The Biden administration repeatedly sent unaccompanied migrant children to live with sponsors that case workers previously denied as suitable, according to The Wall Street Journal.
To avoid the criticism of placing “kids in cages,” which was often hurled at the Trump administration, Biden administration officials in 2021 dismissed safety concerns case workers had for unaccompanied minors being sent to live with guardians or other sponsors after arriving in the United States, according to interviews and internal documents obtained by the WSJ. Some migrant children were reportedly sent to home addresses tied to criminal behavior or had documented evidence suggesting they would be made to work. (RELATED: White House Signs Deal With Panama To Crack Down On Major Illegal Immigration Route To US)
“It does not appear safe for the minor to be released to a home environment that was not fully assessed,” one case worker determined about a minor set to reside in a “hostel-like” home in Florida with several adults, according to the WSJ. Several days later, an official dismissed the case worker’s recommendation to deny the proposed guardian.
Such instances reportedly occurred numerous times throughout the early stages of President Joe Biden’s tenure.
RUBY, ARIZONA – JUNE 26: Mexican migrant Mariana, 38, holds her daughter Liani in the back of a border patrol vehicle after being apprehended by U.S. Customs and Border protection officers after crossing over into the U.S. on June 26, 2024 in Ruby, Arizona. (Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
Over 100 children in the summer of 2021 were sent to live with temporary guardians who were previously issued denials by case coordinators, according to a WSJ review of internal data that tracks unaccompanied minors and other communications. While some denials were overturned because of various clerical issues, many cases were approved with little explanation.
The WSJ said it could not determine what happened to the children after government officials released them from migrant facilities.
The occurrence of unaccompanied minors being placed in potentially unsafe homes was previously acknowledged by the federal government; 16% of case files for minors released to sponsors in March and April 2021 “lacked any documentation indicating that the checks were conducted,” according to an internal investigation conducted by the Office of Inspector General for the Department of Health and Human Services.
Nearly 148,000 unaccompanied children and single minors appeared at U.S. borders in fiscal year 2021, according to data by Customs and Border Protection, the first year Biden entered office. The major influx of children, a result of the ongoing border crisis under the Biden administration, placed administration officials in a tough position as they did not want images of migrant children housed in overcrowded facilities.
“Although well-intentioned, these sites were unregulated and unsafe,” Neha Desai, the senior director of immigration at the National Center for Youth Law, an organization that tracks the care of migrant children in government custody, stated to the WSJ. “There was enormous pressure placed on the sites to rapidly release children from custody.”
In one instance, caseworkers discovered that several different purported guardians residing in different addresses in one U.S. city all had ties to the same person, an indication that the sponsor was scooping minors up for work, according to the WSJ. In another documented case, a Health and Human Services (HHS) case coordinator’s denial was overridden, allowing a 16-year-old Guatemalan boy to live with a sponsor in South Texas, despite another man at that same address being charged with a felony several months earlier for reportedly hitting his girlfriend.
HHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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