The movie opens with Tim’s coworker at the Department of Homeland Security complaining that even though he has helped bust some pedos, he hasn’t actually rescued any kids. Tim has to use his over-a-decade service record at DHS to pull strings with his boss to allow Tim to manipulate a jailed pedo into setting up an actual child trafficking scheme. Tim is allowed to go to the border to try to visually identify the boy in the pedo’s advertising photograph. Since the coyote doesn’t know that his pedo “customer” has been busted, the coyote seems confident that he’ll be able to child-traffic easily like usual, even with a somewhat unsuitable ID for the child. We get the feeling that border control would drop the ball if Tim isn’t there on special assignment.

After rescuing the boy, Tim learns of the boy’s sister who is still in bondage in Latin America. Since locations outside of the US Homeland are outside the purview of DHS, Tim’s boss doesn’t want to permit Tim to go look. Tim has to describe the personal damage and anguish that his career has caused him, while he has tears in his eyes, for his boss to relent and make a very special exception, but he only grants a short amount of time and a $10K expense account from a generic slush fund. Tim is determined to make the most of it.

In Cartagena, Colombia, Tim learns about the girl’s traffickers while making valuable contacts with a couple voluntary anti-traffickers and a Colombian government agent. As Tim moves to set up a meeting with the traffickers, he requests more resources from DHS in order to make his cover more plausible. He is denied and ordered to return home. He tells the bad news to one of his volunteer contacts, who laments about bureaucracies and advises that’s why he rescues kids on his own without involving government. Tim decides to resign from the DHS and continue his mission, with his wife’s blessing. The small band of anti-traffickers concoct a plan that relies on a heavy investment from the other volunteer, a wealthy businessman. Their sting operation results in the liberation of 53 children, which is 53 more kids than Tim’s partner in the beginning of the movie was able to rescue in his DHS career.

The movie suggests that private individuals on their own steam are able to help kids more than government bureaucracies such as DHS do.