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United States House of Representatives United States Senate

Committee on Energy and Commerce Committee on Health, Education, Labor and
Committee on Oversight and Reform Pensions
Washington, DC 20515 Committee on Homeland Security &
Government Affairs
U.S. Office of Special Counsel Washington, DC 20510
1730 M Street NW # 218
Washington, DC 20036 Office of Inspector General
U.S. Department of Health & Human
Services
330 Independence Avenue, SW
Washington, DC 20201

July 28, 2021

Re: Second Protected Whistleblower Disclosures of Gross Mismanagement by

the Department of Health and Human Services at Fort Bliss, Texas
Causing Specific Dangers to Public Health and Safety

To Whom It May Concern:

This is Government Accountability Project’s second protected whistleblower disclosure

concerning abuses and mismanagement at the Fort Bliss Emergency Intake Site (EIS) operated
by the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR). This letter supplements our first disclosure, dated
July 7, 2021, detailing harm to unaccompanied immigrant children caused by ORR’s and its
private contractors’ gross mismanagement. A copy of the July 7 letter is attached as Exhibit 1.

Table of Contents
Evidence from Additional Whistleblowers ...................................................................................... 2
More About Fort Bliss Private Contractors ................................................................................... 2
Servpro ........................................................................................................................................ 2
Chenega Corporation .................................................................................................................. 3
Rapid Deployment Inc. ............................................................................................................... 3
Organizational Chaos ..................................................................................................................... 4
Domination by Private Contractors ............................................................................................ 4
Abdication by Federal Managers ................................................................................................ 4
Misallocation and Mismanagement of Resources ...................................................................... 5
Re: Second Protected Whistleblower Disclosures
July 28, 2021
Page 2

Poor Planning and Miscommunication .......................................................................................... 6

Additional Failures in Case Management ................................................................................... 6
Health Care Failures ................................................................................................................... 7
Mismanagement and Significant Mental Health Issues .................................................................. 7
More About the Dormitory Tent Conditions ................................................................................... 8
Secrecy and “Good News Only” Were Standing Orders of the Day .............................................. 9

Evidence from Additional Whistleblowers

We now represent Arthur Pearlstein and Lauren Reinhold. They are career federal civil servants
and served as volunteer detailees at the Fort Bliss EIS from April through June 2021. They are
also whistleblowers.

Mr. Pearlstein is the Director of Arbitration and of the Office of Shared Neutrals at the Federal
Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS). Ms. Reinhold is an Attorney-Advisor at the Social
Security Administration (SSA). Mr. Pearlstein was posted to Fort Bliss for two months (between
April and June 2021), Ms. Reinhold one month (May 2021). Mr. Pearlstein was primarily
assigned to work on two teams while at Fort Bliss: performing clinical assessments on the
Clinical Assessment Team; and working with small groups and individual children on the Mental
Health/Wellness team. Ms. Reinhold worked in the girls’ tent for the first half of her detail; and,
during the second half, was on the Call Center Team, and worked in all tents.1

More About Fort Bliss Private Contractors

Servpro

In our July 7 disclosure, we described the dominant roles played by private contractors, in
particular Servpro, which staffed the dormitory tents for boys and girls. Servpro is a company
specializing in helping individuals, organizations and communities recover from disasters.
Childcare is not among its portfolio of services. Following our July 7 disclosure, Servpro told
the media: “When we became aware of this issue [(no childcare experience)], we immediately
advised the franchise operator that these are not approved Servpro service offerings. ... We have
been informed by the franchise operator that it is no longer providing these services through the
Servpro franchise."2 This seems to be Servpro’s way of saying the franchisee and its employees

1
The views expressed here do not reflect any policy or position of the FMCS or the SSA.
2
NBC News, Whistleblowers Allege Poor Care for Migrant Kids by Contractor Specializing in
Disaster Cleanup (June 7, 2021), available at https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/
whistleblowers-allege-poor-care-migrant-kids-contractor-specializing-disaster-cleanup-
n1273124.
Re: Second Protected Whistleblower Disclosures
July 28, 2021
Page 3

continue to work at Fort Bliss, just not under the Servpro brand.

In any event, we have since obtained additional information about other private contractors who
played significant roles at Fort Bliss and at other EIS’s. Like Servpro, they appear to have no
background in childcare. Moreover, like Servpro it appears that these contractors were hired
without going through any bidding process such as that ordinarily required under the Federal
Acquisition Regulations applicable to federal contracts.

Chenega Corporation

When the federal detailees arrived at Fort Bliss in April and May 2021, Chenega was the
contractor most spoken of. According to its website, Chenega Corporation is an Alaska Native
village corporation which “figures prominently in the diverse government services contracting
marketplace supporting defense, intelligence, and federal civilian customers. This business
model is executed through a family of companies under four strategic business units.”3 The four
units are: Environmental Healthcare and Facilities; Military, Intelligence and Operations
Support; Professional Services; and Security. Chenega appears to have no childcare experience.

In April 2021, Chenega had primary responsibility for all case and all tent management. They
were also given responsibility for the clinical mental health program and other functions.
However, in May 2021, Servpro staff replaced Chenega staff to monitor children in the
dormitory tents while Chenega continued its other activities. Servpro tent managers falsely
assured detailees that the company was involved in this type of work in various parts of the
country.

According to our clients, it was not clear which contractor (Chenega or Servpro) was less suited
to the work -- it appears neither had experience with it, nor did they perform competently or
appropriately. Contractor employees told detailees that to get their jobs, they did nothing more
than submit basic employment applications. There was no follow up or vetting process, no
interviews or even phone calls prior to being offered their jobs and asked when they could start.
Ms. Reinhold further reports that she learned during the last week of May that Chenega and
Servpro staff on site were only then undergoing background checks, en masse. Apparently, these
checks were not done earlier, before they started to work around children.

Rapid Deployment Inc.

While Chenega and Servpro had significant roles at Fort Bliss, the lead contractor appears to
have been Rapid Deployment Inc. (RDI). Like Chenega and Servpro, RDI has no childcare
experience.

According to its website, RDI specializes in base camp deployment and related support.4
Reportedly, RDI initially received two large contracts totaling $614 million to manage the Fort

3
Chenega Capabilities, available at https://www.chenega.com/capabilities/.
4
https://rapideployment.net/index.html.
Re: Second Protected Whistleblower Disclosures
July 28, 2021
Page 4

Bliss EIS.5 According to USAspending.gov, the official source for spending data for the U.S.
Government, contracts awarded to RDI for this work have since been extended and modified so
that obligations to RDI will total around $1 billion. Prior to this engagement, it appears that
between FY2008 and FY2019 RDI was awarded government contracts in only three of these
fiscal years, in annual amounts not exceeding $13 million, a small fraction of the Fort Bliss
obligation.6 Our clients report that RDI was unknown to virtually all the detailees at Fort Bliss,
other than to a few who briefly dealt with RDI employees who staffed an operations trailer.

Organizational Chaos

We provide here additional information about gross mismanagement, gross waste, and abuse of
authority at the Fort Bliss EIS.

Domination by Private Contractors

According to our clients, private contractors – not federal employees – were essentially in charge
of virtually all functions. Detailees were frequently told that their main mission at the facility
was to pave the way for contractors to take over the operation, and that they were essentially
there to assist the contractors.

Federal detailees witnessed significant waste, fraud and abuse. When they attempted to express
their concerns to federal managers they were told -- time and again -- it was the contractors that
were in charge and government employees needed to be responsive to the contractors’ needs.
The contractors ignored or rejected most detailee concerns.

For example, the shortage of underwear and other clothing for children has been widely reported.
The problem persisted for weeks and months. Countless children reported these shortages to
detailees. Boys said they had no underwear at all, while most simply had only one pair with
nothing to change into.

Detailees insisted that the children be supplied with underwear. Each time the answer was that
shipments had not come in. Whenever detailees brought it up, they were told it was the
contractor’s responsibility. Detailees, private contractors and managers were well aware of the
problem. At one meeting a Chenega manager told detailees: “we are aware there is a shortage of
underwear, socks, and shoes, and management knows.”

Abdication by Federal Managers

Compounding private contractor failings, federal employee managers -- time and again – failed
to act. For example, detailees, including Mr. Pearlstein, suggested to senior federal management

5
AL.com, Alabama Company Gets $614 Million Contracts to House Child Immigrants in Texas
(May 5, 2021), available at https://www.al.com/news/2021/05/alabama-company-gets-614-
million-contracts-to-house-child-immigrants-in-texas.html.
6
Id.
Re: Second Protected Whistleblower Disclosures
July 28, 2021
Page 5

that underwear and other supply shortages could be promptly solved by purchasing needed
supplies at nearby El Paso discount stores like Walmart and Costco. Many of the detailees held
management and purchasing positions in their home agencies and were holders of federal
business credit cards.

Mr. Pearlstein, who had frequent contact with children, suggested using detailee federal cards as
a stop gap (detailees could purchase supplies on their cards and then be reimbursed). But a senior
federal manager rejected the suggestion out of hand, saying “I don’t have time for this shit.” Mr.
Pearlstein was then immediately transferred to another position. Management provided no
explanation (this happened with other detailees, too).

In another disturbing instance, construction workers lewdly and loudly gawked at girls as they
walked outside to the meal tent. Detailees were shocked at these acts of sexual harassment.
They attempted to report the incident. Managers resisted taking their complaints.

Notwithstanding the dismissive attitudes of federal management and private contractors, a great
many federal detailees out of their own pockets collectively spent thousands of dollars on
supplies for the children. Mr. Pearlstein and Ms. Reinhold personally spent hundreds on books,
visual aids, games, and other items for children (as well as markers, tape, and other
organizational supplies unavailable in the tents). Other detailees contributed far more, some
individually into the thousands.

Misallocation and Mismanagement of Resources

By mid-May 2021, almost 800 federal detailees were assigned to the Fort Bliss EIS. However,
our clients report there was virtually no effort to assign these detailees based on their skills and
experience – which were considerable. It appears that no one ever reviewed the resumes and
applications submitted by the detailees. Detailees with very relevant expertise were not matched
to appropriate positions, resulting in both underutilization of talent on the one hand, and
employees assigned to work for which they were not qualified on the other. In addition to
impairing the mission, this involved considerable waste since, on top of substantial travel
expenses, many of the most accomplished and valuable detailees were being paid six-figure
salaries to essentially babysit or perform basic clerical tasks.

To make matters worse, leadership and management positions were handed out to detailees
without any reasonable basis; decisions regarding who to put in charge appeared only related to
who got to the facility first. No effort was made to place later arriving employees -- trained and
experienced in management or leadership functions or in the operations of child emergency
programs -- in positions of authority. The result produced teams of skilled and experienced
detailees led by unskilled and/or inexperienced managers.

The result was also a mess. Here are a few examples:

• The EIS Clinical Assessment Team (CAT) worked directly with the children to assess
their history of abuse, their mental and emotional health, and their exposure to sex or
labor trafficking. Detailees with no relevant skills or experience populated the CAT.
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They did their level best, flagging those who required special attention. They
interviewed and assessed over 5,000 children. Remarkably, only after all this did
management decide most of the team members – including the CAT director -- were not
qualified to do clinical assessment and needed to be reassigned.

• A detailee fluent in Spanish and with considerable experience working with children as a
licensed clinical social worker was initially assigned to be simply a “line of sight”
observer in a dormitory tent. It was weeks before the detailee was reassigned to provide
counseling support for distressed children.

• Other detailees were identified as organizational management, legal professionals, and/or

communications specialists. Their talents went unused. They, too, mostly worked as
“line of sight” observers or clerical aides. Even when such skilled professionals observed
systemic problems in their daily work in the tent and suggested policy or process
changes, they were essentially treated as ignorant meddlers.

Poor Planning and Miscommunication

Planning was haphazard at best. Policies and leadership decisions changed constantly, sometimes
within hours. Examples include:

• Management repeatedly told detailees that, within days, all girls would be transferred out
of the Fort Bliss EIS to other facilities or placements. Management then reversed
themselves, first telling detailees the transfer plan was a rumor and then saying there
would be no transfers, only to reverse back and confirm the transfer plan and later, yet
again, to announce there was no such plan.

• In mid-June, the Fort Bliss detailees were told they were going to be sent home early.
They were told that they would depart in three waves, with the last ending in early-July.
Detailees then scrambled to change travel and other plans. Days later, the detailees were
told “our objective changed.” The second and third wave demobilizations were put “on
hold.”

Additional Failures in Case Management

• In our July 7 letter, we disclosed one horrific incident when 48 children who had been
told they were going home were pulled out of the bus line and sent back to their tents.
Our clients now report this was not an isolated incident. On multiple occasions, groups
of children who were told they were going home and had already arrived at the airport for
a flight out, were suddenly told it was a mistake and brought back to the facility. Indeed,
on at least two occasions, children who had already boarded airplanes were forced to get
off. Detailees on the team to which Mr. Pearlstein was assigned comforted the shocked
and distressed children when they were returned to Fort Bliss.
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Page 7

• Mr. Pearlstein and Ms. Reinhold personally spoke to dozens of children who had been at
the Fort Bliss EIS for more than 30 days; many had been there approaching or even
exceeding 60. A great many had not spoken to their case managers in over a month.
Some were not told they had been assigned a case manager at all, even after many weeks.
Most had no information about the progress of their placement with sponsors.

• The Fort Bliss children did not and could not trust that they were safe, that their basic
needs would be met, or that their sponsorship/placement cases were being timely
processed. The most frequent complaint heard from children was that they were in a
state of total uncertainty and anxiety, with no idea of what to expect next.

Health Care Failures

• COVID was widespread among children and eventually spread to many employees.
Hundreds of children contracted COVID in the overcrowded conditions. Adequate masks
were not consistently provided to children, nor was their use consistently enforced. Every
effort was made to downplay the degree of COVID infection at the site, and the size of
the outbreak was deliberately kept under wraps. At a “town hall” meeting with detailees,
a senior U.S. Public Health Service manager was asked and refused to say how many
were infected because “if that graph [of infections] is going to The Washington Post
every day, it's the only thing we'll be dealing with and politics will take over, perception
will take over, and we're about reality, not perception.” All the manager would
acknowledge is that several children had to be hospitalized.

• The manager also dismissed a detailee’s concern that the children in the COVID tents
were wearing basic disposable masks instead of N95 masks. The manager said N95
masks were unnecessary for the infected – even though uninfected detailees were
working with the infected children.

• In response to a question about a shortage of lice kits, the manager said that it was not a
problem because there was no significant presence of lice. When it was pointed out that
the spread of lice was so serious that a girls’ tent with hundreds of occupants was on
lockdown due to lice, the manager’s flippant remark was that girls tend to have long hair
and so obviously they would be more subject to getting lice.

Mismanagement and Significant Mental Health Issues

Major depression and depressive episodes were commonplace among the children. Mr.
Pearlstein personally interviewed or worked with dozens of children who had symptoms of
serious depression, including some who expressed suicidal thoughts. Many of his colleagues did
as well. In many instances, suffering children were referred to “counselors” – other detailees.
Some had relevant skills. Others had no prior training or experience (they did their best under
the circumstances).
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Page 8

Of even greater concern, mental health clinicians specifically employed by a private contractor to
deal with referrals from across the facility appeared to lack appropriate training and experience.
Children told detailees of their experiences when unhelpful clinicians ignored their concerns or
told them not to worry. They also told of making requests to tent staff to see a counselor or
clinician and being ignored or denied. Mr. Pearlstein reports that in one case, a clinician’s
primary response to a boy – who had complained of feeling very depressed and sad – was to tell
him that he had nothing to complain about and that, in fact, he should feel grateful for all he was
being given.

Many, if not most, of the children Mr. Pearlstein interviewed -- if they had been at the facility
more than a few days -- told him they felt like they were in prison and often begged "please get
me out of here, I don't know if I can take it anymore." In some cases, children tried to escape the
facility. Children sometimes became understandably angry and irritable when denied such basic
items as clothing, undergarments and shoes.

More About the Dormitory Tent Conditions

The Fort Bliss dormitory tents housed as many as 1,200 children. During May and June 2021,
there were roughly 10 dormitory tents housing between 500 and 1,000 children in each.

Source: BBC7

7BBC, 'Heartbreaking' Conditions in US Migrant Child Camp (June 23, 2021), available at
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-57561760.
Re: Second Protected Whistleblower Disclosures
July __, 2021
Page 9

Boys’ dormitory tent interior. Hundreds of beds, undivided space.

Our clients add the following.

• The overall environment of the vast, airplane hangar-sized tents was overwhelming.
Staff and detailees were often vying for space or resources. The noise frequently made it
hard to carry on a conversation or run activities for the children. Reports of bullying
were common and detailees were not trained on what to do.

• Toward the end of May, there were riots in some of the boys’ tents. Ms. Reinhold
witnessed security contractors surrounding a tent during one incident. Detailees were
never briefed about the riots or trained how to act in the event a riot broke out.

• Filth was commonplace. According to one Chenega senior manager: "I've been into one
[tent], one time, and I was like, yeah, I'm not going back there. They're filthy. They're
dirty. There's food on the floor. There's wet spots all over the place. The beds are dirty.”
Cleanliness conditions varied day to day. Crowding caused trash and dirty laundry to
accumulate. The situation was far worse because of the dust that settled everywhere after
El Paso area summer dust storms.

• Like the children, the federal detailees were in a similar state of anxiety and uncertainty.
They tried to make changes and solve problems, when possible, but the situation was out
of their control. They could not reasonably provide assurances to the children that they
would be released to sponsors or family as soon as possible (as legally required), or even
that their basic needs would be met in the meantime. Complaints to management were
often met with dismissal or retribution. With demobilization, detailees left the Fort Bliss
EIS with serious concerns about the welfare and safety of the children who remained and
who would be housed there in the future.

Secrecy and “Good News Only” Were Standing Orders of the Day

Detailees were frequently reminded that everything at Fort Bliss was confidential. This ensured
no effective oversight or accountability. Especially noteworthy was the fact that the identity of
the federal contracting officer -- responsible for hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts
handed out to the private contractors -- was never provided to the detailees (they repeatedly
asked). Yet perversely, the detailees were also told that the contracting officer was the only
federal employee authorized to bring any significant issues to any Fort Bliss private contractor.
In other words, other than the useless “Suggestion Box” (discussed at length in our July 7 letter),
detailees had no internal recourse.

Complementing the penchant for secrecy was management’s reflexive aversion to bad news. For
example:

• Regularly, when detailees reached the end of their term, a sheet was passed around with
detailed instructions from the HHS Public Affairs Office on how, when asked, to make
Re: Second Protected Whistleblower Disclosures
July __, 2021
Page 10

everything sound positive about the Fort Bliss experience and to play down anything
negative.
• At an all-hands meeting called to address the winding down of detailees serving in the
dormitory tents, detailees spoke up to express concern about leaving children with only
unskilled contract staff. Reportedly, the incredulous response from site leadership was
the cynical suggestion that detailees wanted to stay on to earn more overtime pay.

***

The information provided by Mr. Pearlstein and Ms. Reinhold corroborates and goes beyond the
reports from our other federal employee clients who volunteered to help the unaccompanied
children warehoused by ORR at Fort Bliss, and elsewhere. Their information further reveals
violations of law, rule and policy, gross mismanagement, gross waste of resources, abuses of
authority and specific dangers to public health and safety.

For all these reasons, we ask you to continue to investigate this matter.

Very truly yours,

/s/

DAVID Z. SEIDE

Government Accountability Project

[email protected]

cc: Cindy Huang, Director - HHS Office of Refugee Resettlement