Juana Rebecca Pérez Santay was 17 years old when she crossed the southern border in May 2021 and entered the federal unaccompanied minors system. She was promised 20 hours of work per week through her sponsor placement. She got seven days a week, a ceramic floor to sleep on, and a room with four men.
She also got sexually abused.
The teenager is now speaking publicly, and the man she's pointing the finger at isn't some anonymous bureaucrat buried in a flowchart. It's Xavier Becerra, the former Biden Health and Human Services Secretary who oversaw the Office of Refugee Resettlement during the period when Santay says the system chewed her up and spit her out. As reported by LifeZette, Santay is putting a face and a name on what we were told for years was a compassionate, well-managed program.
"Xavier Becerra failed to protect us. He failed me because he didn't protect me," Santay said.
The details she describes aren't abstract policy failures. They're the kind of thing that would trigger a criminal investigation if they happened to an American kid in foster care. She says she was placed with a sponsor who she described as "a drunk" who "doesn't know what he's doing." She was forced to work seven days a week — not the 20 hours she was promised. She slept on a ceramic floor. And the sexual abuse she describes happened inside the system that was supposedly there to keep her safe.
"I have been sexually abused. I slept on a ceramic floor, in a room with four men," Santay said.
The Office of Refugee Resettlement, which falls under HHS, is the agency responsible for the care and placement of unaccompanied minors who cross the border. Under Becerra's watch, the Biden administration was moving children through that system at an unprecedented pace, trying to clear out overflowing shelters while cameras rolled. Speed was the priority. Vetting, apparently, was not.
Santay's account is specific. She wasn't trafficked by a cartel. She wasn't lost in the desert. She made it into the federal system — the one with the acronyms, the federal employees, the oversight committees — and that system placed her in a home where she was exploited.
"They kept me like a slave," Santay said. "Becerra failed to protect me."
Here's where the story gets politically inconvenient for one particular candidate. Xavier Becerra is currently running for governor of California. The same man who ran the agency that Santay says placed her into conditions of sexual abuse and forced labor now wants to be responsible for 39 million people. He's running against Republican Steve Hilton, among others, in what's shaping up to be a high-profile race.
Santay has a message for California voters: "Xavier Becerra failed me because he never cared about my safety. If he were to become governor of California, it would be horrible."
Democrats defense in these cases is scale. HHS processes thousands of minors. Things fall through the cracks. Except that the people making that argument are the same people who called anyone raising alarms about the unaccompanied minor pipeline a xenophobe. We were told the system was humane. We were told the children were being cared for. We were told that questioning the process was the real cruelty.
Meanwhile, a 17-year-old girl was sleeping on a ceramic floor with four adult men.
That's not a policy critique. That's a named accusation from a real person with a real story, directed at a man who wants a promotion. California voters will decide what to do with it.