Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra told lawmakers on Wednesday that he was “unfamiliar with reported statistics that the agency had been unable to contact more than 85,000 unaccompanied migrant children who had been released to sponsors after they were found on the southern border.
Secretary Xavier Becerra was asked at a Senate Finance Committee hearing by Senator James Lankford, R-Okla., about details in a New York Times report on migrant children released to sponsors.
The Times reported that while HHS is monitoring all minors by calling them to sponsors a month after they are released, data showed that the agency was unable to reach more than 85,000 minors in the last two years — and lost direct contact with a third of migrant children.
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U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), Xavier Becerra, testifies before the Senate Finance Committee on the 2024 budget proposals on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, on March 22, 2023. ((Photo by STEFANI REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images))
Becerra told Lankford that he is regularly briefed by his staff on the issue of unaccompanied migrant children, but that he had never heard of that number.
“I’ve never heard that number of 85,000. I don’t know where it came from and… so I would say it doesn’t sound realistic at all, and what we’re doing is trying to follow it up as best we can with these kids,” he said.
“Congress has given us certain powers. Our powers end when we find a suitable sponsor to place that child with. We’re trying to do some follow-up, but neither the child nor the sponsor is really obligated to contact us record,” he said. .
When unaccompanied minors come to the border, they are currently handed over by Border Patrol to Health and Human Services (HHS), who will try to find them a sponsor in the country – usually a family member.
The Times had reported on how some of those children were trafficked and eventually forced to work in dangerous jobs.
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Senator Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., followed up on Lankford’s questioning and asked what action HHS was taking to ensure children were located and not trafficked — again citing the figure of 85,000.
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“Those statistics you mentioned, as I said earlier in relation to another question from one of your colleagues, are unknown to me,” Becerra said. “I have no idea where those statistics come from, whether they’re based on reality or not. And we do everything we can to make sure that before we allow any child to be released to a sponsor, that those sponsor has been vetted.”
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“The vast majority of these kids end up with an immediate family member as a placement, so some of those statistics that have been thrown out don’t seem to be fact-based and really seem to run counter to what we’ve been doing,” he said.
According to Customs and Border Protection (CBP) statistics, the number of UACs coming to the border skyrocketed from 33,239 in FY2020 to over 146,000 in FY 2021 and 152,000 in FY 2022. So far in FY 2023 there have been 57,673 encounters with unaccompanied children.
Adam Shaw is a political reporter for Fox News Digital, primarily covering immigration and border security.