Ex-Biden official's campaign faces heat as missing children scandal resurfaces: 'Voters deserve better'
As Xavier Becerra looks to move up the polls in the California Democratic primary for governor, one of the biggest controversies shadowing his record is the scandal involving missing migrant...
By Fox News · Fox News
As Xavier Becerra looks to move up the polls in the California Democratic primary for governor, one of the biggest controversies shadowing his record is the scandal involving missing migrant children during his tenure as Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The scandal reportedly stemmed from the massive surge of immigrants, specifically unaccompanied minor children. Shelters became so full that these children were forced to stay in jail-like facilities run by federal immigration officials and eventually in massive tent cities set up in major metropolitan areas. The images of these children put pressure on the Biden administration to do something, so they reportedly began imposing demands on staffers to begin moving kids quickly out of the shelters and to their sponsors meant to protect the kids from human trafficking or other forms of exploitation, according to a scathing investigation by the New York Times published in Feb. 2023. "If Henry Ford had seen this in his plants, he would have never become famous and rich. This is not the way you do an assembly line," Becerra told HHS staff, according to the Times, even as HHS was beginning to peel back longstanding protections that had been in place for years, such as certain background checks and reviews of children's files. EXCLUSIVE: NEW ‘GAVIN NEWSOM FILES’ REVEAL CALIFORNIA GOVERNOR’S ‘EXTREME’ AGENDA The comment from Becerra to ramp up the efficiency also came after nearly a dozen officials within the HHS division responsible for unaccompanied migrant children expressed concern that child labor trafficking was increasing, adding the system is "one that rewards individuals for making quick releases, and not one that rewards individuals for preventing unsafe releases," according to the Times. Data the Times obtained showed, over a period of two years, more than 85,000 children became unable to be tracked by federal officials. However, Becerra contested that unaccompanied minors had been "…