On Tuesday, House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Border Security and Enforcement Chairman Clay Higgins (R-LA) and Subcommittee on Oversight, Investigations, and Accountability Chairman Dan Bishop (R-NC) ripped into the Biden administration for its policies at the U.S. southwest border that have devastated children.
“We are here today to examine how the Biden-Harris administration’s open border policies have allowed dangerous cartels, criminals, and human traffickers to prey upon the world’s most vulnerable people – unaccompanied children,” Higgins began.
“As the administration’s border crisis continues to spiral out of control, the number of unaccompanied minors arriving at the Southwest border has skyrocketed, turning the situation at the border into a devastating humanitarian catastrophe,” he continued. “In fact, the Biden-Harris administration has encountered nearly 530,000 alien children at the border to date. In comparison, the previous Trump administration had less than half that number”.
“America, ask yourself, ‘Why are so many children arriving at the border alone and afraid and sometimes in the hands of unconfirmed ‘relatives’ with no apparent familial indicators?’” he urged. “These children show up with arbitrary phone numbers and addresses scribbled across their arms as if they are a package arriving at somebody’s doorstep. Some children arrive at the border drugged, preventing law enforcement authorities from questioning them about those they are traveling with. This is a moral outrage.”
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“The Biden-Harris administration has touted that they have the most ‘humanitarian’ border policies in history,” he noted. “Yet, there is nothing humanitarian about enabling the cartels to exploit, abuse, and profit from vulnerable children!”
Bishop added:
While CBP is usually the first point of contact for UACs (unaccompanied alien children) who cross the border, the Health and Human Services Department’s Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) is primarily responsible for the care and placement of these children. Much of this work is done in partnership with nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that provide shelter and services.
Under the Biden-Harris Administration, these NGOs received a windfall of taxpayer money through ORR, whose budget for its unaccompanied children program was 6.9 billion dollars in FY 2023. …
What did we spend all that money on? The Biden-Harris Administration placed political aims above the welfare of unaccompanied migrant children who crossed, or were trafficked across, the southern border, releasing UACs with inadequate vetting and follow-up to avoid the bad optics of crowded facilities. …
32,000 children didn’t show up for their immigration court hearings. Those hearing dates are one of the only opportunities that ICE must engage with unaccompanied children and observe signs of trafficking or exploitation.
What happened to those 32,000 children? We don’t know. We can’t reach them.
This is just the tip of the iceberg. Over 290,000 have been released by HHS without a notice to appear for an immigration court date. There is no way for ICE to monitor the location and status of these migrant children or verify their safety.
The Biden administration was so focused on moving people through the system as fast as it could that it failed to ensure the safety of the children being released. Many of these children already suffered at the hands of criminal cartels on the treacherous journey to the border, only to find themselves exploited again after leaving government custody.
The human cost of this crisis is simply heartbreaking and tragic.