Texas Republican Rep. Lance Gooden is demanding Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas provide answers regarding the thousands of migrant children the administration has lost contact with and are at risk of sexual exploitation, forced labor or worse.
Federal immigration agencies have encountered nearly half a million Unaccompanied Alien Children (UACs) at the U.S.-Mexico border since President Joe Biden entered office, Godden said in the Wednesday letter obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation. Since then, the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) has lost track of over 85,000 UACs in the country and hundreds of thousands of other migrant children could be at risk of exploitation as the government is unable to properly track them. (RELATED: Top NYPD Chief Says City’s Sanctuary Policies Should Be Vaporized After Migrant Allegedly Raped Woman At Knifepoint)
Gooden’s letter is asking how exactly relevant agencies are coordinating with each other on the processing of UACs and how they are tracked when released into the interior of the country.
“If the Biden Administration is intent on keeping our nation’s borders open to potential human traffickers, cartels, and other criminals, then [the Department of Homeland Security], in coordination with the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), is directly responsible for ensuring unaccompanied children are not lost, trafficked, or abused,” Gooden wrote Wednesday to Mayorkas.
“Human trafficking has swollen into a multibillion-dollar industry further enabled by the current administration’s lax border policies. Drug cartels, human traffickers, and smugglers are further incentivized by the policies of this administration to use UACs to easily slip across the border undetected,” Gooden continued.
US Republican Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene (L) and Lance Gooden (C) arrive for Israeli President Isaac Herzog’s address to a Joint Meeting of Congress in the House Chamber of the US Capitol in Washington, DC, on July 19, 2023. (Photo by Brendan SMIALOWSKI / AFP) (Photo by BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images)
The United States has experienced a border crisis under the current administration, with the latest Customs and Border Protection (CBP) data showing more than seven million illegal border crossings taking place in the past four fiscal years. In that time, hundreds of thousands of UACs — minors that appear before Border Patrol or other CBP officials with no parent or legal guardian present — have entered into the country.
These migrant children are first processed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and then, typically within 72 hours of apprehension, are transferred to ORR, according to Gooden. While UACs await their immigration proceedings, ORR is responsible for placing them in certified foster homes, shelters or other child-appropriate facilities.
However, Gooden is blaming the Biden administration’s “direct failure to act” for creating a system that potentially exposes these migrant children to smugglers and human traffickers.
“The care and placement of migrant children is supposed to be a seamless transition between government agencies to maintain the well-being of the child during a challenging and vulnerable time in their lives,” the Republican lawmaker said. “However, to reiterate, both ORR and ICE have lost contact with tens of thousands of UACs during this process.” (RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: GOP Reps Demand Transparency Over Thousands Of Migrant Children Reportedly Lost By Biden Admin)
A Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Office of Inspector General report released last month revealed that ICE personnel are unable to keep track of all UACs who crossed into the U.S. and were released from government custody since fiscal year 2019, adding that the agency does not know the whereabouts of at least 32,000 of these minors.
The report also highlighted the risks UACs have of being trafficked, put into forced labor or exploited in other ways, unlike other migrants who unlawfully enter the country.
Because of the current situation, Gooden is demanding answers from DHS on how coordination between relevant agencies is conducted when processing and tracking UACs. The Republican lawmaker is asking Mayorkas to answer how often ICE and ORR hold coordination meetings regarding the care of UACs, why ICE isn’t currently allowed to share certain information with Health and Human Services — the parent department of ORR, how ICE ensures all unaccompanied children are accounted for, among a slate of other specific questions.
“The Biden Administration and Democrats in Congress have neither accepted responsibility nor taken accountability for failing to close our southern border,” Gooden stated. “This has encouraged a record number of criminal aliens to use migrant children as a ‘free pass’ to cross our border.”
“The Biden Administration and its responsible departments must also provide more transparency into their policies and ensure proper enforcement of procedures surrounding UACs,” he continued. “We expect your full attention to this important matter and look forward to your prompt reply.”
DHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the DCNF.
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