Biden Regime Caught Paying Child Traffickers to ‘Care’ for Migrant Kids [WATCH]

Secretary Kristi Noem said federal investigators have located roughly 145,000 alien children who were lost and not tracked under the Biden administration, describing the situation as a major failure in the federal government’s handling of migrant minors.

During testimony addressing the issue, Noem said investigators with Homeland Security Investigations have been working to locate the children and identify cases involving trafficking or abuse.

“Children were lost by the Biden administration, not tracked. We’ve located about 145,000 of them, and we’ve done that through the investigative work of our Homeland Security Investigations team.”

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Noem credited the investigative unit with leading the effort to find the children and investigate potential criminal activity connected to the program.

“They are phenomenal at the work that they do, and they specialize in child trafficking, sex trafficking, and finding individuals that would perpetuate that harm against our children.”

The secretary said investigators found cases in which migrant children were placed with sponsors through programs administered by the Department of Health and Human Services.

According to Noem, the federal government provided payments to individuals who agreed to host the children, and in some cases those placements led to further exploitation.

“The one thing that has been challenging is that under the Biden administration, the government paid sponsors in HHS in order to host these children.”

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Noem said some of those sponsors were later found to have trafficked or abused the minors placed in their care.

“And those sponsors, many times, we found instances where they trafficked these children themselves.”

She said the arrangement resulted in situations where the federal government unknowingly placed vulnerable children with individuals involved in criminal activity.

“So under that administration, we not only had children that were in this country as a part of a program, the government was paying individuals that were knowingly trafficking them and abusing them.”

Noem said those policies have since been halted and that federal authorities have begun the process of locating the missing minors and returning them to relatives or guardians when possible.

“That has stopped, we have gone through and found these children and put them back with their families when we have the opportunity to do so and with loved ones that will care for them.”

The effort to reunite children with family members has involved cooperation with foreign governments in certain cases where the children originated outside the United States.

“I would say that even in one case, we have other countries where we’ve been working with them to get their children back home.”

Noem said some of those reunification efforts have faced legal obstacles.

“Where we’ve been prevented returning these families back and helping them to be reunified by activist judges.”

Despite those challenges, she said federal officials intend to continue working to return trafficked children to safe environments and reunite them with family members when possible.

“But we will continue to work to ensure that these individuals and these children that were abused by the trafficking over the border have the opportunity to be brought back to their families and to their loved ones going forward.”

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