The Biden-Harris administration’s open-borders policies so enabled human trafficking that transnational gangs which “previously shied away from human smuggling are now deeply involved” in child sexual exploitation, forced labor, and human organ harvesting, a whistleblower testified at a congressional hearing.

In many cases, the administration facilitates the trafficking by placing minors with gang members, experts revealed. One member of Congress who heard the gut-wrenching details said the administration has tried to ignore the issue and turn the 320,000 children currently unaccounted for into “just another number.” Another grilled an administration official over his “slippery” answers and refusal to protect children from cartels.

The drug cartels that control the illegal immigration trade now profit from the lifelong indentured servitude of unaccompanied minor children (UACs), sometimes ripping them from their mothers’ arms en route to the United States, said experts.

“Today, as we speak, children are preparing to work grueling overnight shifts in slaughterhouses, restaurants, and factories. Some children may die today in jobs they don’t have the knowledge or skills to do in order to repay never-ending debts to their smugglers and traffickers,” whistleblower Tara Rodas testified at a House Homeland Security Committee hearing on Tuesday. “Today, children are being sold for sex. Some children, girls and boys, will get sexually transmitted diseases. Some girls — as young as 12, 11, or even 10 years old — will give birth to children of their own.”

“We are pushing them into the hands of criminals and pedophiles and this administration, Rep. Josh Brecheen (R-Okla.) told “Washington Watch with Tony Perkins” Tuesday. “America is one of the largest consumers of child pornography.” Yet inexplicably, the Biden-Harris administration revoked a Trump policy requiring a DNA test before releasing a minor to someone claiming to be a relative. “They just want to sweep this aside and speed up the placement process with sponsors, because they didn’t like the embarrassment of the visual at the border.”

Cartels rape women and children on the trek to the United States, remove their identification, and place them in the U.S. under a new name. “This is how they become just a number,” Brecheen told Perkins.

Experts said the children and other illegal immigrants are often subjected to a less-discussed form of exploitation: organ harvesting. A former member of the Sinaloa cartel, who worked as a sex trafficker in southern California, divulged “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,” testified Alicia Hopper, a consultant on human trafficking on Tuesday. “American buyers frequently seek out these illicit organ trades.”

“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,” said Hopper. Brecheen told Perkins of a child whose eye was removed and sold for $15,000.

The problem exploded as the Biden-Harris administration rescinded President Donald Trump’s border security policies, and illegal immigration reached record-breaking levels. The Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) placed 329,457 unaccompanied minors with sponsors between October 2021 and July 2024. “In contrast, only 124,627 children were sent to sponsors during the period from October 2017 to September 2020. This represents a staggering 164% increase,” said Alicia Hopper, a consultant on human trafficking.

Rodas, the former deputy to the director of the Federal Case Management Team, saw the issue firsthand while working at the Pomona (California) Fairplex Emergency Intake Site (EIS). “In June of 2021, we thought less than 50 children were affected. After funneling more than 8,300 children through the EIS in less than six months, we knew thousands were affected. In February of 2023 we learned from Hannah Dreier at the NYT that 85,000 children were missing.”

Yet Secretary Xavier Becerra of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which oversees ORR, told Congress in sworn testimony last March he was “unfamiliar” with that statistic. But ORR Director Robin Marcos obliquely acknowledged the number a month later.

Overall, the Biden-Harris administration is unable to account for 320,000 children.

Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) confronted Becerra at a separate House Judiciary Committee hearing on Wednesday.

“One address in Austin, Texas — a town which I represent — had more than 100 UACs released to a single family dwelling,” said Roy. “Mr. Secretary, how can you credibly claim that HHS is working to protect these children?” Roy said Becerra gave a “slippery answer” when confronted with federal rules that do not require comprehensive background checks for sponsors.

When Becerra said all children are placed with “vetted sponsors,” Roy replied, “A ‘vetted sponsor’ that rapes and murders the people that they’re entrusted to, because you issued a rule that doesn’t even do the background check? That’s what you think is appropriate care for these children?”

“This is one of the great tragedies of the abuse of the law by the Biden-Harris-[DHS Secretary Alejandro] Mayorkas regime,” Roy told an interviewer earlier this week. “We need to figure out who’s to blame. We need to hold them accountable,” including pressing “criminal charges where it’s appropriate.”

The hearings took place as a new report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported that the government had taken no action on four of the recommendations it made in 2020.

Hopper agreed. “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.”

She recommended the government reinstitute DNA testing, designate child trafficking as a terrorist activity, target human trafficking networks, penalize sponsors who cannot account for a child’s whereabouts, and release no more children until all missing children have been located.

Brecheen said securing the border would also solve the human trafficking problem. The president and other national leaders should have heeded the Bible, which says, “Do not remove the ancient landmark which your fathers have set” (Proverbs 22:28), said Brecheen. “Yet we’re moving the boundaries our Founding Fathers set in place and ignoring that scriptural truth.”