Biden’s Unaccompanied Children Program Allegedly Exploited by Guatemalan Traffickers, Records Show

A shocking new report suggests that Guatemalan human traffickers are exploiting the Biden administration’s resettlement program for unaccompanied alien children, turning what was supposed to be a humanitarian effort into a pipeline for abuse. Documents provided by whistleblowers from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) reveal that the federal government has facilitated the unsafe placement of thousands of children, often handing them over to traffickers posing as sponsors.

The whistleblowers, who believed HHS was complicit in these dangerous placements, shared the troubling details with Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), who then compiled a criminal referral to the FBI. According to the documents, traffickers in Guatemala advertise on local radio stations, convincing parents to send their children to the U.S. alone. The Biden administration’s policy of releasing these children into the custody of so-called "sponsors" has created an opportunity for these traffickers, who often pose as relatives but are, in fact, part of the criminal enterprises that brought the children to America.

One 16-year-old Guatemalan boy described how his father responded to a radio ad and paid $2,500 to send him to the United States. Once here, the boy was placed with a stranger posing as his cousin. Another case involved a teenage girl placed with a 25-year-old man who claimed to be her brother. It was later discovered that his social media accounts contained child pornography and violent images. Disturbingly, a woman placed in another sponsor’s home was found to be featured on a Facebook profile that appeared to advertise women for sale.

These cases are just a few examples of what appears to be a widespread and organized trafficking operation that has flourished under the Biden administration's lax border policies. The report highlights the administration’s failure to properly vet sponsors, with HHS officials pressured to deliver children to adults quickly, without sufficient checks to ensure the children’s safety.

The whistleblower documents expose a damning pattern: Guatemalans make up nearly 70% of unaccompanied minors entering the U.S., despite representing only 6% of the total illegal immigrant population. This disproportionate figure points to a large-scale trafficking network that has taken advantage of the administration's policies.

In many cases, the sponsors are not relatives but traffickers who exploit the system to gain custody of children for labor or other nefarious purposes. The report details instances where sponsors used multiple addresses, often altering the spelling of names to avoid detection. One man, for example, was granted custody of six children by the U.S. government, despite suspicious discrepancies in his identification documents.

Even more alarming is the fact that HHS has been unwilling or unable to implement stronger oversight. The Biden administration has prioritized moving children out of holding facilities and into sponsors’ homes as quickly as possible, likely to avoid accusations of hypocrisy after labeling the secure facilities used by previous administrations as "cages." However, this haste has led to disastrous consequences. HHS whistleblowers reported that, in many cases, they were unable to locate the children after placing them with sponsors. By 2021, at least 85,000 children were missing—a figure that may now be closer to 200,000.

One particularly egregious case involved a sponsor who sent the government pictures of two different, contradictory Guatemalan IDs via WhatsApp, which were accepted without question. The girl he claimed to sponsor was later found in a Facebook profile that appeared to catalog young females as if they were merchandise. Despite these red flags, HHS did not notify law enforcement or child protective services.

The whistleblowers’ testimony at a recent Senate panel underscores the gravity of the situation. HHS’s follow-up consists of a single phone call 30 days after placing the children with sponsors, at which point a third of the children cannot be located. This negligent oversight is not just a bureaucratic failure—it’s a human tragedy.

The Biden administration recently paused a similar program for adult migrants after an inspector general’s audit found widespread fraud among sponsors. Yet, the damage has already been done. The unaccompanied alien children program, once seen as a means of protecting vulnerable youth, has become a conduit for trafficking, with the U.S. government effectively complicit in the exploitation of these children.

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