In a recent congressional hearing, Missouri Senator Josh Hawley revealed allegations made by a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) whistleblower that DHS agents have been reassigned from human trafficking cases to perform in-person services at the southern border, including the task of making sandwiches for illegal immigrants.
During a hearing at the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on Tuesday, Senator Hawley brought forward the claims made by the DHS whistleblower. According to the whistleblower, DHS agents are “being told to shut down investigations to go hand out sandwiches and escort migrants to the shower and sit with them while they’re in the hospital.”
Senator Hawley confronted DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas about these disturbing revelations and inquired about their validity.
“You’re taking special agents away from investigating child traffickers and child exploitation—when you’ve lost tens of thousands of kids to traffickers—and you’re sending them to make sandwiches at the border,” Senator Hawley stated to Secretary Mayorkas. “What is going on?”
In response, Secretary Mayorkas neither confirmed nor denied the claim that over 600 agents had been redeployed from law enforcement duties to perform different tasks at the border. He responded by stating that there were “a number of law enforcement priorities” DHS was acting on, to which Senator Hawley replied, “Is making sandwiches one of them?”
These accusations come at a time when the southern border has faced an overwhelming surge of migrants and drug smuggling. In 2023 alone, Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) reportedly seized over 27,000 pounds of fentanyl at the border, but vast amounts of the drug have been funneled to cities across the U.S., threatening the safety of Americans.
Secretary Mayorkas declined to refute the whistleblower’s allegations, to which Senator Hawley pressed once more, “So you’re not going to deny it?”
“I’m incredibly proud of what our people do every single day,” Mayorkas responded.
