Former Biden HHS Secretary Makes Plea Overshadowed by Child Immigrant Controversy
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As Xavier Becerra looks to increase votes in the Democratic primary for governor, one of the biggest controversies overshadowing his record is the scandal involving the disappearance of children from other countries during his tenure as Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
The scandal was caused by the increase in the number of immigrants, especially unaccompanied minors. The shelters became so full that these children were forced to live in prison-like facilities run by government transport officials and eventually in the big cities tents were set up in the big cities.
The images of these children put pressure on the Biden administration to act, so it is reported that they began to force workers to start removing children immediately from shelters and to their sponsors aimed at protecting children from human trafficking or other forms of exploitation, according to a serious investigation by the New York Times published on Feb. 2023.
“If Henry Ford had seen this in his plants, he wouldn’t have become famous and rich. This is not how you do an assembly line,” Becerra told HHS staff, according to the Times, as HHS begins to roll back long-standing protections that have been in place for years, such as certain background checks and reviews of children’s files.
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Young children rest inside a pod at the Department of Homeland Security’s Donna Detention Center, the largest detention center for unaccompanied minors in the Rio Grande Valley, in Donna, Texas, on March 30, 2021. (Dario Lopez-Mills/Associated Press)
Becerra’s comments to increase efficiency also came after about a dozen officials in the HHS division that oversees unaccompanied migrant children expressed concern that child trafficking is on the rise, adding that the program “rewards people for quick removals, not rewards people for preventing unsafe removals,” according to the Times.
Data obtained by The Times showed, over a two-year period, more than 85,000 children could not be tracked by government officials. However, Becerra denied that the unaccompanied minors were “missing,” saying they were being cared for by vetted sponsors, but did not answer the phone when officials tracked them down. Becerra and his supporters also pointed out amid pushback on the issue that HHS’s legal authority over a child ends once it is placed with a sponsor.
A campaign worker with Becerra’s team added that the HHS Secretary has worked tirelessly to fix the broken immigration system that Trump inherited, suggesting that the blame does not fall at Becerra’s feet.
Meanwhile, in February 2024, the Office of the Inspector General of HHS indicated that it had indeed found gaps in the sponsor’s evaluation and follow-up, including missing documents for the necessary security checks in 16% of the sample files and follow-up calls that did not arrive on time or were not documented in many cases.
At the time those findings were issued, the HHS OIG had already found in 2022 that the guidance issued on accelerated discharges removed protections and may have increased the risk of discharges to unsafe donors.
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HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra testified during a Senate Finance Committee hearing on the President’s fiscal year 2025 budget for Health and Human Services at the Dirksen Building on March 14, 2024. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc)
A few months after the Times reported, House Republicans subpoenaed Becerra and HHS to obtain records and documents related to the “screening, screening and monitoring” of migrant child sponsors. Republicans received hundreds of documents, but said no one responded to their concerns before they dragged him to Capitol Hill for a hearing.
After House Republicans ordered HHS to produce the records on Oct. 3, 2024, the dispute did not reach a clean public conclusion – the committees kept complaining that the production was incomplete, Becerra was called again to testify, and the latest reports of the watchdog – instead of the subpoena of Congress – was a clear answer to whether the government was reliably tracking the minorities of the United States entering the United States.
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“Xavier Becerra failed those kids, failed the country, and failed his job,” a Democratic Party strategist told Fox News Digital on condition of anonymity.
“Becerra was bad at HHS, and thought he could be Governor of California after that record was fake,” the Democratic strategist continued. “Voters deserve better than a recycled cabinet secretary who can’t run his department.”
