00:00Javier Becerra is one of the two candidates for governor of the state of California in the general election, the
00:05other one being Republican Steve Hilton.
00:08And Becerra has held almost every important job in politics, from member of Congress to attorney general for the state
00:14of California to U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, or HHS, under President Joe Biden.
00:21Now, as Secretary of HHS, Becerra was also responsible for something called the Office of Refugee Resettlement, or ORR.
00:28And the ORR is responsible for taking care of the many tens of thousands of unaccompanied minor children who arrived
00:36at the southern U.S. border as part of the mass migration wave under the Biden administration.
00:42Typically, the ORR contracts out with nonprofit companies that provide shelter to these kids.
00:47The nonprofits also provide food and clothing and medical attention and even education, while they wait for a parent or
00:55relative or guardian who can prove they have a relationship to these children to come and pick them up one
00:59by one.
01:00What happened under Biden was that the influx was so massive that there was incredible pressure on the system, and
01:07many children moved through the system very, very quickly.
01:09And the government lost track of tens of thousands of kids.
01:13A few years ago, the New York Times estimated the number at about 85,000 kids.
01:19In fact, a new whistleblower brought forward by the Steve Hilton campaign says that the number was more like 130
01:26,000 kids who were simply lost.
01:28The department could not contact them anymore.
01:31Now, whether that's because they were with their families and the families didn't want to pick up a phone call
01:35from the government,
01:35or because they were being trafficked into child labor operations, which did happen with some of the kids, we don't
01:42know.
01:42But Javier Becerra doesn't know either, and it's something he has struggled to explain.
01:46He's dismissed these stories as Trump lies, but they've been covered by left-of-center media outlets as well.
01:51And so it remains a pressing problem for Becerra that he's going to have to explain on the campaign trail,
01:56even if he's the favorite to win in November.
01:58You
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