Ashley Moody Presses Key Trump Nom On Preventing The Smuggling Of Migrant Children Into US

Forbes Breaking News

During a Senate HELP Committee hearing last week, Sen. Ashley Moody R-FL) spoke about the smuggling of children into the United States during the Biden administration.

Transcript

00:00here and if I might just say thank you to your family it is it is a senator

00:06Houston and I are the two newest members of the United States Senate and

00:10our families are also serving it is a certainly a family sacrifice and I'm so

00:14grateful you're willing to come back in to public service using all that you

00:18have acquired both in your government service and your private experience to

00:21benefit Americans and their health so thank you very much as deputy secretary

00:25you will oversee the operations of the department from the FDA to office of

00:31refugee resettlement including many actions related to the regulatory side

00:36of the department I wanted to talk to you about some issues certainly as a

00:40mother and as the former attorney general of Florida that I saw not handled well

00:46at all and in fact it was a disaster under the Biden administration and I

00:49wanted to get your take on how you might approach making sure that it can never

00:54happen again and any regulations or oversight is considered and modified

01:00within the agency to make sure it never happens again and specifically we saw

01:05that when Biden opened up the border and destroyed any semblance of security we saw

01:10many many many young minor children smuggled into our country pushed into

01:16states throughout throughout the office of refugee resettlement was supposed to

01:23oversee this it got so bad that they lost tens of thousands of children in Florida

01:29we could get no information from the Biden administration on who these children

01:34were where they were being placed how they were being taken care of even though the

01:39states have a primary responsibility of dealing with neglected abandoned abused

01:42children no information was shared in order to remedy that we went so far as to

01:48launch a grand jury investigation and when we asked for administration officials to come

01:53down and and testify or share information they refused to do so they said that it was hard

02:00to see how it would benefit the agency when all we cared about was the interests of those

02:07children who not only were smuggled into the United States placed in our grand jury report showed that

02:14they had been some had been sent to strip clubs empty lots next to container facilities dozens placed

02:22with the same sponsor many unvetted it was it was inviting trafficking in fact many children in the United

02:31States were found to have been entrapped in trafficking that had been smuggled over the border I

02:36believe and I believe the grand jury report shows that this obfuscation or refusal to provide information

02:45or witnesses was to shield the fact they knew these kids were were not being supervised putting being

02:51put in dangerous situations and they were in fact the administration in fact was facilitating trafficking

02:57what will you do knowing that the office of refugee resettlement is going to be in terms of

03:05operations is going to be under your purview what will you do to ensure now again we know that in

03:11the first 100 days President Trump has basically shut down the border we're seeing nothing like the

03:17numbers we saw last year my hope is that this stops the purposeful smuggling of children into our

03:25nation being put into dangerous situations that we we shut this down what can you do to ensure that

03:31this never happens again as a mother but certainly as the Attorney General that was working with agencies

03:37desperately trying to promote safeguards for children not getting any information law enforcement

03:42was begging for it child services was begging for it what will you do to ensure that this can't happen

03:47again thank you for the excellent question Senator Moody so in the Bush administration I worked very

03:54closely with the office of refugee resettlement especially to fight human trafficking I was the HHS

04:00representative on the government-wide senior policy and operating group to fight human trafficking

04:04I'm very proud of the work that we did with OR at that time the focus of OR was a little bit

04:11different then the human trafficking fight was not as focused on the border as it obviously has been in

04:16the last five years it is absolutely a priority and I believe the Secretary has set as a priority for

04:22him to find all the missing children and make sure that they're safe and I if confirmed I look forward to

04:29working with him and the office of refugee resettlement as well as other parts of government

04:33to ensure that all children are safe well again remember it's not just finding these children

04:37there are regulations in place that facilitated the government basing basically becoming traffickers of

04:43children can you go in and work immediately to remedy any of those that either promoted or allowed for

04:49these children to be disseminated across the United States many never to be heard from again placed in

04:55incredibly dangerous situations yes I can so traditionally the role of deputy secretary

05:01is heavily focused on regulations on making sure that regulations are up-to-date and appropriate

05:07making modifications when necessary and I will absolutely review all the regulations pertain to ORR

05:13or or other any other areas that could affect trafficking or missing children and make sure that they are appropriate

05:19Thank you Mr. O'Neill. Senator also Brooks.

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