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At a high level, the movement of minors across the U.S.-Mexico border is easy to understand. Children arrive at the border and are moved to where they have “family.” Like most U.S. government bureaucracies, the process is much more complex, fraught with incompetence, and no one can be held accountable.

Massive government contracts doled out to private military contractors and nonprofits hide the sheer ineptitude of these policies. The common thread of these programs is they are being outsourced from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Health and Human Services (HHS) to contractors. This allows the agencies to distance themselves from their policies while no one is held accountable. Human-smuggling operations exploit the immigration process, dropping a child at the border and taking custody of them in the U.S. This is why DHS cannot account for over 320,000 children who have entered the U.S.

The Supply Chain

A source within the Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) states the children are being coached by the traffickers on what to do and say when they reach the border. If an individual claims to be under the age of 14, CBP is not required to ask them for documentation or fingerprint them. They are given a point of contact in the U.S. who is part of the smuggling ring and told to inform CBP their parents are in the U.S. Knowing CBP cannot confirm this, the kids are processed through the border.

Once a minor reaches the border, it becomes a race against time. By regulation, CBP can only hold a minor for 72 hours so the logistics operation starts immediately. With limited personnel, they’ve contracted with MVM, a private military contractor (PMC), to move these children across the country. Where they go is based on what the minor has told CBP. As an example, if a minor tells CBP their parents are in Ohio, MVM transports them to Cleveland. No one in this process has verified they have family in the area.

MVM hands these children off to a nonprofit contracted by the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) under HHS. These nonprofits are tasked with finding sponsors for the children which is primarily based on what the child says. As coached by the smugglers, they inform them they have family in the area and give them the contact information provided by their smugglers. The nonprofit contacts the “family members” and passes them along — handing them back to the smugglers. They can now hold the child for ransom to ensure they receive payment or sell them to the highest bidder. The added benefit is there is no definitive identification of the child so they can never be found.

The Use of Private Contractors

Using private contractors has become the norm for government agencies. The problem is once a contractor is involved, the government has no direct oversight to what happens. This is convenient for the politicians and agencies because they can blame the problems on a third party instead of shouldering the consequences of their policies and actions.

The company moving children from the border to places within the U.S. is called MVM. MVM is known for working with the CIA and other intelligence agencies in Iraq and Afghanistan. Like Blackwater, it protected government employees and was dogged by claims of misconduct. Looking at its job board, it has multiple positions open for “logistics specialists” whose primary task is to transport minors and family units to the airport where they are handed off to MVM’s “Travel Youth Care Workers” for transportation to an ORR funded nonprofit. These soft job descriptions cover over a hard truth — this is government-funded human trafficking.

These are the people you see on X walking migrants through airports and putting them on charter planes to move throughout the U.S. A source let me know there are sub-contracts for this. He was offered a job escorting family units using school buses from the Arizona border to southern California.

As mentioned, these children are handed off to nonprofits contracted through HHS’s Office of Refugee Resettlement program. Casa Alitas is reportedly one such nonprofit which has a large hotel in Tucson, AZ. They are highly secretive and when confronted by journalist Rachel Campos-Duffy, they removed her from the building.

Another ORR contractor, Southwest Key Program, has a $13.6 million contract to shelter minors at their twenty-nine locations across three states. In July 2024, the Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against Southwest Key Program for a history of its employees sexually abusing minors going back to 2016. 

The Paperwork

The excuse to use PMCs throughout the entire supply chain can be traced to the regulations stating DHS has to process and move unaccompanied minors within 72 hours of detention. Using contractors allows them to do this. It’s the same concept as big box retailers adding contractors around Christmas to help move products. It’s cheaper, easier, and they can be released when not needed.

The difference is big box retailers track their products. Not allowing CBP to verify the identity of minors at the US border corrupts the entire supply chain. The contractors are not obligated to ensure the legitimacy of the “sponsor” of the child, which is how DHS can lose over 300,000 of them. Once these kids are out of the process, there is no way to track them, which is why there are numerous reports of them being sold into slavery and sex trafficked.

Conclusion

The promulgation of private military contractors started with Afghanistan and Iraq over two decades ago. In that time, each government agency has had the ability to hire internally to staff for their needs. They made a conscious decision to retain contractors and expanded their use to other agencies. This was a politically motivated decision.

Restricting what actual government agencies can do while losing oversight when using contractors has created a U.S. tax dollar funded child-trafficking operation. When it comes to light, politicians, agency heads, and the PMCs stand around pointing at each other like the Spider-Man meme. It’s a perfect system…unless you’re the child.

About the author: Morgan Lerette is a former Army intelligence officer and worked for Blackwater for 18 months in 2004-2005. He wrote the book Guns, Girls, and Greed: I was a Blackwater Mercenary in Iraq.

Free image, Pixabay license.

Image: Free image, Pixabay license.