A top Biden administration official told lawmakers earlier this month that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) isn’t inquiring about the criminal histories of migrant children in its care, The Post has learned.
Robin Dunn Marcos, a senior HHS official overseeing the program for solo child migrants, told the House Judiciary Committee that even though agency officials contact the consulate or embassy of whichever country unaccompanied alien children (UACs) hail from, they do not request any criminal records, according to a copy of her June 8, 2023, testimony.
“Earlier you mentioned that [the Office of Refugee Resettlement] contacts the UAC consulate and the UAC’s home country to verify date of birth, birth certificate of the UAC, and whether the UAC is suspected of being an adult in those types of contexts,” a committee staff member said before asking Marcos: “What else does ORR verify with consulates? What other type of information?”
“I believe that it is birth certificates and identity documents,” she responded.
“So ORR does not request the criminal record in the home country from the consulate?” the staff member pressed.
“We do not,” Marcos said.
In recent years, the number of children coming across the border alone has skyrocketed. Along with that surge has come enhanced scrutiny on the vetting done by HHS when releasing migrant children to sponsors within the US.
More than 8 million migrants have entered the US along the southern border since President Biden took office in January 2021, according to Customs and Border Protection data.
Of those, more than 400,000 have been released into the US to live with vetted sponsors, a June 3 statement from ORR shows.
The agency had lost track of at least 85,000 children as of February 2023, the New York Times reported, roughly a third of the total number of migrant children in the country.
As of fiscal year 2023, 70% of that cohort were aged 15 or older — and most were boys.
HHS that year conducted an audit that found it had appropriately followed procedures for sponsor vetting — but transcribed interviews and communications with the Judiciary panel revealed that it had not taken into account the migrant accused of murdering autistic Maryland 20-year-old Kayla Hamilton.
The suspect in that case, a 17-year-old native of El Salvador, was a member of the MS-13 gang who had been allowed into the US by DHS while a minor and released to a sponsor vetted by HHS.
Majority staff for the Judiciary panel’s Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security and Enforcement released a 15-page report Monday which blamed HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra for a “toxic situation” that allows gang-affiliated minors to cross into the US without being flagged and referred to the Department of Justice.
“As the Committee and Subcommittee’s oversight has shown, these policies have incentivized criminals, such as the MS-13-affiliated illegal alien who murdered Kayla Hamilton, to come to the southwest border, knowing they very likely will be released into the interior of the country,” the report concludes.
Biden, 81, reportedly “lashed out” at Becerra early in his administration over HHS’ inability to handle a surge of unaccompanied migrant children at the southern border.
Ex-White House domestic policy adviser Susan Rice also reportedly called her fellow Cabinet official an “idiot” and “b—h a–” for being unable to secure additional sheltering spaces for migrants.
Last year, the Times reported that Becerra pushed his staff to release unaccompanied children to sponsors quicker, with less emphasis on preventing kids from falling into unsafe situations.
“If Henry Ford had seen this in his plants, he would have never become famous and rich. This is not the way you do an assembly line,” the secretary was quoted as saying in the summer of 2022.
Meeting audio obtained by the Times also reveals the HHS secretary balking at having to defend his actions in front of Congress.
“Every time we have to go to the Hill and explain why we’re spending so much money, when most people are struggling to spend a little bit of money for their kids on a daily basis, we try to explain how we’re spending more than $1,000 a day for kids who may not even have the legal right to be here?” he asked at one point. “Not me.”
