Xavier Becerra’s campaign rocked by horrifying claims about missing migrant kids under his watch
Barclay Crawford and Marina Peña | July 27, 2026 | 8:00 a.m. ETXavier Becerra faces a renewed scandal over his tenure as Joe Biden’s health secretary after a whistleblower came forward to expose the horrific levels of abuse and exploitation of hundreds of thousands of migrant children faced while in detention in California.
A caseworker at the Pomona Fairplex alleges children faced abuse and chaotic releases, were separated from young siblings, and sent to unverified addresses or secretly moved in the dead of the night — some never to be seen again — while the complex also accepted fake documents from sponsors.
During his time as Biden’s health secretary from 2021 to 2025, the U.S. faced an overwhelming border crisis, with just under 480,000 unaccompanied minors crossing the border. The HHS was the federal agency legally mandated to care for and protect unaccompanied migrant children. . .
The whistleblower, who brought the allegations to rival gubernatorial Republican candidate Steve Hilton, is a first-generation American and mother of two who’s family moved from El Salvador and was raised in Southern California.
Her shocking claims come as Hilton zeros in on Becerra’s controversial and much-criticized term as health secretary ahead of the general election for governor of California on November 3. The latest poll for the race, by the Public Policy Institute of California, found the Democrat ahead of Hilton 61% to 36%.
Becerra toured the Fairplex complex in July 2021, and called it a “a model” for other sites across America and a place where kids could be ‘’healthy and safe.’’
In her six months working at the center in 2021, the whistleblower claims her concerns about what was happening to vulnerable children were routinely ignored because of pressure to reunify minors with sponsors, despite no clear evidence of any connection the adults had to the children or where they were going.
One haunting example from the caseworker involved a 5-year-old girl, ‘’Grace,” who arrived at the Fairplex with her 7-year-old sister.
Grace was distraught because she couldn’t find her sibling.
“I miss my sister and I don’t know where she’s at,’’ said Grace, claiming to not have not seen her sister for several days.
The caseworker claimed a 14-year-old girl got pregnant after being raped. She had allegedly been forced into sex work by a woman described as her ‘’so-called aunt’’ and sponsor. . .
https://nypost.com/2026/07/27/us-news/xavier-becerra-campaign-rocked-by-whistleblower-claims-over-missing-migrant-kids/
