Why were unaccompanied migrant children being transported across America in the middle of the night? And who was making sure they ended up in safe hands?
In this explosive interview on Going Rogue, Lara Logan speaks with former DHS contractor site supervisor Tarek “Joey” Kadourah, who alleges that serious warning signs of child trafficking were repeatedly ignored during operations involving federal contractors under the Biden administration.
Kadourah describes frightened children attempting to flee during transportation stops, agents raising concerns about suspicious individuals receiving children, and supervisors allegedly dismissing those warnings.
He also recounts witnessing late-night airport operations where federal officers questioned why children were being moved at 2 a.m., only for someone higher up to intervene and allow the transports to continue.
His central allegation: The very system entrusted with protecting vulnerable children may have been delivering them into the hands of traffickers.
Who knew? Who raised the alarm? And why weren’t those concerns investigated?
Okay, so can you explain that the role
the federal government played for these traffickers,
they've brought these kids from wherever it is,
India, Ukraine, Latin America, Guatemala.
There were a lot from Guatemala, right?
They get them to the southern border.
Border Patrol then hands them over to HHS.
Yes.
And then basically the Biden administration,
through these contractors like MVM,
are transporting these kids all over the country.
I believe there was a proper way of doing it,
And they did it improperly
because they were rushing to get rid of the problem.
That's all it was.
It was a problem for the Biden administration,
and they were trying to find the quickest solution.
Because if those kids back up in these facilities,
that's going to become a visible symbol.
Yes.
And then they'll be accused of keeping kids
in cages and all the rest of it.
Exactly.
But also people will understand the scale of this migration,
mass migration across the southern border.
Yes, ma'am.
I could tell you they were using an army base,
Fort Bliss, as a site for the children as well.
MVM was.
But it was kept hidden.
Because there were so many.
There were so many, yes.
They used a whole army base for this.
And effectively, what the administration was doing by moving
these kids to other traffickers or to people who bought them.
Yes.
Is they're acting as the last sort of leg in the chain of trafficking?
Yes, ma'am.
So what were some of the things
that agents reported to you about these kids?
What were they saying and what would they do?
What was it like for the agents?
A lot of them were crying.
Like I said, some girls wanted to run away.
Like when they were doing stops, like on the bus or the van.
yeah they stop at a gas station right they would try to run away
and that's how you knew that they
knew a lot of those kids knew they were about to get trafficked again
because they don't have
parents or a lot of them didn't have parents
or family or relatives or anyone they knew here in
the U.S. how many kids would tell you that they were going to their mom
or their dad, MVM would
say that a big percentage of them were going to a relative
but it was, it wasn't true, the agents
were telling me that weren't those people weren't relatives, some
of them even looked like gang
members, how do you mean what
were the signs? MS-13 tattoos, Mexican Mafia tattoos, uh I had a trusted
agent who's a veteran and he would report he had
a um, he worked, he was a former corrections officer
as well and he would tell me, hey like Joey, there's
something, something's going on, there's two guys
with prison tattoos picking up a kid from us, what's going
on Joey, like we need to raise concerns
and this would happen multiple times
and every time I'd bring it up to my supervisor
hey they've been vetted, everything's okay, keep
your mouth shut, just keep doing the job, who was
your supervisor? Bertha, Bertha was my supervisor, Bertha
who Pedro something, I'm sorry I don't know
how to say her last name, what pissed me off about Bertha
this is my personal is she had her own kids
staying with us at the hotel while we're conducting this operation
and she knew what the, can I curse?
what the **** was going on and I kept emailing
her and texting her and what did she do? Nothing
she ******* ignored me and then she reported me as non-rehirable
because i was asking too
many ******* questions okay
no more f's i'm sorry she pissed me off the most it's okay
because she was a mom and she was hispanic
and she knew what was happening and she allowed it
to happen she could have done
the right thing right hey let's pause operations let's start
vetting these kids more let's ask questions let's get people
in who are actually doing the right
thing because obviously i wasn't the only one
that knew what was going on i'm sure the HHS staff knew
what was going on over there especially the people
that were watching over them anyone could have
reported to federal law enforcement we would sometimes get
on the tarmac at two in the morning
to transport these kids so my job was to escort them
to make sure they got on the plane and we'd
get rolled up on by federal police
at the airport asking hey what's going on why are you taking
kids in the middle of the night and then i don't know
who but someone up top yeah would make a call
and they would let us carry on and then they would stand down yes
ma'am and this happened
multiple times i witnessed in my own eyes
