Undercover footage and whistleblower accounts paint a grim picture of how unaccompanied children were processed, shuffled, and exposed to trafficking during the Biden years, with multiple officials and caseworkers describing rushed placements, discarded documents, and cartel influence.
The scale was staggering: across four years, 448,000 unaccompanied alien children entered the U.S., many traveling through Mexico and controlled by cartel-linked coyotes. Former staff and investigators describe a system swamped by numbers and short on safeguards, with federal grant money flowing to organizations that handled the influx.
Investigative undercover videos obtained after a probe into organizations that received ORR funding show employees openly questioning vetting standards and administrative oversight. Angela Cacciola, former chief human resources officer for Children’s Home of Kingston, New York, said in the footage, “They were literally like, ‘Everyone has a contract!’” and added, “I feel like when they were handing out contracts, that ORR was like, ‘Yes, you have a contract. Yes, you have a contract.’ They weren’t really vetting the places.”
The Office of Refugee Resettlement, tasked with managing money and policy for unaccompanied children, provided grants to nonprofits meant to care for minors arriving alone. Former staff describe rushed processing, missing documentation, and a focus on moving children to sponsors quickly rather than verifying relationships and safety.
The spike in arrivals was dramatic year to year. In 2020, 15,381 unaccompanied children were recorded; in 2021 the number jumped to 122,731 and peaked at 128,904 in 2022 before falling to 98,356 by 2024. For comparison, that total dropped to 22,833 in the next year under a different approach to border enforcement.
Former case managers on camera admitted the priority was speed. Carlos Nova, the former lead case manager for Rising Ground, said, “Could [sic] care less how the minor felt about it,” and added, “It was just, ‘Hey, this minor has to get there, and that’s it. The faster we can do it, the better.’” Those blunt admissions underscore how safety checks were often sidelined.
Staffers also described shocking mishandling of identity documents. Darleen Sealey, senior administrator on duty for Berkshire Farm Center and Services for Youth, said, “…[T]here was a garbage can filled to the top with passports. So they were processing the kids and just throwing their documents in there,” a practice she said complicated sponsor vetting for two years.
Witnesses described cartel involvement and the debt dynamic that follows migration facilitated by coyotes. Yolanda Gonzalez, a project manager handling calls to ORR, explained, “So the thought is when they get to where they’re going, they’re going to be released to a sponsor that already knows they owe us [the cartel] money,” indicating how traffickers maintain leverage over children and families.
Other scenes in the videos are deeply disturbing: a senior ORR oversight advisor named Natasha Wright acknowledged hotel staff and National Guardsmen were “sleeping with the minors in the hotels.” Workers also discussed placements to people who were not relatives and cases “that we know were sent to traffickers.” Those lines of testimony point to systemic failures in supervision and accountability.
Caseworkers noted the diversity of children in care and the language and cultural barriers that made oversight harder. Sealey said the “majority” of children her agency handled didn’t speak Spanish, noting, “They were from Africa, Italy, Ukraine, New Delhi (India), and those places,” and that care teams needed Mandarin and Japanese interpreters at times.
Catholic Charities Social Work Supervisor Indaira Charles made explicit claims about exploitation and motives, saying, “A lot of them were here to get pregnant,” and, “That’s where the National Guard came into play.” She added, “If I get pregnant and I have a baby in America, a lot of that’s resolved,” and, “The women had a plan. They weren’t just having sexual relationships with y’all. They wanted their papers. They wanted to become legal citizens.”
The undercover footage and employee accounts show a fed-up workforce and a system buckling under volume and poor policy choices. When asked, “ORR was ill-equipped to handle what the Biden administration put in place?” Cacciola responded, “Who was monitoring the Biden administration? I mean, let’s be honest.”
Editor’s Note: Thanks to President Trump, illegal immigration into our great country has virtually stopped. Despite the radical left’s lies, new legislation wasn’t needed to secure our border, just a new president.
