Florida Rescues 163 Children in Record Sweep. Meanwhile, HHS Hands a No-Bid $158M Contract to a Group Founded by a Man Accused of Sexual Misconduct

Florida just ran the largest child-recovery operation in state history. Attorney General James Uthmeier announced Tuesday that Operation Statewide Shield, a five-day mission in mid-August, recovered 163 children ranging from 2 months old to 17 years old, according to Fox News.

The kids were found not just in Florida but in Alabama, California, Ohio, New York, North Carolina, Puerto Rico and Tennessee. Some turned up overseas too: Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Dominica, Finland, Ghana, Guatemala, Italy, Jamaica, Mexico, Spain and Taiwan.

Uthmeier's office says the children fell into different categories. Some were runaways. Some were abandoned, neglected or abused. Some had been trafficked outright.

"Many of these kids have been victimized by those who prey on the most vulnerable," Uthmeier said, according to Fox News. He credited the operation's law enforcement partners for getting the children into care and vowed Florida "will continue leading the recovery of missing children, hunting down every predator and prosecuting abusers to the fullest extent of the law."

Three men have been arrested so far. Michael Prescott was picked up Aug. 21 by the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office and charged with three counts of lewd and lascivious acts with a minor, felony battery and aggravated assault. He already had an outstanding warrant for interference with child custody. Jayden Allen Harwood and Robert Ferral Allison were also arrested in connection with the sweep, per the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.

A different federal approach to kids and trafficking

While Florida was running its sweep, the federal government was making a very different decision about who gets trusted with vulnerable children.

According to NPR, the Department of Health and Human Services posted a notice Friday awarding a no-bid $158 million contract to Our Rescue, formerly known as Operation Underground Railroad, to provide legal services to unaccompanied migrant children. The contract runs six months, from Aug. 7 through Feb. 6, 2027, per HHS's Office of Refugee Resettlement.

Our Rescue describes itself as an anti-trafficking group that helps law enforcement run sting operations and rescue survivors. NPR reports it's unclear whether the organization even has immigration lawyers on staff, though its website claims it offers "legal support to help prosecute offenders."

The group was founded by Tim Ballard, whose story became the basis for the 2023 film "Sound of Freedom," starring Jim Caviezel and heavily promoted in conservative media. Within months of the film's release, Ballard faced accusations of sexual exploitation. NPR reports he has repeatedly denied the allegations, but was quietly removed from the organization. Derek Benner, a former Immigration and Customs Enforcement official, now runs the group as CEO.

Michael Lukens, executive director of the Amica Center for Immigrant Rights, which held the previous contract for this work, didn't hold back. "HHS is trying to give a contract to a nonprofit that is highly problematic in their history and has no expertise in providing legal services to unaccompanied children," Lukens told NPR. "This all to me boils down to children are going to be harmed and that seems to be the point of a lot of these actions."

That last line is Lukens' opinion, not an established fact, and NPR presents it as his characterization, not a proven claim. There's no indication in the reporting that HHS intends to harm children. But the underlying facts Lukens points to, the group's unclear legal expertise and its founder's unresolved allegations, are documented and worth taking seriously on their own.

HHS, for its part, told NPR it's "committed to ensuring every (unaccompanied immigrant child) has legal representation in immigration court" and noted it's also working with other providers, including the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants. That's a fair point: Our Rescue isn't the only contractor here.

Still, the math is stark. There are roughly 24,000 unaccompanied immigrant children in the U.S. classified by the federal government as unaccompanied, according to NPR, though only about 1,800 are currently in HHS custody. Whoever wins these contracts is dealing with a huge and vulnerable population.

No charges have ever been filed against Ballard. He denies the allegations against him, and nothing in the available reporting establishes wrongdoing. But a no-bid $158 million contract, awarded without competition, to an organization whose founder was pushed out over unresolved sexual misconduct claims and whose legal expertise is unclear, deserves more scrutiny than a Friday notice buried in a federal registry.

Florida's operation shows what focused, competent child-protection work looks like when agencies coordinate and results get measured in arrests and rescues. Whether the HHS contract produces anything comparable, or whether Lukens' warnings about competence and vetting hold up, will depend on what Our Rescue actually delivers over the next six months. Congress has not announced any review of the award as of this writing.