by Charlotte Hazard
Health and Social Services Whistleblower Tara Rodas says she faced retaliation from the department after she raised concerns that unaccompanied immigrant children were being placed in the hands of sponsors linked to the notorious Salvadoran group MS-13.
“Interestingly enough, when I discovered that MS-13 was actually sponsoring children… it all started when a whistleblower from DHS came forward and notified us that MS-13 and the 18th Street gangs were kidnapping children, it took them less than three weeks, if you can imagine, to escort me out of the scene under threat of an investigation,” Rodas told Wednesday’s edition.Only news, no noise“TV show. “This is what happened to me.”
She said it was unbelievable that she was the victim of retaliation when HHS’s Office of Refugee Resettlement and Unaccompanied Children program should be changed to protect minors at the border.
“They knew they had a problem,” she said. “They could have easily changed the system to make it safe for children. Instead, they chose to silence me when I raised these concerns. These are serious concerns.”
On Tuesday, Rodas (pictured above) and fellow whistleblower Deborah White participated in a panel discussion on the exploitation of missing migrant children hosted by Sens. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, Bill Cassidy, R-La., and Ron Johnson, R-Wis.
– said Rodas during her testimony that unaccompanied migrant children are transferred through a network of U.S. government agencies, contractors and nongovernmental organizations. She said people working for those agencies and organizations have little or no training in protecting children from trafficking or abuse.
She stated that the Office of Refugee Resettlement and Unaccompanied Children program is falsely advertised as a family reunification program.
“Less than 40% of children are reunited with their parents,” Rodas said.
She added that in 2021 it was revealed that MS-13 gang members sponsored some of the underage immigrants who arrived at the US southern border.
Department of Justice identifies the MS-13 gang as “well-organized” and “heavily involved in profitable illegal enterprises” and “notorious for using violence to achieve its goals.”
Johnson asked Rodas during the roundtable whether U.S. government agencies were eager to allow children to be handed over to MS-13 because of the overwhelming state of the Biden administration’s open borders policy. “Yes, senator,” Rodas replied. “I wish I could tell you otherwise.”
Whistleblower White said in John Solomon’s Reports podcast that found that federal efforts to provide secure havens for America’s children were rushed through like an assembly line, increasing the risk that children ended up in unsafe shelters or with sponsors who weren’t properly vetted.
“Speed was the key, not safety,” White said.
Many GOP lawmakers have criticized the Biden administration’s open borders policy, saying it is the cause of all these abuses and human trafficking.
Last year it was reported that that the Biden administration has lost count of about 85,000 children who entered the U.S. unaccompanied by an adult.
“If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I don’t think I could have accepted that the government is responsible for spending billions of taxpayer dollars a year to place children in gang homes,” Rodas said. Only news“It’s unthinkable. It’s shameful.”
HHS did not respond to a request for comment.
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Charlotte Hazard is a reporter for Just the News.
Photo “Tara Rodas” by DreamChuckGrassley.
