Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra was called out by a reporter for the New York Times for feigning ignorance over the number of migrant children that have been lost by the administration.
Becerra pleaded ignorance and even suggested the numbers may have been fabricated while speaking at a congressional hearing in late March.
Reports had surfaced earlier in the year that thousands of illegal immigrant children were being forced into illegal labor conditions in part due to the administration insisting they be discharged from shelters and out of federal custody as quickly as possible.
He even compared the children to automobiles at an assembly plant needing to be processed out of the factory in a video directive to staff.
“If Henry Ford had seen this in his plants, he would have never become famous and rich,” Becerra said at a recorded meeting. “This is not the way you do an assembly line.”
HHS Secretary Becerra is pushing staff to get migrant kids released to sponsors faster. He often asks why it can’t run like an assembly line.
In this leaked video, he berates staff and says, “If Henry Ford had seen this in his plants, he would have never become famous and rich.” pic.twitter.com/EkLIYNz4RG
— Hannah Dreier (@hannahdreier) February 25, 2023
RELATED: AOC Slams Biden For Reopening ‘Migrant Facility For Children’ But Doesn’t Call Them ‘Concentration Camps’
Biden Administration Reportedly Lost 85,000 Migrant Children
New York Times investigative reporter Hannah Dreier has been tracking the situation in recent months and responded to a portion of Becerra’s congressional testimony.
The HHS Secretary had questioned GOP lawmakers on where they were getting their statistics on the Biden administration’s lost migrant children.
“Those statistics that you’ve mentioned, as I said previously, in regards to another question by one of your colleagues, those are … those are unfamiliar to me,” Becerra said at the hearing.
“I have no idea where those statistics come from, if they’re based in reality or not,” he added. “And we do everything we can to make sure any child, before we allow them to be released to a sponsor, that that sponsor has been vetted.”
Dreier tweeted a clip of the video and pointed out that the number has ballooned to over 85,000 children lost. And she claims the numbers come from Becerra’s own department.
“In several congressional hearings, HHS Secretary Becerra has been asked about our reporting that HHS couldn’t reach 85,000 migrant children right after releasing them,” Dreier fired back.
“He says he doesn’t know where those numbers come from. For what it’s worth, they’re from the HHS press office.”
In several congressional hearings, HHS Secretary Becerra has been asked about our reporting that HHS couldn’t reach 85,000 migrant children right after releasing them.
He says he doesn’t know where those numbers come from. For what it’s worth, they’re from the HHS press office. pic.twitter.com/IZYPjl29cU
— Hannah Dreier (@hannahdreier) March 29, 2023
In a subsequent tweet, Dreier hammered Becerra for pretending he wasn’t aware of the numbers as she described them simply as “knowable.”
“The number of kids the government has been unable to reach since 2021 is knowable,” she said. “That number is more than 85,000. And the share of kids who get immediately lost is growing.”
There are reasons why some migrant children might not want to talk to US child welfare workers.
But the number of kids the government has been unable to reach since 2021 is knowable.
That number is more than 85,000.
And the share of kids who get immediately lost is growing.
— Hannah Dreier (@hannahdreier) March 29, 2023
RELATED: Former Trump ICE Director Slams Biden Admin’s Claims Of Compassion At The Border
Have You Heard AOC Crying Over the 85,000 Lost Children?
In a column written by Dreier in April, she again hammered HHS Secretary Becerra and noted he had been warned about migrant children being lost to forced labor situations.
“Again and again, veteran government staffers and outside contractors told the Health and Human Services Department, including in reports that reached Secretary Xavier Becerra, that children appeared to be at risk,” she wrote before noting that other aspects of President Biden’s administration were also ignoring warnings.
“Senior White House aides were shown evidence of exploitation, such as clusters of migrant children who had been found working with industrial equipment or caustic chemicals.”
In this leaked video, HHS Sec Becerra berates staff and says, “If Henry Ford had seen this in his plants, he would have never become famous and rich.”
Q: Who’s getting rich off Taxpayer-Funded Child Trafficking?
A: Some contractors earn more than $50,000/month! #FollowTheMoney https://t.co/4WC8ZwFKLe
— Tara Rodas (@taraleerodas) April 23, 2023
Last month, HHS whistleblower Tara Lee Rodas testified that the United States government was serving as a “middleman” in an illegal immigrant child trafficking operation.
“I discovered that children are being trafficked through a sophisticated network that begins with recruiting in their home country, smuggled to the U.S. border, and ends when [Office of Refugee Resettlement] delivers a child to a sponsor — some sponsors are criminals and traffickers and members of Transnational Criminal Organizations,” she told lawmakers.
“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.”
Becerra, as mentioned above, specifically likened the situation to commodities coming off an assembly line.
“Whether intentional or not, it could be argued that the U.S. government has become the middleman in a large-scale, multibillion-dollar child trafficking operation that is run by bad actors seeking to profit off of the lives of children,” Rodas added.
BOMBSHELL TESTIMONY: Whistleblower Tara Lee Rodas —
“The United States government has become the middleman in a large scale multi-billion dollar CHILD TRAFFICKING OPERATION that is run by Bad actors seeking to profit off of the lives of children…”
pic.twitter.com/bCKqf7n2cc
— Chuck Callesto (@ChuckCallesto) April 26, 2023
What we have here is about as close to a ‘concentration camp’ crisis as could ever have been possibly imagined. Children processed like assembly line products. Children forced into labor. Children trafficked and exploited. Tens of thousands just missing.
And yet the queen of the ‘concentration camp’ label is nowhere to be found. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) has been oddly silent after repeatedly defining kids in migrant facilities as being housed in “concentration camps” under the Trump administration.
“That is exactly what they are. They are concentration camps,” she claimed in an Instagram video in 2019.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez continues to falsely label U.S. migrant detention centers as concentration camps.
This is what happens when UNINFORMED Americans elect UNINFORMED people into positions of power.
At least the ending of this video fits @AOC perfectly. pic.twitter.com/QH74Q7sDze
— Andrew Pollack (@AndrewPollackFL) June 20, 2019
“I don’t use those words lightly,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “I don’t use those words to just throw bombs.”
“I use that word because that is what an administration that creates concentration camps is. A presidency that creates concentration camps is fascist and it’s very difficult to say that.”
Becerra and Biden’s HHS are creating actual ‘fascist concentration camps’ and there is nobody there to fake cry outside of the facilities.
“We need to save these kids,” she tweeted not so long ago. Now, she’s nowhere to be found.
I’ll never forget this, because it was the moment I saw with my own eyes that the America I love was becoming a nation that steals refugee children from their parents,& caged them.
More kids died after this. To date, no one has been held accountable.
We need to save these kids. https://t.co/HhdMqc5zML
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) June 25, 2019
Becerra, as Attorney General of California, sued the Trump administration over their child separation policies.
“Child internment camps in America … the Trump Administration has hit a new low,” he said, echoing AOC. “President Trump’s indifference towards the human rights of the children and parents who have been ripped away from one another is chilling.”
Trump was pilloried for separating an estimated 5,000 children from people who identified as parents or family members. Now what about the lost 85,000 migrant children?
There was a time when the Biden administration touted their “compassion” at the border and outlined a plan to “replace the cruelty” of the previous administration.
Turns out, their business is cruelty, especially toward children. And business these days is pretty good.
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