Justice Department names Serano national coordinator on child exploitation cases

The Justice Department has put Alessandra Serano in charge of one of its most urgent enforcement fights, naming her the national coordinator for human trafficking and child exploitation cases and giving her 120 days to produce an updated strategy. The appointment puts a single official in a role the department says will sharpen case prioritization, coordinate cross-state investigations and improve support for victims while keeping pressure on prosecutors.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said the post creates one national coordinator to lead the fight against crimes that affect thousands of people each year and remain lucrative for criminal organizations. Serano will serve in the Office of the Deputy Attorney General and act as the department’s liaison to other federal agencies and outside stakeholders, a job that will force the Justice Department to show whether a new title can produce measurable results in investigations and prosecutions rather than just a new layer of bureaucracy.

Serano brings a long federal resume to the post. She has worked at the Justice Department on and off since 2003, including assignments in the Southern District of California, the United States Virgin Islands and the Eastern District of Virginia. Most recently, she had been senior counsel to the deputy attorney general, and she had just finished a temporary assignment with the Senate Judiciary Committee. In a CBS News interview, Serano said tracking down missing children would be a priority and said, "one kid trafficked is one too many."

The new structure folds together responsibilities that were split in April 2023, when the department designated Hilary Axam as national human trafficking coordinator and Steven J. Grocki as national coordinator for child exploitation prevention and interdiction. At the time, the department said those roles were responsible for department-wide and interagency strategy as well as outside stakeholder engagement. Blanche’s move concentrates that work under one official as federal agencies face pressure to move faster on cases that often cut across state lines and exploit gaps between jurisdictions.

The appointment comes amid a larger federal push on missing and unaccompanied migrant children. CBS reported that the Justice Department was investigating the whereabouts of about 300,000 unaccompanied minors, while the Department of Homeland Security said in July 2025 that the administration had located 13,000 unaccompanied children. Officials have also focused on so-called super sponsors who take multiple unrelated children, a system critics say can leave children vulnerable to trafficking and labor exploitation.

Justice Department and Homeland Security officials said in January 2026 that Homeland Security Task Forces were being used to intensify anti-trafficking operations nationwide during National Human Trafficking Prevention Month. The department’s human trafficking press room now lists multiple June 2026 prosecutions and sentences involving sex trafficking of minors and forced labor, underscoring that the enforcement pipeline remains active. The Bureau of Justice Statistics, meanwhile, says it prepares annual human trafficking data under the Combat Human Trafficking Act of 2015, a reminder that the department will be judged not by its announcement, but by whether the next 120 days show more cases, more rescued victims and more coordinated federal action.