By Brandon Drey
Former Health and Human Services (HHS) official-turned-whistleblower Tara Lee Rodas on Wednesday accused the U.S. government in a House Judiciary subcommittee hearing of becoming a “middleman” in a multi-billion dollar migrant trafficking operation at the southern border.
Since President Joe Biden was sworn in as the 46th president over two years ago, more than 3.5 million illegal immigrants have crossed the southern border. Since January 2021, border patrol agents have encountered over 356,000 unaccompanied minors at the southern border, most of whom authorities released into the U.S.
Committee members referenced a recent New York Times report alleging that HHS could not reach more than 85,000 children after they began living with their sponsors. The report further detailed allegations about unaccompanied children unlawfully working in dangerous conditions.
Rodas, who worked with an inspector general’s office with the government agency, first blew the whistle two years ago, where she alleged witnessing firsthand “the horrors of child trafficking and exploitation.”
During the hearing, she told members of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement that when HHS officials encounter migrant children crossing the U.S.-Mexico border, they deliver the minor to a sponsor — most of whom are not legally allowed in the country — only to have them pay off a debt to the cartels by exploiting them into cheap labor, commercial sex, gangs, and more.