Conservatives are blasting California's new governor-elect, former Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, over his agency's handling of unaccompanied migrant children, according to The Western Journal.
Becerra, a Democrat, defeated Republican Steve Hilton to succeed term-limited Gov. Gavin Newsom, NBC News projected. Becerra led with about 64% of the vote with roughly 59% of ballots counted early Wednesday.
The Western Journal, in an opinion piece, called Becerra "the most prolific child trafficking enabler" in American history. The outlet pointed to his tenure leading HHS under President Joe Biden from 2021 to 2025, when the agency's Office of Refugee Resettlement placed migrant children with sponsors.
Much of the criticism traces to a Pulitzer Prize-winning 2023 New York Times investigation. It found that as border shelters overflowed in 2021, HHS pushed to release children quickly and missed signs that many were ending up in dangerous jobs.
A February 2024 HHS inspector general report found required sponsor safety checks went undocumented in 16% of reviewed cases. In more than one in five cases, the agency failed to make a required check-in call a month after placement.
A House Oversight Committee report quoted Becerra comparing the process to a factory line. "If Henry Ford had seen this in his plant, he would have never become famous and rich. This is not the way you do an assembly line," he said, according to the report.
Hilton pressed the issue in an October debate, claiming "hundreds of thousands of children" were still missing. Becerra dismissed the attack as "retread Trump talking points" and said he improved a system left broken by the first Trump administration.
The often-cited figure of 300,000 "missing" children comes from an August 2024 Homeland Security inspector general report. That report found about 291,000 children had not been issued court notices and about 32,000 missed hearings between 2018 and 2023, a period that includes part of Trump's first term.
The Associated Press and PolitiFact have reported that the report did not describe those children as missing. Experts said many are living with sponsors the government lost track of on paper, though the report warned such children face a higher risk of trafficking and forced labor.
Becerra has said any exploitation happened after children left HHS custody. "What employers did after they left our care, after they left our jurisdiction ... was not on my watch," he told CalMatters in May.
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