, for joining us today.
Homeland security extends beyond protecting our borders and
ports of entry. It's about ensuring that these protections are
implemented fairly and equitably. The pathway to citizenship is
thought to unlock prosperity, but not everyone has the same
key.
I commend the Biden-Harris administration for taking
significant steps to improve the care and safety of
unaccompanied children, including addressing the harm caused by
family separations during the Trump administration.
However, more must be done. Like my colleague from New
York, the fine gentleman from New York, stated, we must talk
about what we should be doing to address the problem.
We know that the Biden administration has also come to
Congress for help with the resources needed to do more.
My question is to Ms. Larin.
Can you also describe some of the assistance that the Biden
administration has asked for from Congress? Have you received
that help yet?
Ms. Larin. Yeah, I actually can't speak to that. I am not
familiar with the Biden administration's request.
Mrs. McIver. OK. That's interesting. All right.
My closing, because I know we have to rush to votes, is
that Congress has a responsibility to come together to fund and
support these critical efforts. Our conversation today is
vital, even though it's a little toxic, to advancing fair and
equitable practices that protect all children within our
borders and those seeking safety and refuge here.
With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back my time.
Mr. Higgins. The gentlelady yields.
I thank the witnesses for their testimony today and Members
for the questions.
Mr. Correa, do you need----
Mr. Correa. Yeah. I'd like to submit something for the
record if it's the right time, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Higgins. So let's do that now.
Mr. Correa. I'd like to submit a statement for the record
from the Kids in Need of Defense, some recommendations on how
the Government can protect some of these children.
Mr. Higgins. Without objection.
Mr. Correa. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The information follows:]
Statement of Kids in Need of Defense (KIND)
November 19, 2024
Kids in Need of Defense (KIND) is the leading U.S.-based
organization dedicated to the protection of unaccompanied children.
KIND was founded by the Microsoft Corporation and the United Nations
Refugee Agency (UNHCR) Special Envoy Angelina Jolie. We have provided
legal representation to more than 16,000 children in U.S. immigration
proceedings, provided legal rights education to more than 75,000
children in the United States, and formed pro bono partnerships with
over 800 corporations, law firms, law schools, and bar associations to
provide children with pro bono representation. KIND's social services
program facilitates the coordinated provision to unaccompanied children
of counseling, educational support, medical care, and other services.
KIND also helps children who are returning to their countries of origin
to do so safely and to reintegrate into their home communities. KIND's
programs in Mexico and Central America work to address the root causes
of forced migration and help protect the safety and well-being of
migrant children at every phase of their migration journey. Through its
European Initiative, KIND and partners in Belgium, France, Greece,
Ireland, and the United Kingdom work to ensure access to high-quality
pro bono legal assistance for unaccompanied children in Europe.
Each year, thousands of unaccompanied children arrive to the United
States, having fled extreme violence, sexual abuse, human trafficking,
and other dangers in their countries of origin. Many of these children
come from countries across Central America, and increasingly, from
throughout the Western Hemisphere, as global displacement has reached
historic levels due to war, political unrest, natural disasters, and
other threats in many parts of the world. Unable to find safety in
their countries of origin, children are often forced to undertake
dangerous journeys, and once in the United States, face complex
immigration proceedings. These children, many of whom have experienced
severe trauma, confront numerous obstacles after arrival, including
limited resources, language barriers, and the need to navigate the
complex U.S. immigration system, often on their own.
Recognizing the unique vulnerability of unaccompanied children,
Congress created fundamental procedural protections designed to help
these children fairly access protection and navigate immigration
proceedings to prevent their return to harm or exploitation. These
safeguards, enacted on a broad bipartisan basis through the Trafficking
Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008 (TVPRA), build upon
foundational child welfare safeguards for all children in Federal
immigration custody that are embodied within the Flores Settlement
Agreement, signed by the Federal Government in 1997.
The necessity of these protections--and Government-wide efforts to
ensure the well-being of unaccompanied children--have only grown in
importance in light of recent media articles and investigations and
Congressional oversight documenting devastating and wide-spread labor
exploitation, including in various cases labor trafficking, of
unaccompanied migrant children throughout many U.S. companies and
industries. Many children have worked long hours or overnight shifts in
factories producing goods or cleaning dangerous industrial equipment.
Harmful conditions have led to chronic illness, the loss of limbs, and
other severe injuries. These reports have garnered critical attention
to the need for a coordinated, whole-of-Government effort to eradicate
such exploitation, protect unaccompanied children's safety, and empower
children to thrive.
KIND strongly supports interagency efforts to prevent and combat
child trafficking and labor exploitation and to uphold TVPRA and Flores
protections, which play an important role in reducing children's
vulnerability and facilitating their access to legal processes and
supportive services that can advance safety and stability and mitigate
risks of mistreatment. We remain deeply concerned, however, about
recent Congressional proposals that, by weakening existing legal
protections for unaccompanied children, would make these children more
vulnerable to trafficking and exploitation, not less.
As Congress considers measures to protect unaccompanied children it
is essential that any proposals build on existing legal protections and
treat unaccompanied children as children first and foremost--leveraging
a trauma-informed and holistic response to meeting the needs of this
particularly vulnerable population.
KIND recommends the following practical and achievable measures to
reduce trafficking and exploitation risks to unaccompanied children,
achieve new processing and resource efficiencies, and best deploy the
expertise and experience of border personnel: (1) ensure robust
compliance with anti-trafficking safeguards provided for by the TVPRA
and ensure the ability of unaccompanied children to request protection
at U.S. borders; (2) hire child welfare professionals in CBP
facilities; (3) expand legal and social services for unaccompanied
children; (4) support specialized children's dockets; and (5) ensure
safe reintegration services for children who are ordered removed or
have requested to return to their country of origin.
prevention of trafficking of unaccompanied children at u.s. borders
When first arriving to the United States, unaccompanied children
are initially processed by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP),
which must comply with specific protections provided for by the
Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008 (TVPRA)
regarding identification, screening, and transfer of unaccompanied
children. Enacted with broad bipartisan support, the TVPRA created
additional procedural safeguards for unaccompanied children in the
immigration system to help ensure children's cases will be
appropriately considered to prevent children's return to trafficking
and other harm. Prior to the law's creation, border authorities often
rapidly returned children back across the border to Mexico or to other
countries without any assessment of whether the child would face
persecution or other harm if returned. Traffickers and other criminal
actors, accustomed to these practices, often waited on the other side
of the border to target or recruit returning children.
The TVPRA's safeguards have protected thousands of children from
trafficking, exploitation, and other harm and ensured that the Federal
Government will be able to appropriately receive, screen, and care for
unaccompanied children. Under the law's provisions, CBP must conduct an
initial screening of unaccompanied children from Mexico and Canada to
determine whether the child is at risk of or has a history of being
trafficked, credibly fears persecution if returned, and is able to make
an independent decision to withdraw their application for admission to
the United States.\1\ If indicators of harm or risk are present, the
child cannot make a voluntary decision about withdrawing their
application, and/or CBP. cannot make a decision within 48 hours, the
child must be immediately transferred to ORR custody. For unaccompanied
children from all other countries, the TVPR--A provides that CBP must
identify the child as unaccompanied within 48 hours and make a referral
to ORR within 72 hours. ORR, which was tasked by the Homeland Security
Act of 2002 with care and placement of unaccompanied children based on
its experience with refugee children,\2\ conducts intake screenings to
identify indicators of trafficking or other protection concerns once a
child is transferred to the agency's care.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ 8 U.S.C. 1232(a)(2).
\2\ 6 U.S.C. 279.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Additional TVPRA protections help ensure that unaccompanied
children are able to better navigate a system designed principally for
adults and that the Government can fully evaluate children's cases for
legal protection. These protections include access to counsel and
independent child advocates, exemption from the 1-year filing deadline
for asylum claims, and the opportunity for unaccompanied children to
have their asylum claims first heard in a non-adversarial interview
setting before U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).\3\
Compliance with the TVPRA's safeguards at all times remains a critical
component of migration management and safe, orderly, and humane border
processes to ensure that children are never deported to trafficking and
other harm and that they are able to obtain lasting protection.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\3\ See 8 U.S.C. 1232; 8 U.S.C. 1158(a)(2)(E).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mindful of the need for improved care and protection of children
during border reception, Congress has directed and on a bipartisan
basis supported funding for the Department of Homeland Security to hire
licensed child welfare professionals along the U.S.-Mexico border.
These professionals, who will have expertise in identifying protection
needs and trafficking indicators, will help advance child well-being at
a critical point in a child's search for protection. They will also
strengthen border security by freeing up agents and officers to focus
on vital law enforcement functions for which they are specially
trained. Efforts to place child welfare professionals in border
facilities must be accompanied by DHS's robust compliance with national
minimum standards for care and treatment of children in Federal
immigration custody, as provided for by the Flores Settlement
Agreement. By providing for children's unique needs in--all border
processes and ensuring robust compliance with TVPRA and Flores
protections, the Federal Government can better prevent trafficking and
other harm and foster greater trust among children and families that
can aid in the early identification and investigation of trafficking
concerns.
Several prior border policies in the United States and the region
have placed limitations on the ability of asylum seekers to request
protection. The Federal Government has exempted unaccompanied children
from many of these policies, such as Remain in Mexico, the Title 42
policy, and recent border asylum regulations, consistent with legal
protections provided by the TVPRA.
It is imperative that all border policies recognize the particular
vulnerability of unaccompanied children, uphold specific protections
provided by the TVPRA, and ensure that unaccompanied children are
exempt from any restrictions that limit, bar, or delay access to the
border to apply for protection.
importance of legal and social services to addressing trafficking and
other risks
Pursuant to the TVPRA and related legal settlements and
regulations, unaccompanied children transferred to ORR care are to be
placed into the ``least restrictive setting'' in the child's best
interests.
ORR maintains a nationwide network of more than 289 facilities and
programs in 29 States that it funds to provide temporary care and
custody of unaccompanied children,\4\ including transitional foster
care placements, shelters, and residential treatment centers. ORR
provides for children's basic care, medical care, counseling,
recreation, and educational services, among other needs.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\4\ ORR, Unaccompanied Children Bureau Fact Sheet (Nov. 1, 2024),
https://www.acf.hhs.gov/orr/fact-sheet/programs/uc/fact-sheet.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
ORR works to reunify children in its care with safe and suitable
sponsors pursuant to numerous policies and consistent with requirements
set forth in the TVPRA. This process includes the potential sponsor's
completion of an application, and any required criminal background
checks and public records checks. Pursuant to the TVPRA, ORR is also
required to conduct home studies for certain particularly vulnerable
children and may also conduct such studies in other cases where it may
help in evaluating the sponsor's safety and suitability.\5\ Following
approval of a sponsor and the child's release, ORR conducts safety and
well-being follow-up calls within 30 days to verify the child's safety,
that they are living with a sponsor, that they know of pending court
proceedings, and that they are enrolled in school.\6\ Although ORR's
role with a child formally ends after release, the TVPRA requires ORR
to provide post-release services for unaccompanied children for whom a
home study is required and also authorizes ORR to provide such services
for other children with mental health or other needs who may benefit
from them.\7\ ORR provides limited funding for these services; however,
the comprehensiveness and duration of services varies depending on a
child's needs, available funding, and the child's geographic location.
Historically, a small percentage of children have received case
management and post-release services, and where provided, such services
typically only endure for a couple months. ORR also operates a National
Call Center hotline that is operational 24/7 to connect children,
sponsors, and providers with support and assistance.\8\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\5\ 8 U.S.C. 1232 (c)(3)(B).
\6\ ORR Policy Guide 2.8.4.
\7\ 8 U.S.C. 1232 (c)(3)(B). Pursuant to the ORR foundational
rule and related policy, such services ``may include linking families
to educational and community resources, home visits, case management,
in-home counseling, and other social welfare services; as needed.'' 89
Fed. Reg. 34384, 34587 (Apr. 30, 2024), https://www.govinfo.gov/
content/pkg/FR-2024-04-30/pdf/2024-08329.pdf.
\8\ ORR, Office of Refugee Resettlement National Call Center,
https://www.acf.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/documents/orr/national-
call-center-eng.pdf.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Pursuant to the TVPRA, ORR also must ``to the greatest extent
practicable'' provide unaccompanied children with ``counsel to
represent them in legal proceedings or matters and protect them from
mistreatment, exploitation, and trafficking.''\9\ ORR is also
authorized to provide independent child advocates to represent the best
interests of especially vulnerable children.\10\ Currently, however,
many children must navigate complex immigration proceedings without an
attorney. ORR has set a goal of ensuring legal representation for 100
percent of unaccompanied children by 2027, an important commitment that
will necessitate on-going support by both the agency and Congress.
Fulfilling this aim will prove beneficial in identifying and mitigating
myriad risks that unaccompanied children may be facing, both related to
and independent of their immigration case.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\9\ 8 U.S.C. 1232(c)(S).
\10\ Id. at (c)(6).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Unaccompanied children are often eligible for various forms of
humanitarian protection. Applying for such protection necessitates that
the child disclose and be interviewed about sensitive information
regarding harm and trauma they have experienced--a significant
challenge for many children who have survived serious violence,
threats, or abuse, including at the hands of adults and other authority
figures. In the months or years working on the child's legal case and
due to the confidentiality of the attorney-client relationship, the
child may develop the trust and rapport with an attorney that is
necessary to be able to disclose experiences of trafficking,
exploitation, or other circumstances giving rise to a need for
protection. Children may also share information indicating unstable
housing, financial insecurity, health challenges, issues at school, or
other challenges that could exacerbate their vulnerability to
trafficking and other harm and suggest a need for social services
support or engagement by child welfare professionals or other
authorities.
Attorneys can work with the child to screen for any legal
protections for which the child is eligible, provide the child with
information about child labor laws and other legal rights, refer the
child to trusted community organizations and other professionals for
social and other services, and work with the child to assist them,
where appropriate, in reporting concerns to child welfare or law
enforcement authorities. Legal assistance may also include helping
eligible children to apply for a Child Eligibility Letter or interim
assistance with the Department of Health and Human Services' Office on
Trafficking in Persons (OTIP). This form of assistance offers children
who have experienced or potentially experienced trafficking to access
services and benefits to the same extent as refugees. These benefits
include case management; food and cash assistance, health insurance,
education, and housing.\11\ Interim assistance can also help eligible
children access the Unaccompanied Refugee Minors (URM) program, which
provides for children's care with a foster family or in a group home.
Without an attorney, however, child survivors of trafficking may remain
unaware of protections for them and could become vulnerable to re-
trafficking and other exploitation.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\11\ See Dep't of Health and Human Services, ACF, Office on
Trafficking in Persons, Child Eligibility Letters https://
www.acf.hhs.gov/otip/victim-assistance/child-eligibility-letters.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
For many children, legal assistance can make a life-saving
difference--facilitating access to humanitarian protection so the child
will not be deported to harm and helping children find safety from
situations of violence, abuse, trafficking, and exploitation they may
confront in the United States. Attorneys can also help children apply
for work authorization, which provides a vital form of Government-
issued photo identification for children, even when not used for work.
Such identification is frequently necessary to access services such as
health insurance, to obtain a social security card, or to receive a
driver's license. For older youth, work authorization can improve
access to safe, lawful jobs that enable children to more easily avoid
exploitative situations and harmful working conditions.
The importance of offering post-release legal and social services
for unaccompanied children cannot be overstated.\12\ Long-standing
child welfare and medical research has documented the potential for
traumatic experiences, known as Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs),
to have long-term impacts for children's development, health, and well-
being, including in adulthood.\13\ Unaccompanied children often endure
numerous ACEs and significant trauma due to prior experiences. However,
children frequently have only limited access to case managers, social
workers, or supportive services after they are released from Government
care.\14\ Legal and social seryices can help to ensure children's needs
are promptly identified and addressed and build on children's existing
self-help skills and resilience. Such assistance can help mitigate
risks to children and promote safety in both the short- and long-term.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\12\ See generally Migration Policy Institute, Strengthening
Services for Unaccompanied Children in U.S. Communities (2021), https:/
/www.migrationpolicy.org/sites/default/files/publications/rnpi-
unaccompanied-children-services_final.pdf [hereinafter ``MPI report''].
\13\ CDC, About Adverse Childhood Experiences, https://www.cdc.gov/
aces/about/index.html.
\14\ See MPI report, supra note 12, at 1 (``In most years, only a
minority of children receive case management, legal services, or both,
and most children receive no Federal follow-up services other than a
call 30 days after their release to check on their safety and well-
being.'').
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
concerns about children missing or trafficked following release from
orr care
Recent news reports and Congressional oversight efforts have
galvanized concern for children's safety after release from ORR
custody. Some of these efforts have inaccurately indicated that nearly
85,000 unaccompanied children are ``missing'' or being trafficked,
based on information that ORR was unable to reach children during
follow-up safety and well-being calls. Reports have also misleadingly
asserted that 300,000 unaccompanied children were ``lost'' by DHS,
misrepresenting information in an August 2024 report by the DHS Office
of Inspector General stating that DHS had not filed Notices to Appear
(NTAs) in immigration court for these unaccompanied children.\15\ Based
on this information, Members of Congress have advanced several
proposals that would enact new restrictions on sponsors, limit TVPRA
protections, and risk prolonged detention of children.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\15\ See Associated Press, FACT FOCUS: Claims that more than
300,000 migrant children are missing lack context, https://apnews.com/
article/fact-check-misinformation-migrant-children-missing-
7ab0cea2fd2238346197429e952baa8b.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
While efforts to ensure children's safety are paramount at all
times, data about ORR call pick-ups is not a reliable indicator of
children's safety or trafficking risk. There are many reasons why a
child or family may not have responded to ORR's calls. A child or
sponsor may not have been home or available to respond to the call, may
not have recognized the caller's phone number, or may have recently
changed their phone number. By indicating that tens of thousands of
unaccompanied children have been trafficked, based on missed phone
calls, these mischaracterizations risk diverting resources away from
current trafficking investigations and assistance for children
currently experiencing harm.
Such reports also obscure the limitations of existing data. To
date, data on trafficking and exploitation of unaccompanied children in
the United States and world-wide remains incomplete, and accurate data
collection remains a necessary priority. Various factors exacerbate
these limitations, among them inconsistent methods for identifying and
documenting trafficking and exploitation; fear among survivors that
reports could lead to immigration enforcement or retaliation against
the child and their family; and confidentiality protections and
concerns.\16\ Improving children's access to necessary services and
expanding training about all forms of trafficking among agencies and
providers can promote better data collection and enhance programming
for impacted children.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\16\ See, e.g., AAP, Clinical Report, Exploitation, Labor and Sex
Trafficking of Children and Adolescents: Health Care Needs of Patients,
https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article/151/1/e2022060416/
190310/Exploitation-Labor-and-Sex-Trafficking-of-Children?autologin-
check=redirected (``Reliable national prevalence data for child labor
and sex T/E in the United States are not yet available.''); U.S.
Department of State, About Human Trafficking, https://www.state.gov/
humantrafficking-about-human-trafficking/ (``It is hard to find
reliable statistics related to human trafficking. The quality and
quantity of data available are often hampered by the hidden nature of
the crime, challenges in identifying individual victims, gaps in data
accuracy and completeness, and significant barriers regarding the
sharing of victim information among various stakeholders. For these
reasons, data and statistics may not reflect the full nature or scope
or the problem.'').
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Similarly, claims that children are missing based on DHS's having
not filed Notices to Appear for court proceedings mischaracterize
protections for unaccompanied children in the U.S. immigration system.
Following an unaccompanied child's arrival to the United States and
consistent with the TVPRA, DHS places the child in full immigration
removal proceedings, in which the child will have an opportunity to
apply for any protections for which they are eligible, including
affirmatively applying for asylum with USCIS. Typically, Immigrant and
Customs Enforcement does not file the child's NTA with the immigration
court to formally commence the child's proceedings until after the
child is released from ORR. This is essential to ensure the child has
an opportunity to obtain legal counsel prior to proceedings and also
recognizes that a child may be released to the care of a sponsor in a
different State or location than they initially arrived to the United
States. Without such delayed filings, notices may be sent to locations
where children no longer reside, creating significant due process
concerns and administrative inefficiencies for ICE, the immigration
courts, and children and their families alike. DHS's not having filed
an NTA with the immigration court does not correlate with a child's
being missing or trafficked.
Indeed, prevention of trafficking and other harm is best achieved
not through immigration enforcement against vulnerable children, but in
ensuring the availability of appropriate screening and services for
them. The provision of post-release legal and social services is
critical. Additional measures across Government agencies can bolster
fair adjudication of children's protection cases, identify trafficking
of children, and help ensure children's safety.
specialized children's dockets in immigration court
The Executive Office for Immigration Review recently issued policy
guidance encouraging the creation of specialized children's dockets to
address the legal cases of unaccompanied children.\17\ These dockets
will ensure that immigration judges specially trained in child-centered
and trauma-informed practices oversee children's cases--improving the
quality of adjudications, ensuring children's access to legal
protections available through other agencies such as USCIS, and
enabling efficiencies for Government agencies administering and working
amid court dockets. Under these dockets, DHS attorneys will be
similarly trained in forms of legal relief available to children,
child-sensitive interviewing techniques, and trauma-informed practices.
Children's dockets can also facilitate the identification of and
provision of assistance to child victims of trafficking by enabling the
presence of trained nonprofit attorneys and organizations at court
locations who can screen children for protection needs, provide
information to children about their legal rights, and connect children
with services providers and professionals. Together, these measures can
create a more child-centered adjudication process that can mitigate
risks to children and enhance access to vital protection.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\17\ Executive Office for Immigration Review, Director's Memorandum
24-01: Children's Cases in Immigration Court, Dec. 21, 2023, https://
www.justice.gov/d9/2023-12/dm-24-01.pdf.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The EOIR guidance reflects in important respects key provisions of
the Immigration Court Efficiency and Children's Court Act,\18\
bipartisan legislation introduced in Congress in 2023. Further,
language in the bipartisan fiscal year 2025 Commerce, Justice, and
Science (CJS) appropriations report commends EOIR for its establishment
of these dockets and requires the agency to report on their
implementation. Additional efforts to implement and expand these
dockets promise improvements to safety and protection for children and
administration and efficiency for the Government.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\18\ H.R. 6143; S. 3178.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
safe return and reintegration services
Protection of unaccompanied children at all points necessitates
ensuring that children are never returned to harm--and that any child
ordered removed or requesting to return to their country of origin will
be safely received and cared for following return. The TVPRA directs
the Federal Government to consult Department of State reports on Human
Rights and Trafficking in Persons in evaluating whether a child may be
safely returned to a country and similarly provides for a return and
reintegration pilot program to protect children from trafficking and
exploitation and to implement best practices for safe return and
reintegration.\19\ To date, several nonprofit organizations, including
KIND and its community-based partners in Guatemala and Honduras, have
collaborated to provide return and reintegration services that help to
screen unaccompanied children for any protection needs or other
concerns, provide predeparture counseling, coordinate safe reception,
and connect children with reintegration services upon their return. In
addition to helping to ensure that children are not returned to harm
and assisting their safe return, these services can help to prevent
future trafficking and other harm by facilitating children's access to
protection, education, housing, medical and mental health care,
counseling, case management, and opportunities that can reduce the need
for children to re-migrate and undertake dangerous journeys to find
safety and assistance. By helping children to secure protection at the
earliest point possible, these services can also reduce pressure on
U.S. border operations and facilities.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\19\ 8 U.S.C. 1232(a)(S)(A)-(B).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
KIND recommends that the Federal Government formally establish and
dedicate on-going funding for a return and reintegration program for El
Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, to be led by individuals with
expertise in child migration and child protection, This may be achieved
through partnerships with community-based organizations that can help
to improve the accessibility of services for children wherever they are
in need. Additional efforts can grow such programs over time to reach
children returning to any countries of origin, including through cross-
border case management.
conclusion
KIND welcomes Congress' continued commitment to the well-being of
unaccompanied children at all points in their migration journey. We
urge Congress to ensure that all Federal agencies uphold critical anti-
trafficking protections created by the TVPRA as well as the Flores
Settlement Agreement; and support critical services that can help
reduce children's vulnerability to harm, help children secure lasting
safety, and nourish children's resilience to grow and make valuable
contributions to their communities and the United States.
Mr. Higgins. Again, I thank the witnesses for your
testimony today and the Members for their questioning.
The Members of the subcommittees, both, may have additional
questions for the witnesses, and we would ask the witnesses
respond to these in writing.
Pursuant to committee rule 7-delta, the hearing record will
be open for 10 days.
Without objection, the subcommittees, both, stand
adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 4:13 p.m., the subcommittees were
adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
----------
Supplemental Statement of Tara Lee Rodas
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
[all]