On Tuesday, U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy, M.D. (R-LA), ranking member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, released a report detailing the Biden-Harris administration’s failures to secure the southern border resulting in the exploitation and abuse of migrant children.
This report comes after Cassidy’s over year-long investigation into the failures at the Biden-Harris Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) and the Department of Labor (DOL) to prevent the abuse of unaccompanied children, many of whom have been forced into human trafficking and dangerous labor as a direct result of the administration’s open border policies. The report also examines the Biden-Harris administration’s systematic cover-up of exploitation under its watch, including repeated obstruction of congressional and state investigations.
“Joe Biden and Kamala Harris had the power to prevent the exploitation of children by securing the southern border. Unfortunately, Democrats treated the border crisis as a messaging issue for their presidential campaign rather than address the humanitarian catastrophe that has resulted from failed Biden-Harris policies,” said Dr. Cassidy. “Joe Biden and Kamala Harris failed the American people. President Trump’s victory, along with a Republican sweep of Congress, presents an opportunity to secure our border and roll back the disastrous Democrat policies that put children in harm’s way. I am committed to working with President Trump and my colleagues to get this done.”
“The exploitation of unaccompanied children has been documented for years. The Biden-Harris administration should have fixed its policies to protect these children, but instead it subverted Congress and states to cover up its mistakes,” continued Dr. Cassidy. “This lack of transparency to the American people is reprehensible. It is hard to see this as anything other than an attempt to shield the Biden-Harris administration from accountability.”
Read the full report here.
KEY FINDINGS
The Biden-Harris administration took a number of actions that weakened the sponsor vetting process, putting unaccompanied children in harm’s way.
- Top administration officials, such as HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra, directed ORR staff to prioritize speed over safety, which led to the dismantling of existing sponsor vetting policies over the objections of agency career staff. These loosened sponsor vetting requirements stayed in place for years despite multiple reports from the HHS Office of Inspector General that found these policies failed to protect children from exploitation.
ORR relies heavily on third-party contractors to conduct case management and sponsor vetting, but engages in very little oversight to ensure accountability.
- After the surge of unaccompanied children during the first half of the Biden-Harris administration, ORR decided to overhaul the sponsor vetting process and rely on a single third-party contractor, The Providencia Group (TPG), to conduct all sponsor vetting for the agency. TPG received this exclusive contract despite having an abysmal record providing similar services to ORR in the past. ORR also refuses to conduct regular third-party audits on its sponsor vetting processes to ensure its contractors are conducting sufficient sponsor vetting.
DOL has a single-minded focus on post-harm enforcement and does not work collaboratively with companies to combat illegal child labor.
- Despite the administration knowing about the record level of child labor violations since early 2021, DOL has taken no meaningful action to combat this crisis. Instead of working with ORR and other federal agencies to prevent child labor violations from occurring in the first place, DOL focuses only on enforcement after these violations have occurred. Without focusing on steps to prevent this exploitation, child labor violations remain at record highs.
The Biden-Harris administration is obstructing congressional and state investigations into the exploitation and trafficking of unaccompanied children.
- During Cassidy’s investigation, ORR refused to cooperate with congressional oversight. This includes failing to produce its contracts with third-party entities who provide case management and sponsor vetting services to ORR, despite federal law requiring the production of these contracts to Congress. Additionally, the administration has also sought to prevent private entities, including TPG, from sharing information with the Committee.
- ORR also failed to cooperate with state and local investigations into the exploitation and trafficking of unaccompanied children. Specifically, HHS repeatedly ignored subpoenas and refused to produce documents or witnesses to a Florida Grand Jury investigating the smuggling and endangerment of unaccompanied children. Additionally, ORR regularly refuses to provide information to state and local law enforcement investigating reports of trafficking and exploitation, despite requests from state Attorneys General to assist them in protecting these vulnerable children. The agency also prevents its own staff from reporting concerns to state law enforcement and child welfare agencies.
