Last week, House Committee on Homeland Security Chairman Mark E. Green, MD (R-TN) subpoenaed Xavier Becerra, secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) for documents and information regarding the screening and vetting of sponsors for unaccompanied alien children (UACs).
The subpoena follows the Biden-Harris administration’s failure to respond and comply with Committee requests for documents and information. On August 12, 2024, Chairman Green sent a letter to Robin Dunn Marcos, director of HHS’ Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), requesting documents and information regarding various aspects of ORR’s handling of UACs and those applying to be sponsors of this vulnerable population. Among other items, this included documents showing how many UACs each month have been placed with sponsors charged with or convicted of any crimes, the number of sponsors who have provided false information in their applications, the steps ORR personnel have taken to establish communication with sponsors after UACs have been placed, and ORR’s monthly denial rate for potential sponsors.
Read more from Jennie Taer at the New York Post.
On September 25, after weeks of ignoring the Committee, HHS provided more than 700 pages of documents that are wholly unresponsive to the Committee’s request, which include hundreds of pages of publicly available documents. As Chairman Green wrote in his letter to Secretary Becerra, “Absurdly, HHS stamped all these publicly available pages with a disclaimer stating, ‘Produced to Homeland Security Committee Pursuant to Oversight Request[;] Do Not Disclose Without Permission from Department of Health and Human Services.’”
“From day one, the Biden-Harris administration made clear they would not return UACs to their families in their home countries, and the consequences have been disastrous,” Chairman Green said. “The sheer number of unaccompanied, vulnerable minors who have crossed our Southwest border on President Biden and Vice President Harris’ watch is difficult to fully comprehend—but that doesn’t make it any less tragic. Most of these children have witnessed things that would chill us to the bone, and when they arrive in the United States, the nightmare is only beginning. We know that many of them have been pressed into forced labor, sexual servitude, or gang membership—all inside our borders. The administration has a moral obligation to be honest with the public about what they are doing to prevent the abuse of these children, and it’s extremely telling that we have to compel them to do so. They know what they’ve done, and they know there is no excuse. We will not let them hide.”
In his letter to Secretary Becerra, Chairman Green writes, “The nearly 520,000 UACs encountered by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) along the Southwest border just from February 2021 through August 2024, with more UACs entering our country every day, remain vulnerable as victims of the unthinkable and devastating horrors of child trafficking. The exigency of this matter related to the youngest among us demands swift solutions based in evidence and facts. The 31 days of inexcusable delinquency in providing the Committee the August 12 requested documents and information is unacceptable. … To date, HHS has failed to produce a single document responsive to the Committee’s August 12 requests…”
Chairman Green further notes in the letter that during a September 19 briefing, ORR Deputy Director Jenifer Smyers only gave “unsatisfactory responses” when asked about the status of this request for documents and information. He writes:
“Subcommittee Chairmen Clay Higgins and Dan Bishop also requested that Deputy Director Smyers provide a date by which HHS would satisfy production, but she refused to commit to any date or even an estimated timeline. Similarly, during the briefing, Deputy Director Smyers failed to answer members’ questions about the number of UACs that HHS considered missing or lost that had entered a sponsor’s custody, indicating HHS’ potentially low awareness of the issue.”
Read the full cover letter, schedule, and subpoena.
