Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) was thoroughly dissatisfied on April 18 with a Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) official’s responses regarding the resettlement of unaccompanied illegal immigrant children.
“I find it very unacceptable, your performance this morning,” Gosar told Robin Dunn Marcos, director of the HHS Administration of Children and Families’ Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), at a hearing of the House Oversight and Accountability Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs.
Gosar’s comments came amid an exchange in which he questioned Marcos about the vetting process for would-be sponsors of unaccompanied children.
“In theory, if ORR is doing the job and actually vetting sponsors, they will have a statistically significant rejection rate,” he posited. “What is ORR’s sponsor application rejection rate?”
Dunn Marcos replied that she was “not sure” what the program’s rejection rate was—a response Gosar found to be inadequate.
“You know what, I’ve got to stop you right there again,” Gosar interjected. “You knew you were coming into this hearing. You knew these numbers were going to be asked. This is inappropriate behavior of somebody of your caliber. … I find it a shame that you don’t have these numbers in front of you.”
Lawmakers grilled Marcos on that figure, but she didn’t provide a direct answer to those questions, noting that her office does not track or monitor children after they are placed but simply conducts follow-up phone calls that their sponsors may or may not choose to answer.
In another exchange, Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.) questioned whether the parents or legal guardians of unaccompanied children were being referred for criminal prosecution for child abandonment.
Marcos responded that her office was not tasked with law enforcement, but Perry pushed back, noting that he wasn’t asking if she was enforcing the law but referring crimes to the proper authorities.
“Let’s face it—these children are coming and they’re unaccompanied because someone has abandoned them,” he said. “Why don’t we refer charges for abandonment? … My goodness, if you saw somebody beating up some little kid on the street, wouldn’t you call the police?”
‘Unfamiliar’ With Statistics
In March, HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra told members of the Senate Finance Committee that he was “unfamiliar” with the figures reported by The New York Times and that he had “no idea” where they came from.“Every week, I get briefed by my team—sometimes two or three times a week—on this situation with the unaccompanied minor kids and where we stand,” Becerra noted in another exchange. “I’ve never heard that number of 85,000. … I would say it doesn’t sound at all to be realistic.”
Adding that HHS tries to follow up “as best we can” with children after they have been placed, the secretary stressed that his department does not have the power to do more.
“Congress has given us certain authorities. Our authorities essentially end the moment we have found a suitable sponsor to place that child with,“ he said. ”We try to do some follow up, but neither the child nor the sponsor is obligated to follow up with us.”
However, in announcing the hearing on April 11, Subcommittee Chairman Glenn Grothman (R-Wis.) asserted that the Biden administration was responsible for the abuse experienced by resettled children.
“The Office of Refugee Resettlement’s negligence has contributed to migrant children being lost, released to sponsors not thoroughly vetted, exploited for illegal child labor in hazardous conditions, and in danger of being trafficked,” he said in a statement. “The Biden Administration has turned a blind eye to the dangers facing migrant children and must be held accountable.”
