A newly surfaced federal memo has intensified scrutiny of Xavier Becerras tenure as President Joe Bidens Health and Human Services secretary, revealing that the agency effectively rubber-stamped nearly every sponsor application for unaccompanied migrant children in 2024 while he oversaw the Office of Refugee Resettlement.
According to RedState, the internal document, obtained by the New York Post, shows that the Biden administrations Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) approved more than 99 percent of sponsor applications for unaccompanied minors in fiscal year 2024. The memo describes a less stringent vetting regime that left vulnerable children exposed to rapists, gang members, and other predators, even as the administration publicly claimed to be managing the border and migrant influx responsibly.
Between 2021 and 2024, the Department of Health and Human Services processed nearly half a million unaccompanied migrant children, placing them with sponsors through ORR. By Bidens final year in office, the memo indicates that virtually no applications from households seeking custody of these minors were denied, raising grave questions about whether basic safeguards were abandoned in favor of speed and political optics.
Those applications were not being approved because they were safe; they were being approved because, by that point, meaningful vetting had largely ceased. Becerras ORR, rather than carefully screening adults and households, effectively funneled unaccompanied minors through the system and handed them off to unvetted sponsors, even as Becerra reportedly mocked them as little Juanitos and Juanitas, as the California Post reported.
The political fallout from these revelations exploded onto the stage during Wednesday nights CNN gubernatorial debate, where Republican candidate Steve Hilton directly confronted Becerra over the scandal. Hilton GRILLS him on the fact that he lost nearly $500,000 immigrant kids as HHS Secretary under Biden, as one social media post described, highlighting Becerras visible discomfort, repeated sips of water, and refusal to meet Hiltons gaze.
@XavierBecerra goes full Joe Biden as @SteveHiltonx GRILLS him on the fact that he lost nearly $500,000 immigrant kids as HHS Secretary under Biden, the post stated, underscoring the perception that Becerra was rattled and unprepared. I lost count of how many times Xaviers taken sips of water (sign of being nervous) & been unable to look at Steve while Steve looks him in the eye with confidence.
Rather than accept responsibility, Becerra attempted to deflect blame onto President Donald Trump, insisting he was proud of his work at HHS. That line of defense rang hollow for critics who argue that the abuse, trafficking, and deaths tied to ORRs lax oversight occurred squarely on his watch, under policies championed by the Biden administration.
For families and advocates focused on child safety, the political blame game offers little comfort. Tell that to the children who were raped and abused because Becerra was doing the bidding of his cartel cohorts, one critic charged, warning that if Becerra showed such disregard for migrant children, what care is he going to take with California's children?
The memo details one especially horrific case involving a 15-year-old girl released to a man who claimed to be her biological brother. The sponsor has been charged by the state, and the case is under investigation by Homeland Security Investigations, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Department of Justice. Prior to sponsoring the 15-year-old female, the purported sponsor had sponsored three [unaccompanied migrant children], according to the ORR memo.
The document further concedes that the sky-high acceptance rate for sponsors followed a period from 2022 to 2024, less stringent policies allowed for potential and actual sponsors to exploit gaps in the ORR sponsor vetting process. In other words, the system was deliberately loosened, creating an open door for bad actors to manipulate the process and gain access to children.
Investigators found that fraudulent sponsors routinely used fake identification documents, doctored photographs, unverifiable addresses, and even fingerprint fraud to evade detection. They also misrepresented who lived in their households and lied about the ages and immigration status of other minors already in their care, exploiting a bureaucracy more concerned with clearing backlogs than with protecting children.
The Biden Administration failed in its most basic responsibility: protecting vulnerable children in federal care, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said in a statement. It weakened safeguards and prioritized speed over scrutiny, leaving children exposed to fraud, exploitation, and abuse.
The investigation also revealed that a disturbing number of minors placed with unvetted sponsors were later found dead. These are not abstract policy failures but human tragedies, directly traceable to a federal apparatus that, under Biden and Becerra, chose expedience over due diligence.
Several of the most egregious cases of fraudulent sponsorship occurred in 2024, underscoring how deeply the system had deteriorated. A 17-year-old migrant boy was released to a supposed stepsister, but in October 2024 he was found dead in the back seat of a car, with his genitalia exposed, along with an unconscious 30-year-old male, per the memo.
In another case, a teenage male migrant was released to a woman who claimed to be his mother but bore gang tattoos, a glaring red flag that was apparently ignored. By August 2024, the boy died after having been given seven marijuana joints by unrelated adult men, a grim testament to the dangers of placing children in environments that were never properly vetted.
The failures did not end with older teens. A February 2025 incident involved a nine-year-old migrant girl who was almost forced to share a room with her abusive 13-year-old brother, a situation that was only averted when ORR staff finally intervened, suggesting that even minimal internal oversight could have prevented some of the worst abuses if it had been consistently applied.
Hilton has spent months exposing what he calls Becerras Migrant Abuse camps, and the findings of this federal investigation align closely with the accounts of whistleblowers who have come forward to describe systemic corruption and deliberate weakening of ORR safeguards. Their testimony paints a picture of an agency captured by ideological priorities and bureaucratic inertia, rather than anchored in the basic moral duty to shield children from harm.
For many Californians, the pattern is unmistakable: a Democratic administration that opened the border, dismantled enforcement, and then failed to protect the very minors it claimed to be rescuing. This continued exposure of what Becerra did to vulnerable children, combined with his refusal to seriously address his record or the concerns of California families, should be an instant disqualifier, yet he appears arrogantly assuming he will fail up to the governor's chair, and Californians will do nothing to stop him.
The stakes for the state could not be clearer. Xavier Becerra lost THOUSANDS of children as HHS secretary and didnt even notice $225,000 stolen from his own account then sat there with no denial. A man who cant keep track of kids or cash cannot run California. WAKE UP CALIFORNIA, one pointed critique declared, capturing the growing sentiment that a leader who presided over such catastrophic failures in Washington cannot be trusted with the welfare of Californias children or the stewardship of its government.
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