The Biden administration risks making unaccompanied migrant children victims of trafficking by releasing them so swiftly from government custody to adult sponsors, warned a ranking Republican senator.
“Each day brings new reports of a surge of arrivals at the U.S. southern border, which we know will increase the risk of trafficking in persons, especially for unaccompanied children arriving in greater numbers,” Rob Portman of Ohio, the top Republican on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said in a statement Thursday. “I urge the Biden administration to ensure that these children do not fall victim to human trafficking, abuse, or other harm.”
Portman said his concerns were based out of reports that he arrived at during three separate committee investigations that found that multiple administrations made “concerning failures” to keep safe and track children after they were released by the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Refugee Resettlement.
Border officials anticipate 117,000 children will arrive at the U.S.-Mexico border without a parent or guardian in 2021, Axios reported Tuesday. The number is higher than the 68,000 taken into custody during the 2014 surge of solo children and the 80,000 who arrived during the 2019 humanitarian crisis at the border.
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The Biden administration has urged HHS to release children so that more can be transferred in from the Border Patrol. The government has also allowed HHS to pay for minors in its custody to be flown to their sponsor or family member’s home when the receiving adult cannot pay for the cost.
In the first investigation in 2016, lawmakers uncovered that the government released children to a human trafficking ring in Ohio. HHS did not adequately vet adults or conduct sufficient background checks before letting children out of federal custody. The 2018 report found that HHS and the Department of Homeland Security failed to make recommended changes to how they track children, including if they show up for immigration court proceedings years down the road.
The Biden administration in January chose to discontinue the 10-month practice of returning all Central American children to Mexico rather than bringing them into U.S. custody. The decision stays in line with a 2007 trafficking law that protects single children who show up at the border from being deported on the basis that they may have been trafficked against their will though most children arriving now are sent by their parents to travel to the U.S. through smuggling organizations.
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Of the estimated 8,000 solo children taken into custody in February, 6,000 were 16 and 17 years old.
