Tara Rodas first brought that troubling fact to light as a Department of Health and Human Services whistleblower in November of 2022.
Last week, she appeared before a Senate committee (pictured below) to discuss numbers that have reached into the tens of thousands, her chilling testimony revealed.
"Realizing that we were not offering children the American dream," she told lawmakers, "but instead putting them in modern-day slavery, with wicked overlords, was a terrible revelation."
Rodas was employed by the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency when she answered a call by HHS to assist with processing migrant children coming across the southern border. Assigned to an intake site in Pomona, California, she soon witnessed members of MS-13, perhaps the world's most violent street gang, serving as escorts for children coming into the U.S.
When she informed her HHS superiors, the problem was ignored, and Rodas was perp-walked off the site with her credentials removed.
“We actually thought that people were going to do something about it. We thought that they were taking this very seriously," she told the "Washington Watch" program last week. "But then, sadly, when we found the worst case, which was a known MS-13 gang affiliate sponsoring two children simultaneously, unfortunately, that led me to being swiftly retaliated against and walked off the site and having my badge taken."
Rodas told show host Tony Perkins that HHS officials sought to “scare everyone” from telling their stories publicly.
“They were hoping that my agency would fire me, but my agency absolutely stands up for people who tell the truth, and they swiftly took control of the situation. They offered actually to send armed agents to escort me from California back to Washington, D.C. My husband was already there, and I didn't need the escort, but it was nice to know that my agency was standing for the truth,” Rodas said.
Her first-hand account mirrors a New York Times story, published in April 2023. That story describes an environment, permitted by the federal government, that allows children to be handed over and disappear without any oversight.
Children are recruited, exploited
The truth Rodas witnessed is that migrant children are lured by the promise of a better life by criminal networks already operating in the U.S.
“We saw that in multiple cases,” she said.
The journey is not free, and children with no money are in debt to their smugglers.
Actual numbers of migrants who have arrived in the U.S. during the Joe Biden presidency are hard to achieve, but congressional and other sources have estimated between 9 and 15 million people.
Apparently, children are treated with little if any special care. They are met by Border Patrol agents and moved quickly into the care of HHS, Rodas said.
From there, the next steps are chilling. Children are shuffled through the system, and they begin the process of repaying their “debt” to criminals through sex jobs or other forced labor.
“We are sending them to a random person here in the United States that the child gave as their U.S. point of contact to Border Patrol. You can imagine how easily a system like that is exploited. (Gangs) have a person here recruiting people. (Children) bring with them a smuggler. The smuggler gives the name and address to where they’re going to Border Patrol, and they turn it over to HHS. We send the child to that person,” Rodas said.
Often, including the case of the MS-13 members, the U.S. point of contact is not verified as a legal U.S. resident.
“They actually said it was most likely illegal,” Rodas said.
“Children are coming from Guatemala, El Salvador, all over central and South America, with smugglers,” she said.
Some of them are dying. A New York Times report uncovered situations where children have fallen off roofs trying to work jobs for which they’re not qualified, Rodas said.
“The stories are horrific. When undercover journalists have knocked on doors of addresses we’ve given them, children are saying, ‘My sponsor, she tells me she’s my aunt, but I’ve never met her, and she’s pimping me out for sex in the home where I’m living.”
HHS moves them through
Rodas said the response by HHS, no doubt overwhelmed, is just to keep children moving.
“There’s no way to know the criminal history on a person who’s not legally here. When they say there’s vetting going on, that’s really not happening at all. They’re not capable of doing that. No child welfare organization around the globe would send a child to an unknown person to a home they never see. That doesn’t make sense.
“Yet that’s what the government’s doing,” Rodas said.
