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Whistleblower to tell House that US government is 'middleman' in migrant trafficking operation

"I thought I was going to help place children in loving homes," she will say. "Instead, I discovered that children are being trafficked through a sophisticated network that begins with being recruited in their home country."

Published: April 25, 2023 10:51pm

Updated: April 26, 2023 12:02am

A House Judiciary subcommittee on Wednesday will hold a hearing during which a whistleblower will reportedly tell lawmakers that the U.S. government has become the "middleman" in a migrant trafficking operation.

Entitled "The Biden Border Crisis: Exploitation of Unaccompanied Alien Children," the subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement hearing will include testimony from Tara Lee Rodas, a whistleblower from the Department of Health and Human Services, Fox News reported.

"Whether intentional or not, it can be argued that the U.S. Government has become the middleman in a large scale, multi-billion-dollar, child trafficking operation run by bad actors seeking to profit off the lives of children," reads a copy of her written testimony that the outlet obtained.

"Today, children will work overnight shifts at slaughterhouses, factories, restaurants to pay their debts to smugglers and traffickers. Today, children will be sold for sex," she will assert. "Today, children will call a hotline to report they are being abused, neglected, and trafficked. For nearly a decade, unaccompanied children have been suffering in the shadows."

Rodas had volunteered at a California intake site with the HHS Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) seeking sponsors for unaccompanied alien children (UACs).

"I thought I was going to help place children in loving homes. Instead, I discovered that children are being trafficked through a sophisticated network that begins with being recruited in their home country, smuggled to the U.S. border, and ends when ORR delivers a child to a sponsor – some sponsors are criminals and traffickers and members of Transnational Criminal Organizations," the written testimony reads. "Some sponsors view children as commodities and assets to be used for earning income – this is why we are witnessing an explosion of labor trafficking."

Also testifying will be Alliance for a Safe Texas Sheena Rodriguez and Center for Immigration Studies Director of Policy Studies Jessica Vaughn.

Ben Whedon is an editor and reporter for Just the News. Follow him on Twitter.

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