In the first years of the Biden administration, thousands of children crossed the border alone and ended up working in some of the most dangerous jobs in the country. Migrant children as young as 13 suffered chemical burns on overnight factory shifts, had their limbs mangled by conveyor belts or fell to their deaths from roofs.
I broke this story in 2023. I didn’t expect that three years later, the reporting would become a major line of attack in the California governor’s race.
Opponents of Xavier Becerra, the Democratic front-runner, have been excoriating his tenure as secretary of Health and Human Services, the federal agency that was responsible for finding safe homes for those children. In the past two weeks, campaigns have spent more than $6 million on commercials in English and Spanish using my reporting (and even my voice, taken from interviews I did), according to AdImpact, a tracking service.
One ad says that “more than 85,000 migrant children went missing” under his watch. Another says that during Mr. Becerra’s tenure “kids suffered from forced labor, trafficking and abuse.”
Mr. Becerra has called the allegations “Trump lies.”
There has been spin on all sides. With just weeks to go before the June 2 primary, here’s what we reported — and what we didn’t.
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