Xavier Becerra’s inability to track tens of thousands of migrant children while U.S. health secretary — leaving many to be abused and forced into dangerous work conditions — is exploding as a defining issue in the California governor’s race.
After his Republican rival Steve Hilton unveiled new whistleblower allegations over child labor and sex trafficking of children as young as six on Monday, a former senior adviser to the Department of Health and Human Services slammed Becerra’s lack of oversight and claimed at least 130,000 were still missing.
In 2023, a New York Times investigation found that over two years, the agency could not reach more than 85,000 children and the agency lost contact with a third of migrant children.
But Chris Clem, a senior adviser at HHS in 2025 after serving 27 years in the U.S. Border Patrol and retiring as chief of the Yuma Sector in Arizona, told The Post the number was far higher and pinned responsibility for the crisis directly Becerra, who was Joe Biden’s HHS secretary at the time.
“The single largest border crisis of our lifetime and the largest amount of kids — this does rise to the secretary’s level, and he should have had a finger on the pulse daily,” Clem said.
Clem questioned whether Becerra learned from his experience as HHS and said Californians should be concerned.
“When he was in charge of kids before, he didn’t do a very good job of it,” he said.
During Becerra’s tenure as HHS secretary from 2021 through early 2025, nearly...
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