Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton released new whistleblower footage alleging more than 200 migrant children were sent to a container storage site while Xavier Becerra led HHS, and that employees who raised alarms were fired.
The three-minute video, posted Thursday on X, features an anonymous female whistleblower whose identity is concealed. She describes staff conducting background reviews on sponsors of unaccompanied migrant children and discovering that more than 200 kids had been placed at the same address, a location she says turned out to be a lot filled with shipping containers, not a residential neighborhood. When employees flagged the pattern, according to the whistleblower, they were terminated. The New York Post reported on the video's release and the competing campaign responses.
Hilton, who is challenging Becerra in California's November 3 general election for governor, framed the footage as evidence that Becerra personally knew about the situation and suppressed it. The whistleblower was direct when asked whether the former HHS secretary was aware of the container-site placements.
"No, he was aware."
That two-word answer sits at the center of a gubernatorial contest that has increasingly turned on what happened, and what didn't happen, to hundreds of thousands of unaccompanied migrant children who crossed the southern border during Becerra's four-year tenure running the Department of Health and Human Services.
The whistleblower's account goes beyond the container-site allegation. She describes a system where staff who tried to protect children faced professional consequences instead of institutional support.
One employee, the whistleblower said, discovered the volume of children being sent to the container address and called an anti-trafficking hotline that staff had been directed to use if they suspected trafficking.
"She took it upon herself to call that number, to let them know, we've been sending a lot of children here. And the next day, she got terminated as well."
The whistleblower also described a separate case involving a 13-year-old girl from El Salvador whose proposed sponsor was flagged through an international law enforcement check. She said she personally brought the case to FBI agents working at the facility.
"Within a day or two, we get the email back that says that this sponsor was wanted by the Interpol."
A federal employee who continued investigating that case was, according to the whistleblower, escorted from the facility and later fired. The whistleblower did not hold back about the message that sent.
"Mind you, she's working for the government. She's trying to protect these children. Then she got fired."
None of the alleged terminations have been confirmed through official agency records or independent documentation. The whistleblower's identity and specific employer, whether HHS directly or a federal contractor, remain undisclosed.
The new video is the second whistleblower release from the Hilton campaign in a single week. Earlier, Hilton published separate footage alleging abuse, trafficking, and inadequate vetting of sponsors at the Pomona Fairplex, an emergency intake center in Pomona, California. That facility was one of three temporary sites California established to house unaccompanied migrant minors during the surge at the southern border.
The scale of the broader problem dwarfs any single facility. Approximately 480,000 unaccompanied migrant children entered HHS custody while Becerra served as secretary from 2021 to 2025. A 2023 New York Times investigation found that thousands of those children, after being released to approved sponsors, ended up in exploitative labor situations. Newsmax reported that HHS lost contact with more than 85,000 children after release, citing the Times investigation, while Hilton's campaign has put the figure closer to 140,000.
A DHS Office of Inspector General audit reinforced those concerns, concluding that Immigration and Customs Enforcement could not effectively monitor the location or status of unaccompanied migrant children after they left federal custody. The audit warned there was "no assurance" many children were safe from trafficking or forced labor.
Former HHS senior adviser Chris Clem framed the accountability question bluntly in comments to Newsmax:
"The single largest border crisis of our lifetime and the largest amount of kids, this does rise to the secretary's level. He should have had a finger on the pulse daily."
Becerra has previously told Congress that HHS's legal authority over unaccompanied migrant children ends once they are released to approved sponsors, unless Congress grants additional authority. That argument, that the department's hands were tied by statute, has become his primary defense. But it does not answer the whistleblower's core allegation: that employees inside the system identified dangers before children were released and were punished for raising them.
The Becerra campaign responded through spokesman Jonathan Underland, who did not address the container-site allegation, the Interpol-flagged sponsor, or the reported employee terminations. Instead, Underland redirected to the Trump administration's immigration enforcement record.
"Where Sec. Becerra rebuilt the child protection systems Trump gutted, Steve Hilton has proudly allied himself with the president who put those children in harm's way, who illegally sent a father to a foreign prison, whose separation policies continue to take children away from their parents, and whose ICE agents shot two fathers dead this month. Hilton is bought in. He doesn't get to cash out now."
Underland's statement contained several claims, including allegations about ICE agents and a father sent to a foreign prison, that were not independently verified in any available reporting on this story. The statement's structure was notable for what it omitted: any direct denial that 200 children were sent to a container site, any direct denial that employees were fired for raising concerns, and any direct denial that Becerra knew.
Hilton, for his part, has made the migrant children issue the centerpiece of his campaign against Becerra. He launched a website soliciting tips from anyone with information about what he describes as Becerra's handling of migrant child placements. On X, he posted alongside the video:
"SHOCKING new whistleblower testimony: 200 migrant kids sent to the same container park. Xavier Becerra KNEW and covered it up. Employees who objected were FIRED."
Hilton has also drawn attention to California's broader spending on migrants. In a May appearance on Fox News' Sunday Morning Futures, he criticized the state's reported billions in migrant healthcare expenditures and outlined plans to shift those resources toward affordability for California residents.
Hilton and Becerra emerged from a crowded June open primary that eliminated billionaire activist Tom Steyer, Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, and former U.S. Representative Katie Porter. The race was called a full week after the primary, confirming Hilton's spot on the November ballot.
With roughly three months until the November 3 general election, the contest now hinges on questions that neither campaign has fully answered. The whistleblower's allegations remain single-source claims from an anonymous individual whose role, employer, and identity are unverified. No official agency records confirming the terminations, the container-site placements, or the Interpol-flagged sponsor have surfaced publicly.
But the Becerra campaign's refusal to address the specific allegations, choosing instead to attack Hilton's political associations, leaves a vacuum. Voters are left to weigh an anonymous whistleblower's detailed, specific account against a campaign response that answers a different question entirely.
Hilton put the stakes in plain terms in comments reported by Newsmax:
"Every single one of those children were Becerra's responsibility. The children are out there and we must find them."
When a whistleblower says children were sent to a container lot and the people who objected got fired, voters deserve a direct answer, not a press release about someone else.
