Republican senators are pressuring the Obama administration for answers on what it’s doing to make sure the government stops handing over illegal immigrant children to human traffickers.
Sens. John Cornyn of Texas and Chuck Grassley of Iowa this week sent a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson and Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell asking them for details about the government’s screening process of potential hosts for unaccompanied illegal immigrant children being held in federal government facilities across the country.
Sens. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, and Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., released a report late last month that uncovered evidence that Health and Human Services is delivering minors into the hands of human traffickers and sex predators, or without visiting the homes where they would live or verifying a family connection to them. Both Portman and McCaskill pressed HHS and Homeland Security officials last month on how this could happen, and demanded to know whether government policies had changed to scrutinize so-called “sponsors” who show up to claim undocumented children in U.S. government custody.
Cornyn and Grassley want information about how the government vets potential sponsors and have questions about fraud schemes throughout the placement process.
“We must ensure that there are no gaps in the process which would put the most vulnerable at risk of abuse, neglect, exploitation, or harm,” they wrote.
“More than 200,000 unaccompanied minors have been apprehended at the border from fiscal year 2009 through 2014,” the senators said in a release. “The sheer number of minors seeking sponsorship provides great opportunity for fraud and allows many to slip through the cracks in the system.”
The pair plan to hold a hearing on the topic Feb. 23.
Cornyn and Grassley also sought information from Johnson and Burwell in November after a whistleblower alleged that 3,400 sponsors out of a sample of 29,000 listed in a government database have criminal histories that include domestic violence, homicide, child molestation, sexual assault and human trafficking.
In their most recent letter, the senators asked Johnson and Burwell what specific offenses would disqualify a person from being a sponsor, whether there is a list of crimes that disqualify someone and if so, whether they could provide the list. A potential sponsor of a illegal immigrant child in the United States without a parent must complete a “family reunification application” that includes their criminal history.
They also wanted to know how HHS enforces its Sponsor Care Agreements, in which potential sponsors affirm that the information they are providing is correct and they will abide by the instructions mandating the care of the children. The U.S. government requires prospective sponsors to provide their own identification and the child’s birth certificate.
“If enforcement is not occurring, why?” they asked.
Among a nine-point list of other questions, they also asked HHS to tell them how many current sponsors have violent criminal histories, the types of violent crimes involved and how HHS responded to these violent crime histories in allowing them to sponsor the children.
