The U.S. lost track of 1,475 immigrant children last year
Reports of federal authorities losing track of nearly 1,500 immigrant children in their custody. Scathing criticism over children being taken from their migrant parents at the border. Proposed rallies.
In the past week, outrage about treatment of children taken into U.S. custody at the Southwest border has reached a fever pitch, exploding in a barrage of tweets and calls to action with the hashtags #WhereAreTheChildren and #MissingChildren.
During a Senate committee hearing late last month, Steven Wagner, acting assistant secretary at the Department of Health and Human Services, testified that the federal agency had lost track of 1,475 children who had crossed the U.S.-Mexico border on their own (that is, unaccompanied by adults) and subsequently were placed with adult sponsors in the United States. The number was based on a survey of more than 7,000 children.
From October to December 2017, HHS called 7,635 children the agency had placed with sponsors, and found 6,075 of the children were still living with their sponsors, 28 had run away, five had been deported and 52 were living with someone else.
The rest were missing, Mr. Wagner said.
Health and Human Services officials have argued it is not the department’s legal responsibility to find those children after they are released from the care of the Office of Refugee Resettlement, which falls under HHS’s Administration for Children and Families. And some have pointed out that adult sponsors are sometimes relatives who already were living in the United States and who intentionally may not be responding to contact attempts by HHS.
However, neither of those arguments has done much to quell outrage surrounding the testimony by Mr. Wagner, a principal deputy at HHS who oversees the Administration for Children and Families.
Sen. Rob Portman, ROhio, chairman of the Senate subcommittee, has repeatedly argued that it was a matter of humanity, not simply legal responsibility, citing a case in which federal officials had turned over eight immigrant children to human traffickers.
In a statement to The Washington Post, DHS said approximately 85 percent of sponsors who ultimately acquire custody of unaccompanied minors are parents or close family members.
The topic of child-parent separations gained traction Saturday morning when Mr. Trump blamed Democrats for “the horrible law that separates children from parents once they cross the Border” — even though there is no such law, and even though it was a policy supported by his administration.
Mr. Trump also tried to use the issue to drum up support for his proposed border wall.