A top Biden-Harris administration official was recently subpoenaed by Congress over the administration’s “failure” to provide the House Committee on Homeland Security with information regarding the vetting of sponsors for roughly 291,000 unaccompanied alien children (UACs) who have not been accounted for by federal immigration authorities.
In a Monday press release, House Committee on Homeland Security Chairman Mark E. Green (R-Tenn.) announced that Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra had been subpoenaed due to the “Biden-Harris administration’s failure to respond and comply with Committee requests for documents and information” regarding the department’s “handling of UACs and those applying to be sponsors of this vulnerable population.”
Green claimed that after the committee requested documentation regarding UACs, the Department of Health and Human Services delivered 700 documents “wholly unresponsive” to the committee’s request.
According to The Post Millennial, the Department of Homeland Security Inspector General revealed earlier this year that from Fiscal Year 2019 to Fiscal Year 2023, Immigration and Customs Enforcement has transferred more than 448,000 UACs to the Department of Health and Human Services to place the illegal immigrant children with sponsors in the U.S. However, 291,000 of the UACs were not given notice to appear in immigration court, making it difficult to track the illegal immigrant children.
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The Inspector General report noted, “Although we identified more than 32,000 UCs who did not appear for their immigration court dates, that number may have been much larger had ICE issued NTAs to the more than 291,000 UCs who were not placed into removal proceedings. By not issuing NTAs to all UCs, ICE limits its chances of having contact with UCs when they are released from HHS’ custody, which reduces opportunities to verify their safety. Without an ability to monitor the location and status of UCs, ICE has no assurance UCs are safe from trafficking, exploitation, or forced labor.”
In Monday’s press release, Green claimed that almost 520,000 UACs have been encountered on the southern border since February of 2021 with over 291,000 of them potentially unaccounted for. Green warned that the illegal immigrant children “remain vulnerable as victims of the unthinkable and devastating horrors of child trafficking.” Green added, “The exigency of this matter related to the youngest among us demands swift solutions based in evidence and facts.”
According to The Post Millennial, it was previously reported that the Department of Health and Human Services had not properly vetted child sponsors and had sent UACs to the homes of individuals with labor traffickers and people with criminal histories.
Following the committee’s recent subpoena, a department spokesperson said, “As the Committee well knows, HHS prior to the subpoena worked in good faith to provide hundreds of pages of documents while communicating repeatedly to the Committee that it is continuing to work on its request.”
