Democratic Washington Rep. Pramila Jayapal falsely claimed Wednesday that no unaccompanied migrant children have gone missing in the U.S. during a House Judiciary Committee hearing.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials have lost track of at least 32,000 migrant children who have entered the U.S. and have been released from the custody of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) since 2019, according to a report by the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG) in August. Jayapal claimed these unaccompanied children are “not lost,” but that HHS is simply no longer in contact with the children and their adult sponsors.
“Today’s hearing will be one final attempt by the majority to use all their same, false talking points that the Biden administration purposefully lost tens of thousands of children, all of which we know is wrong by the facts,” Jayapal said. “And I’m sure [HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra] will address this as well, but let’s just be clear, these children are not lost. HHS’ legal authority ceases once an unaccompanied child is reunited with a sponsor, usually a parent or a close relative. While HHS conducts three follow-up calls to ensure that everything is going well between a sponsor and a child, the agency has no ability to force their way into the home. If no one answers these three calls, then HHS is no longer in contact with the child. Now that does not mean that the child is lost.”
HHS, the agency responsible for placing children with adult sponsors, has reunited about one-third of these unaccompanied children with their parents in the U.S., while the remainder is sent either to live with other relatives or even strangers, according to The New York Times. Biden administration officials placed some of these minors in homes that were not deemed suitable for children, including homes where some adults have committed criminal behavior, according to an internal investigation conducted by the Office of Inspector General for the Department of Health and Human Services.
Federal officials believe these unaccompanied children are at a greater risk of forced labor, trafficking, and exploitation than adult migrants who illegally cross the U.S.-Mexico border, according to the OIG report.
Senate Republicans alleged that President Joe Biden’s administration is obstructing congressional and state investigations into the trafficking and exploitation of unaccompanied migrant children, a Senate committee report found Tuesday. Republican Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy, a ranking member of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, released the Senate report alleging that the Biden-Harris administration committed widespread “failures” that led to widespread abuse and exploitation of migrant children, according to the report.
The report further accused the White House of “stonewalling” congressional and state-level investigations into the handling of migrant children, including Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ investigation into the smuggling of unaccompanied migrant children from the U.S.-Mexico border into Florida by refusing to provide witnesses or documents, and by ignoring subpoenas.
In the report, Cassidy cited instances of reaching out to HHS to receive information on the care and handling of unaccompanied migrant children and alleged that the agency would either take months to respond or not respond at all.
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