Timothy Ballard


Timothy "Tim" Ballard is the founder and CEO of Operation Underground Railroad, CEO of The Nazarene Fund and the author of several books. He organizes activities on the national and international level to stop child trafficking. Thousands of trafficking victims have been rescued by Tim Ballard and Operation Underground Railroad. They have also assisted in the arrest of over 750 traffickers. Ballard has faced criticism for broadcasting raids without regards for victim privacy, and supporting a wall along the southern border of the United States and over his written works in his 'Hypothesis' series which have been described as a historical and revisionist.
Ballard's work includes the development of software and internet investigations specifically to infiltrate file-share networks where traffickers exchange child pornography. Ballard has assisted in the training of many law enforcement officers in these procedures. He has also testified before the United States Congress and has recommended procedures and practices for rescuing children from trafficking rings. The activities of Ballard and O.U.R. have had major media coverage.

Biography

Schooling

After growing up in California, Ballard attended Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. He went on a church mission to Chile and then graduated cum laude from BYU with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Spanish and Political Science. Then, he graduated summa cum laude from the Monterey Institute of International Studies with a Master of Arts degree in International Politics.

Government

Ballard worked as a Special Agent for the Department of Homeland Security, Homeland Security Investigations, for over ten years. During his time working for the American government, he worked on the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force and worked as an undercover agent for the U.S. Child Sex Tourism Jump Team. Most of his career was spent working out of the US-Mexico port of entry in Calexico, CA with the focus on child exploitation and trafficking cases. These cases regularly took Ballard, who speaks fluent Spanish, into Latin America.

Founding O.U.R.

Ballard left the government in 2013 and founded the non-profit organization Operation Underground Railroad, or O.U.R. He has briefed many world leaders on issue of child sex trafficking including President Donald Trump in January 2019.

Testifying before Congress

On May 14, 2015, Ballard was asked to testify before the United States Congress. The House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Global Human Rights held a hearing on the partnerships between U.S. government and non-governmental organizations that rescue trafficking victims. On March 6, 2019, Ballard was called to testify before the US Senate Judiciary Committee concerning US-Mexico border security and its relation to child sex trafficking.

Presidential appointment

In 2019 Ballard was appointed to the White House Public-Private Partnership Advisory Council to End Human Trafficking.

Media

In 2016, The Abolitionists, a documentary from Schindler's List producer Gerald Molen, featured the first operations undertaken by Ballard and Operation Underground Railroad. Another documentary from director Nick Nanton, Operation Toussaint, was produced in 2018 which featured an operation in Haiti that had the support of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse and former congresswoman Mia Love. A feature film about Ballard's life, The Sound of Freedom, starring Jim Caviezel, Mira Sorvino, and Eduardo Verastigui was announced in 2018.
ESPN featured Ballard and Pittsburgh Steelers' head coach Mike Tomlin in a piece which highlighted the restavek issue near the border of Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Tomlin would also write the foreword to Ballard's book Slave Stealers: True Accounts of Slave Rescues – Then and Now.

Authorship

With his background and study of American history, Ballard wrote the best-selling books The Covenant: One Nation Under God, and its sequel, The Covenant, Lincoln, and the War. In 2018 he published the biographical book Slave Stealers: True Accounts of Slave Rescues – Then and Now, which details his experience forming a non-profit to rescue children. The book also draws a few parallels to 19th-century American history and the transatlantic slave trade. The principal subject is a 19th-century abolitionist named Harriet Jacobs and her struggles to escape slavery and save her children.