In testimony before a congressional subcommittee, Health and Human Services Secretary (HHS) Xavier Becerra denied that 323,000 unaccompanied minor children who entered the country illegally are unaccounted for.
Becerra testified on Nov. 20 before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement about his department’s Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR).
The HHS chief has come under fire recently by Republicans over reports that tens of thousands of children who entered the country illegally are now missing.
Becerra did not directly answer Republican subcommittee member Rep. Thomas Tiffany (R-Wis.), who asked if he would change anything about the way his department has handled the placement of children with unreachable sponsors.
Instead, Becerra defended his department’s actions, saying once the children were placed with a sponsor, they were no longer HHS’s responsibility.
Follow-up after placement consists of three calls to sponsors and children. Neither the children nor the sponsors are obligated to return the calls, he said.
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“We work really hard to make sure we first and foremost protect the safety and the well-being of those kids. Every day is a challenge, and we do the best we can,” Becerra said.
Subcommittee Chairman Tom McClintock (R-Calif.) said it appeared ORR was more concerned with speeding up the placement of children than their safety.
“What we know is that in 2021, Mr. Becerra removed the requirement that ORR provide biographic and biometric data for all adult members of the sponsor’s household to check for criminal histories,” McClintock said.
“What could possibly go wrong? he asked.
Becerra responded that sponsors were required to undergo “extensive background checks,” which could include criminal record checks, fingerprinting, and identification documentation.
Customs and Border Protection has encountered nearly 520,000 unaccompanied minors at the U.S. southern border under the Biden administration.
As of May 2024, 32,000 illegal immigrant children who received court dates never showed up for their hearings, and another 291,000 were released into the interior without an immigration date, creating difficulties in monitoring their status and location, according to an August Department of Homeland Security report.
The report’s figures came from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and covered the period from October 2018 to September 2023.
During the hearing, Republican members brought up various reports, including a Florida grand jury investigation that suggested children were being trafficked or abused.
That report found that one unaccompanied minor was released to a sponsor using a strip club address in Jacksonville, Florida.
In Bonita Springs, Florida, one sponsor had multiple unaccompanied minors sent to multiple addresses. He applied to be a sponsor using different versions of his hyphenated surname, according to the report.
In Austin, Texas, more than 100 children were sent to the same address, while other Texas addresses received 44 and 25 minors, respectively.
There was also an unaccompanied minor who was reportedly being “pimped out” by a sponsor said to be her aunt, the report stated.
Becerra said he did not agree with every allegation in the Florida report but failed to immediately specify any inaccuracies.
“I have a number of issues with the Florida report,” Becerra said.
Democrats on the subcommittee defended Becerra, with ranking subcommittee member Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) calling the proceedings a “show hearing.”
“These children are not lost,” she said.
Jayapal said that HHS makes three follow-up phone calls to the sponsors and children, but they cannot be forced to respond or follow up.
She pointed out that in 2018, under the first Trump administration, some 1,500 children were “lost.”
The regulations also codified the current requirement that an at-home study be conducted before releasing a child to a nonrelative sponsor who is attempting to sponsor multiple children, who previously sponsored a child, or if the nonrelative child is under 12 years old, she said.
Finding these children will be a part of President-elect Donald Trump’s border strategy.
At-risk children who entered the country illegally under the Biden administration will be a priority for Tom Homan, Trump’s incoming border czar.
Homan told Fox News on Nov. 18 that he believed that some of the children are being exploited.
“We already found some in forced labor, some of them are in for sex trafficking, some of them are with pedophiles,” Homan said. “We need to save these children.”
Two other priorities are to secure the U.S.–Mexico border as well as deport illegal immigrant criminals and “national security threats,” Homan said.
ICE, which Homan headed under the first Trump administration, should “take immediate action” to ensure those unaccounted-for children are safe, according to the DHS report.
Jack Phillips contributed to this report.
