Shocking Grand Jury Presentment

TALLAHASSEE, Fla.—Attorney General Ashley Moody is calling on Congress to investigate the Biden administration subjecting unaccompanied minors to human trafficking. This call comes after a Florida Statewide Grand Jury released its third presentment documenting horrible conditions unaccompanied minors experience because of the Biden administration’s failed policies and lack of oversight. Attorney General Moody is imploring Congress to convene hearings and act to prevent children from being assaulted and exploited.

Attorney General Ashley Moody said, “A Florida Grand Jury found shocking and horrific evidence of the Biden administration facilitating human trafficking and child exploitation of unaccompanied minors. It should enrage everyone that any child is being exposed to such dangerous and terrible conditions. I’m calling on Congress to conduct hearings to further the investigation and uncover the evidence that HHS refused to provide to Florida’s Statewide Grand Jury.”

Attorney General Moody is urging congressional leaders to exercise Congress’s investigative and oversight authority over the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services with respect to the agencies’ involvement with unaccompanied immigrant children. This action follows a Florida Statewide Grand Jury’s findings that, instead of protecting children, HHS’s Office of Refugee Resettlement was “fully focused on maximizing the number of children they can process, heedless of the downstream consequences to either the children or the communities into which they are jettisoned.”

In a letter to congressional leaders, Attorney General Moody states: “The [Florida Statewide] Grand Jury found that ORR and other federal entities encourage unaccompanied alien children to ‘undertake and/or be subjected to a harrowing trek to our border, ultimately abandoning significant numbers of those who survive the journey to an uncertain fate with persons who are largely unvetted’…children were exposed ‘to horrifying health conditions, constant criminal threat, labor and sex trafficking, robbery, rape, and other experiences not done justice by mere words’…The Grand Jury had unaccompanied alien children testify that they were ‘pimped out’ by their ‘aunt,’ who in reality was someone they did not know.”

Congressional action is needed to further investigate the Biden administration’s dealings with unaccompanied immigrant children. Attorney General Moody argues: “…HHS refused to provide documents or produce witnesses before the Grand Jury and apparently actively encouraged the Florida entities with which it has contracted to not cooperate with the Grand Jury. The American people do not fully know what is going on at ORR since the Biden Administration took over, and…there is more to uncover.”

To read the full letter, click here.

Last June, after President Joe Biden’s policies caused an unprecedented immigration crisis compromising the safety of Americans and immigrants, Gov. Ron DeSantis filed a petition with the Florida Supreme Court to impanel a statewide grand jury to identify and investigate persons and international human-smuggling networks that move illegal immigrants, particularly children, across the U.S. Southwest Border into Florida and other states. The court approved the petition. Attorney General Moody’s Statewide Prosecutor serves as legal advisor to the grand jury.

Last month, the Florida Statewide Grand Jury released its third presentment, outlining horrible atrocities inflicted on immigrant children in Florida and elsewhere who are under the authority of the Biden administration and nonprofit organizations receiving taxpayer money. Allegations from the presentment include the federal government losing track of more than 20,000 children, no background checks on the minors’ sponsors, human trafficking and child abuse.

To learn more about the third presentment of the Florida Statewide Grand Jury, click here.