The whistleblower, Tara Lee Rodas, volunteered with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services [HHS] to help process unaccompanied migrant children and was deployed to an emergency intake site in Pomona, California.
Rodas sat down with Project Veritas founder James O'Keefe and explained how precarious he believes the current child sponsorship program for these minors is.
"People's tax dollars are paying to put children in the hands of criminals," Rodas told O'Keefe.
"Our sponsors are typically non-citizens. They are not permanent residents. They don't have residency," he said.
"The sponsor can hold a 'deportation order' in front of the [migrant] child and say, 'This is your deportation order. If you don't do what I say when I say it, I will call ICE on you myself'. We are paying to put children in the hands of criminals".
The whistleblower confirmed that he has repeatedly questioned federal government bureaucrats about possible abuses at their facilities, and the response has generally been dismissive of his concerns. He believes that he has suffered retaliation at work for raising these concerns.
"I said [to the command center managers], 'We're ready to send another child [to Austin, Texas],' and they said, 'Tara, I think you need to understand that we're only going to be sued if we keep children in care too long.
Traffickers don't sue us. Is that clear? We are not being sued by traffickers. So that was the response of the US federal government. HHS did not want this information to get out," Rodas said.
"They knew that I was making protected whistleblower reports and they retaliated against me as a whistleblower and kicked me off the site so I couldn't investigate the cases further," he said.
As a result of Rodas's action, Project Veritas journalists visited several physical addresses provided by the whistleblower to interview the people involved and investigate whether human trafficking had occurred.
On one of these occasions, a Veritas journalist interviewed an underage migrant woman who revealed that her sponsor had subjected her to sexual abuse.
"I had an aunt [sponsored] but she kicked me out of her house. She fucked me and I didn't like it. She used to pimp for men," the child said.
"One night I ran away. I told her [my aunt], 'I'm going to the laundry. She [the aunt] went to the laundry, but she couldn't find me there. Later she called the immigration office."
Project Veritas will release more information on the case this week as the story develops. Whistleblowers with knowledge of similar situations are asked to email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. with information that the public should be aware of.
About Project Veritas
James O'Keefe founded Project Veritas in 2010 as a non-profit journalism enterprise to continue his undercover reporting work.
Today, Project Veritas investigates and exposes corruption, dishonesty, self-deception, waste, fraud and other abuses in both public and private institutions to create a more ethical and transparent society and litigate on behalf of those who follow:
Protect, defend and expand human and civil rights guaranteed by law, especially First Amendment rights, including the promotion of the free exchange of ideas in a digital world;
to fight and defeat censorship against any ideology;
promoting truthful reporting; and protecting freedom of expression and association, including the right to anonymity.
O'Keefe will serve as CEO and chair of the board of directors to continue to lead and educate his journalistic colleagues and to protect and nurture the culture of Project Veritas.
Project Veritas is a registered 501(c)3 organization. Project Veritas does not advocate specific solutions to the issues raised by its investigations.
