Written by Bethany Blankley (The Center Square)
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general has issued an administrative alert to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) warning of an urgent problem: the agency’s inability to monitor the hundreds of thousands of unaccompanied children (UACs) released into the United States by the Biden-Harris administration.
“We found that ICE was unable to always monitor the location and status of unaccompanied migrant children released from DHS and HHS custody,” HHS Inspector General Joseph Cuffari said. It was written in the note To the Deputy Director of ICE.
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“Because ICE has no ability to monitor the location and status of UCs, there is no assurance that UCs are safe from trafficking, exploitation, or forced labor,” the warning states.
In response, Iowa Republican Senator Chuck Grassley requested additional information from HHS regarding UAC oversight. proverb“Lax screening puts migrant children at serious risk of exploitation and abuse, makes it difficult to find these children after placement, and is likely to hamper DHS’s work.”
The DHS OIG report found that ICE not only lacked the ability to monitor the location and status of all UACs, but also lacked the ability to initiate removal proceedings when necessary.
From 2019 to 2023, ICE transferred more than 448,000 UACs to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement, which is responsible for their custody. During that same period, ICE failed to issue Notices to Appear Before an Immigration Judge (NTA) for 65 percent of the UACs transferred from DHS custody, leaving them in a difficult position, according to the OIG report.
Of the 448,000 UACs who entered the U.S. illegally through sponsorship through ORR, the vast majority entered during the Biden-Harris administration. Grassley notes that about 366,000 (81%) entered between fiscal years 2021 and 2023.
The OIG report also found that ICE agents did not issue NTAs for immigration court hearings for all UACs flagged for removal from the country, despite being required to do so under federal law.
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According to the report, ICE has not issued NTAs for at least 291,000 UACs who should have been in removal proceedings as of May 2024 but were not.
“ICE was unable to locate all UCs released by HHS who did not appear in immigration court as scheduled,” the report said.
At least 32,000 UACs who received NTAs have not shown up for immigration court hearings and ICE has no idea where they are. Additionally, ICE does not always notify ORR when UACs fail to show up, leaving multiple agencies unable to account for their whereabouts, the report found.
What made the problem worse, according to the report, was that ICE enforcement and deportation operations officers weren’t looking for them.
Of the eight ICE ERO field offices visited by OIG agents, only one reported that staff had attempted to locate the missing UAC.
Several audit reports have found that federal agencies’ failure to schedule immigration courts continues to be a problem.
An audit from January 2021 to February 2024 found that 200,000 asylum or other immigration cases were dismissed because DHS failed to file paperwork with courts for scheduled hearings. Reported.
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Before that, 50,000 illegal aliens released into the U.S. by ICE did not report for removal proceedings during the five-month period analyzed in 2021. Center Square ReportedICE also did not have court records for more than 40,000 individuals who should have been prosecuted, according to the report, and more than 270,000 illegal aliens were released into the U.S. during that period “with little or no likelihood of deportation,” the report found.
“The lack of knowledge of UAC locations is in part because ICE does not have an automated process for sharing information internally between the Office of Principal Legal Counsel (OPLA) and ERO, and externally with stakeholders such as HHS and the Department of Justice (DOJ),” the OIG report said.
OIG says ICE-ERO has not developed a formal policy or procedure for finding UACs who fail to show up for court dates, has limited oversight for monitoring UACs, and has limited resources. Nevertheless, “ICE must take immediate action to ensure the safety of UACs” and provide corrective action to be taken.
OIG said UACs who miss court dates are “considered to be at higher risk for human trafficking, exploitation, or forced labor.”
Earlier this year, Grassley led a group of 44 senators to introduce a resolution to reform ORR oversight after multiple allegations of sexual abuse against UACs were reported and more than 100,000 UACs were reported missing. Reported.
Texas, California and Florida received the most UACs of any state. Center Square is first. ReportedEach state received record numbers for fiscal year 2023. For some states, the fiscal year 2023 numbers represent more than 20 percent of the total they received since 2015, or significantly more than in previous years.
Co-published with permission from Center Square.
