Authored by Katabella Roberts via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
A senior Customs and Border Safety (CBP) worker turned whistleblower is alleging years of “problematic practices” within the company’s remedy of migrants underneath detention on the border.
In a letter despatched to Congress on Nov. 30 by the Authorities Accountability Mission, an advocacy group, on behalf of Troy Hendrickson, the CBP worker detailed the alleged failures of the company’s medical contractor, Loyal Supply Authorities Companies.
Mr. Hendrickson, a 15-year CBP veteran, mentioned the actions of the medical contractor—the only supplier of medical look after folks underneath CBP custody—have been “compounded by the unwillingness of the CBP contracting workplace” to carry it accountable for its alleged failures and guarantee oversight.
In accordance with its official website, Loyal Supply Authorities Companies is a Florida-based firm specializing in authorities well being care, technical and assist companies, engineering, and journey well being care.
The letter to Congress states that Mr. Hendrickson was assigned to work with the CBP Workplace of the Chief Medical Officer (OCMO) as a Contracting Officer Consultant, starting in August of 2021.
Throughout this time, he “instantly raised issues internally relating to problematic practices he witnessed, together with unfit medical suppliers, extreme understaffing, privateness breaches, and a failure to report sexual harassment in a CBP medical facility,” in response to the letter.
The negligence, in response to Mr. Hendrickson, resulted in “substandard” well being look after migrants held in CBP custody.
“Mr. Hendrickson’s complaints, made with the assist of OCMO management, went largely ignored and unaddressed by the CBP Workplace of Acquisition, the entity with authority to carry Loyal Supply to the phrases of the Medical Companies Contract,” the letter mentioned.
“Regardless of his a number of requests over a number of months to take corrective motion, similar to issuing mandated efficiency value determinations and sending a remedial discover referred to as a ‘remedy letter’ instructing Loyal Supply to repair their efficiency issues, the Contracting Workplace constantly refused to carry the contractor accountable,” the letter acknowledged.
Whistleblower Suffered Retaliation
Mr. Hendrickson additional states that officers from CBP retaliated towards him for elevating the alleged issues by eradicating him from his place and stopping him from engaged on any future CBP medical contracts.
Almost a 12 months after Mr. Hendrickson allegedly raised his issues, in Could 2023, eight-year-old Anadith Reyes Alvarez, a Panamanian woman with sickle cell anemia and congenital coronary heart illness, died at a CBP facility in Harlingen, Texas, after being detained by border officers.
An unbiased report later discovered that the younger woman’s loss of life might have been prevented and that she was denied repeated requests for care.
Mr. Hendrickson’s letter mentioned the younger woman’s loss of life was on account of “avoidable medical negligence” by Loyal Supply Personnel.
The whistleblower is urging Congress to make sure thorough and immediate oversight of Loyal Supply’s alleged ongoing failures to adjust to mandated medical care of migrants in CBP custody.
He’s additionally calling for elevated oversight into the CBP contracting workplace’s “gross mismanagement, gross waste of taxpayer {dollars}, and abuse of authority in its refusal to carry Loyal Supply accountable for the corporate’s contract efficiency failures.”
Congress should additionally be certain that Mr. Hendrickson and some other present or former CBP or Loyal Supply staff who flip whistleblower aren’t subjected to retaliation, the letter acknowledged.
“At present we and our consumer, Mr. Troy Hendrickson, demand accountability for the years of harmful underperformance of the CBP medical contractor and the alarming lack of oversight of CBP’s important mandate to supply medical companies to noncitizens within the company’s custody,” Authorities Accountability Mission Immigration Counsel Andrea Meza mentioned in a press release.
Medical Contractor Obtained ‘Thousands and thousands’ of Taxpayer {Dollars}
“The CBP Workplace of Chief Medical Officer and the Medical Companies Contract have been created in direct response to an ongoing sample of deaths of kids in CBP custody. It’s unconscionable that when the contractor, receiving thousands and thousands of taxpayer {dollars}, failed to fulfill OCMO’s medical requirements, contracting officers refused at each flip to carry the contractor to account and as an alternative retaliated towards Mr. Hendrickson,” Ms. Meza continued.
Loyal Supply Authorities Companies acquired a $25 million-per-month contract from the CBP, according to The Washington Put up.
“Mr. Hendrickson has been sounding the alarm inside CBP and to a number of oversight entities for years, and had his warnings been heeded, Anadith Reyes Alvarez could be alive in the present day. It’s long gone time for Congress and federal oversight entities to take motion in order that no different household will endure the lack of their little one on account of medical negligence in CBP custody,” the letter concluded.
Responding to the letter, a CBP spokesperson told Forbes that the company “takes its obligations to research whistleblower allegations severely,” and “stays dedicated to making sure that contract oversight—and the procurement course of writ massive—are performed appropriately.”
The spokesperson added that the well being and security of migrants in CBP custody is “a high precedence” and that the company has taken various “vital steps” to enhance care and reduce the period of time migrants spend in CBP custody, together with through new management into the Workplace of the Chief Medical Officer.
Elsewhere, U.S. Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Unwell.), chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said in a Nov. 30 assertion that the whistleblower’s allegations elevate “severe issues.”
“These systemic failures to conduct correct oversight of its contractor severely impacted the standard of medical care accessible to people in CBP’s custody, endangering weak migrants similar to Anadith Danay Reyes Álvarez,” the lawmaker mentioned.
The Democrat vowed to research the problem additional and take steps as wanted to raised “defend migrants in authorities custody.”
The Epoch Occasions has contacted Loyal Supply Authorities Companies for additional remark.
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