HHS Secretary Grilled on Safety of Resettled Illegal Immigrant Children

Well being and Human Companies (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra confronted bipartisan criticism on Capitol Hill on March 14 over his division’s dealing with of the resettlement of unlawful immigrant kids in its cost.

The Workplace of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), housed beneath HHS, is answerable for the relocation of unaccompanied unlawful immigrant kids apprehended on the U.S.–Mexico border.

This system has come beneath hearth in current months amid experiences that lots of these kids have been positioned into abusive, exploitative, or in any other case harmful situations—and with little follow-up from HHS.

“We’re persevering with to listen to experiences suggesting the existence of trafficking schemes which are preying on these weak people—allegations that we’re listening to of coercion, compelled labor,” Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) instructed the secretary at a Senate Finance Committee listening to.

The probe additionally discovered that in 16 p.c of circumstances, ORR did not doc required security checks on sponsors, together with checking whether or not they had legal backgrounds or had been registered intercourse offenders. Moreover, in 35 p.c of kids’s case information, sponsor-submitted IDs had “legibility issues.”

Ms. Blackburn mentioned she had written to Mr. Becerra twice to inquire into these issues, solely to obtain “non-answers” from his workers. “Mr. Secretary, this leads me to imagine that you just don’t give a rippin’ flip about what is occurring to those weak kids,” she mentioned.

The senator went on to ask Mr. Becerra whether or not he may say with certainty that his division knew the identities of the sponsors with whom the youngsters had been being positioned.

The secretary replied that no youngster in HHS custody is launched to a sponsor with out that sponsor’s “having gone by means of a full vetting.” And when requested whether or not HHS has a duty to comply with up after kids are positioned, he mentioned his workers “make efforts” to take action however are constrained by their talents beneath the legislation.

Ms. Blackburn disagreed. By legislation, she famous, ORR is required to comply with up 30 days after inserting a baby with a sponsor.

“Mr. Secretary, Director [Robin Dunn] Marcos is failing on this,” she mentioned. “There are 85,000 kids that we all know of that you just all can’t discover. And also you had been hesitant to maneuver ahead with giving us the data.”

Mr. Becerra took problem with Ms. Blackburn’s characterization of ORR’s authorized authorities, which he described as “appalling.”

“It’s unlucky that you just want to mischaracterize the work that we’re doing,” he mentioned. “And we do every little thing we are able to with the authority you give us to supply the care that these youngsters want.”

Bipartisan Challenge

Ms. Blackburn was not alone in her criticism of the Biden administration’s resettlement of unlawful immigrant kids.

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), for one, recounted related difficulties acquiring info from HHS contractors and grant awardees concerning the kids’s security.

Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), in the meantime, confirmed that unease over the difficulty was bipartisan, calling the vetting issues raised within the OIG’s report a “evident blind spot that must be addressed.”

“We’re speaking about probably hundreds of migrant kids who’re despatched to unvetted sponsors,” Mr. Menendez mentioned, asking the secretary what actions his company had taken to deal with the issue.

Mr. Becerra replied that the referenced report was particular to incidents that occurred within the spring of 2021. “I can guarantee you that what was being noticed by the Inspector Basic again then will not be the case at the moment,” he mentioned, including that ORR now conducts “thorough” assessments of potential sponsors.

However that assurance didn’t fulfill Republican Sen. John Cornyn, whose house state of Texas has been overwhelmed by the surge of unlawful immigrants pouring throughout the southern border.

“There have been about 400,000 of those unaccompanied kids which have come to the US throughout President Joe Biden’s time period of workplace. Are you able to inform us the place they’re now?” Mr. Cornyn requested the secretary.

Once more, the secretary asserted that his division lacks the jurisdiction for continued oversight of migrant kids after they’ve left HHS custody. When pressed as to whose duty it was to make sure these kids’s security, he mentioned that position belongs to “the communities the place they reside.”

Mr. Cornyn, nonetheless, mentioned the duty lies with HHS.

“Proper now, you could have a few $1.8 trillion price range,“ he mentioned. ”And you’ve got the duty for taking good care of these kids, and also you merely hand them off to sponsors into houses that you just don’t know the situations they’re residing in, you don’t know whether or not they’re going to high school with out being offered for intercourse, or trafficked, or compelled into labor. You don’t know.”