HHS chief: Agency can’t reunite kids if their parents are detained
WASHINGTON — Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said Tuesday that his department can’t reunite separated kids with their migrant parents as long as the parents are in detention awaiting resolution of their immigration cases.
Mr. Azar told the Senate Finance Committee Tuesday that current federal law only allows a 20-day period for parents in immigration detention to keep their children with them. After that, children must be placed in HHS care.
Echoing President Donald Trump’s calls on Congress to make changes, the health secretary asked senators to change that law.
The statement by Mr. Azar, whose agency currently has custody of 2.047 children separated from their parents after being apprehended crossing the border illegally, was seen as confirming what immigrant advocates have feared: The administration will reunite children with their parents quickly only if the parents drop their claims for asylum in the U.S. and agree to be deported.
Under administration policy,
immigrants claiming asylum are held in detention awaiting a hearing — a process that can often take months or years. Because current law only allows children to be held in immigrant detention facilities for 20 days, his agency would not place any of the children with parents who are in those facilities, Mr. Azar said.
“If the parent remains in detention, unfortunately, under rules that are set by Congress and the courts, they can’t be reunified while they’re in detention,” Mr. Azar said.
However, lawyers for the migrants say the administration can easily get around that barrier by temporarily releasing the parents while their asylum cases are being decided by immigration authorities.
The agency could place children with other relatives in the United States if they can be located and properly vetted, Mr. Azar told the finance committee.
But if lawmakers find a legislative fix to a court ruling that bars children from being held in detention centers for longer than 20 days, Mr. Azar said, then the families could be reunited as “expeditiously” as possible.
“We do not want any of these children to be separated from their parents any longer than is absolutely necessary under the law,” Mr. Azar said.
Otherwise, he said, those children will need to wait for their parents to either be granted entry to the U.S. or deported.
On the Senate floor Tuesday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, DN.Y., said the Trump administration “has a lot of unresolved questions to answer, and it is only they who can straighten this out. Legislation might be a good thing, but we all know the path to legislation is fraught with peril - passing the House, passing the Senate, being signed by the president. That hasn’t happened in a while.”
In addition to asking Congress to change federal law, the administration has asked a federal court to change that 20-day limit.
Mr. Azar came to Capitol Hill to discuss prescription drug prices, but despite urging from committee chairman Sen. Orrin Hatch, RUtah, to stick to the topic, nearly every Democrat and several Republicans wanted updates on the children who were separated at the southern border as a result of the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy to prosecute all border crossing offenses.
Under intense political pressure, Mr. Trump abruptly changed course to sign an executive order last week that would allow families to remain together while in custody.
Questioned by Democratic senators, Mr. Azar refused to say how long some 2,000 separated children would remain in HHS shelters. He said HHS conducts extensive vetting of parents to make sure they’re not traffickers masquerading as parents.
He didn’t address the issue of parents who are released from immigration custody while their cases are heard.
Mr. Azar told senators Tuesday that his agency currently has 2,047 migrant children — or six fewer than the total HHS count last week. That means the number of migrant children in custody after being separated from their parents barely dropped since last week, even as Trump administration said it’s doing everything possible to expedite family reunification.
Confusion reigned, with officials later telling reporters on a conference call they couldn’t provide complete numbers — or say whether they were still receiving children taken from parents at the border — because they are focused on reuniting families.
Finance committee Democrats told Mr. Azar it doesn’t seem like much progress is being made on reuniting families, even after Mr. Trump scaled back his “zero tolerance” policy on the southwest border.
“HHS, Homeland Security, and the Justice Department seem to be doing a lot more to add to the bedlam and deflect blame than they’re doing to tell parents where their kids are,” said Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore.
Mr. Azar suggested at one point that parents share the blame.
“It’s not a desirable situation to have children separated from their parents,” he said. “Listen, to be upfront, if the parents didn’t bring them across illegally this would never happen.”
Many parents have trekked north from Central America fleeing rampant violence in their countries, saying they fear for their lives and their children’s lives, and claiming asylum under U.S. laws and policies.
The current total of 2,047 in HHS shelters compares to the 2,053 the agency reported as of Wednesday of last week.
Mr. Azar didn’t say whether additional children had been transferred to HHS in the meantime. For years the department has housed unaccompanied minors who cross the border, but handling large numbers of separated kids presents new challenges.
It’s still unclear how many children who were separated from their parents have been in government custody. That’s partly because Customs and Border Protections can also hold children for brief periods.