Special agents yanked off child trafficking cases to make sandwiches for migrants at border

A whistleblower has told Congress that special agents at Homeland Security Investigations have been pulled off cases involving child traffickers and sexual exploitation and been deployed to the border to make sandwiches for illegal immigrants.

Sen. Josh Hawley revealed the allegations during a hearing Tuesday, challenging Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas over whether that was a good use of highly trained agents’ time.

“We 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 and those types of tasks,” said the whistleblower, herself a special agent, according to Mr. Hawley.

She estimated that some 600 agents have been redeployed, the Missouri Republican said.

Mr. Mayorkas did not explicitly refute the agent’s claims but said his department has to balance competing needs.

“We have a number of law enforcement priorities,” he said. “We use our personnel to achieve the maximum law enforcement objective.”

“Is making sandwiches one of them?” Mr. Hawley challenged.

The claims the senator raised are similar to what department employees have told The Washington Times and other news outlets, with officers from anti-terrorism and immigration fraud task forces also being taken off their jobs and sent to the border to help process the massive flow of illegal immigrants.

Mr. Hawley said the redeployment of HSI special agents was particularly troubling because they are supposed to be helping track down some of the tens of thousands of illegal immigrant children smuggled into the country whom the government has lost track of.