A bipartisan power duo from the Senate Judiciary Committee urged the Health and Human Services Department’s watchdog Wednesday to investigate alleged sexual abuse of minors in their facilities at the U.S.-Mexico border.
“Recent public reports allege that many cases of sexual assault in child care centers are not fully investigated by HHS,” Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and the panel’s ranking member, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said in a letter to Inspector General Daniel Levinson. “We find it intolerable and inexcusable that child care operators are not immediately investigating reports.”
HHS received 4,556 complaints of sexual assault of unaccompanied minors between 2014 and 2018, according to an internal agency report released last week by Rep. Ted Deutch, D-Fla. In addition, 1,300 complaints were reported to the Department of Justice.
Jonathan Hayes, Acting Director of the Office of Refugee Resettlement with HHS, said in a statement last week: “Our office takes seriously all allegations of abuse and makes every effort to ensure that every minor in the UAC program is in a safe environment and released to a vetted sponsor.”
Grassley, who served as Judiciary chairman last term, and Feinstein previously wrote to the inspector general in July 2018, asking him to look into “the long-term pattern of abuse at HHS facilities.” The senators said in their new letter they were told that the IG was inspecting health and safety issues at these facilities but have since not received a report. They renewed their calls for an investigation into the widespread allegations of abuse and said they expect the IG’s help in publishing a report afterwards.
[Also read: ICE testing 10-year-old migrant girls for pregnancy due to risk of sexual assault]
