HHS Secretary Grilled on Safety of Resettled Illegal Immigrant Children

Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra faced bipartisan criticism on Capitol Hill on March 14 over his department’s handling of the resettlement of illegal immigrant children in its charge.

The Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), housed under HHS, is responsible for the relocation of unaccompanied illegal immigrant children apprehended at the U.S.–Mexico border.

The program has come under fire in recent months amid reports that many of those children have been placed into abusive, exploitative, or otherwise dangerous conditions—and with little follow-up from HHS.

“We’re continuing to hear reports suggesting the existence of trafficking schemes that are preying on these vulnerable individuals—allegations that we’re hearing of coercion, forced labor,” Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) told the secretary at a Senate Finance Committee hearing.

The probe also found that in 16 percent of cases, ORR failed to document required safety checks on sponsors, including checking whether they had criminal backgrounds or were registered sex offenders. Additionally, in 35 percent of children’s case files, sponsor-submitted IDs had “legibility concerns.”

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Ms. Blackburn said she had written to Mr. Becerra twice to inquire into those matters, only to receive “non-answers” from his staff. “Mr. Secretary, this leads me to believe that you don’t give a rippin’ flip about what is happening to these vulnerable children,” she said.

The senator went on to ask Mr. Becerra whether he could say with certainty that his department knew the identities of the sponsors with whom the children were being placed.

The secretary replied that no child in HHS custody is released to a sponsor without that sponsor’s “having gone through a full vetting.” And when asked whether HHS has a responsibility to follow up after children are placed, he said his staff “make efforts” to do so but are constrained by their abilities under the law.

Ms. Blackburn disagreed. By law, she noted, ORR is required to follow up 30 days after placing a child with a sponsor.

“Mr. Secretary, Director [Robin Dunn] Marcos is failing in this,” she said. “There are 85,000 children that we know of that you all cannot find. And you were hesitant to move forward with giving us the information.”

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

“It is unfortunate that you wish to mischaracterize the work that we’re doing,” he said. “And we do everything we can with the authority you give us to provide the care that these kids need.”

Bipartisan Issue

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

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), for one, recounted similar difficulties obtaining information from HHS contractors and grant awardees about the children’s safety.

Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), meanwhile, showed that unease over the issue was bipartisan, calling the vetting concerns raised in the OIG’s report a “glaring blind spot that needs to be addressed.”

“We’re talking about potentially thousands of migrant children who are sent to unvetted sponsors,” Mr. Menendez said, asking the secretary what actions his agency had taken to address the problem.

Mr. Becerra replied that the referenced report was specific to incidents that occurred in the spring of 2021. “I can assure you that what was being observed by the Inspector General back then is not the case today,” he said, adding that ORR now conducts “thorough” assessments of potential sponsors.

But that assurance did not satisfy Republican Sen. John Cornyn, whose home state of Texas has been overwhelmed by the surge of illegal immigrants pouring across the southern border.

“There have been about 400,000 of these unaccompanied children that have come to the United States during President Joe Biden’s term of office. Can you tell us where they are now?” Mr. Cornyn asked the secretary.

Again, the secretary asserted that his department lacks the jurisdiction for continued oversight of migrant children after they have left HHS custody. When pressed as to whose responsibility it was to ensure those children’s safety, he said that role belongs to “the communities where they reside.”

Mr. Cornyn, however, said the responsibility lies with HHS.

“Right now, you have about a $1.8 trillion budget,“ he said. ”And you have the responsibility for taking care of these children, and you simply hand them off to sponsors into homes that you don’t know the conditions they’re living in, you don’t know whether they’re going to school without being sold for sex, or trafficked, or forced into labor. You don’t know.”