[House Hearing, 118 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
THE BIDEN BORDER CRISIS: EXPLOITATION OF UNACCOMPANIED ALIEN CHILDREN
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON IMMIGRATION INTEGRITY, SECURITY, AND ENFORCEMENT
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 26, 2023
__________
Serial No. 118-16
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via: http://judiciary.house.gov
______
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
51-996 WASHINGTON : 2023
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
JIM JORDAN, Ohio, Chair
DARRELL ISSA, California JERROLD NADLER, New York, Ranking
KEN BUCK, Colorado Member
MATT GAETZ, Florida ZOE LOFGREN, California
MIKE JOHNSON, Louisiana SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas
ANDY BIGGS, Arizona STEVE COHEN, Tennessee
TOM McCLINTOCK, California HENRY C. ``HANK'' JOHNSON, Jr.,
TOM TIFFANY, Wisconsin Georgia
THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky ADAM SCHIFF, California
CHIP ROY, Texas DAVID N. CICILLINE, Rhode Island
DAN BISHOP, North Carolina ERIC SWALWELL, California
VICTORIA SPARTZ, Indiana TED LIEU, California
SCOTT FITZGERALD, Wisconsin PRAMILA JAYAPAL, Washington
CLIFF BENTZ, Oregon J. LUIS CORREA, California
BEN CLINE, Virginia MARY GAY SCANLON, Pennsylvania
LANCE GOODEN, Texas JOE NEGUSE, Colorado
JEFF VAN DREW, New Jersey LUCY McBATH, Georgia
TROY NEHLS, Texas MADELEINE DEAN, Pennsylvania
BARRY MOORE, Alabama VERONICA ESCOBAR, Texas
KEVIN KILEY, California DEBORAH ROSS, North Carolina
HARRIET HAGEMAN, Wyoming CORI BUSH, Missouri
NATHANIEL MORAN, Texas GLENN IVEY, Maryland
LAUREL LEE, Florida
WESLEY HUNT, Texas
RUSSELL FRY, South Carolina
------
SUBCOMMITTEE ON IMMIGRATION INTEGRITY, SECURITY,
AND ENFORCEMENT
TOM McCLINTOCK, California, Chair
KEN BUCK, Colorado PRAMILA JAYAPAL, Washington,
ANDY BIGGS, Arizona Ranking Member
TOM TIFFANY, Wisconsin ZOE LOFGREN, California
CHIP ROY, Texas J. LUIS CORREA, California
VICTORIA SPARTZ, Indiana VERONICA ESCOBAR, Texas
JEFF VAN DREW, New Jersey SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas
TROY NEHLS, Texas DEBORAH ROSS, North Carolina
BARRY MOORE, Alabama DAVID N. CICILLINE, Rhode Island
WESLEY HUNT, Texas ERIC SWALWELL, California
CHRISTOPHER HIXON, Majority Staff Director
AMY RUTKIN, Minority Staff Director & Chief of Staff
C O N T E N T S
----------
Wednesday, April 26, 2023
Page
OPENING STATEMENTS
The Honorable Tom McClintock, Chair of the Subcommittee on
Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement from the State
of California.................................................. 1
The Honorable Pramila Jayapal, Ranking Member of the Subcommittee
on Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement from the
State of Washington............................................ 3
The Honorable Jerrold Nadler, Ranking Member of the Committee on
the Judiciary from the State of New York....................... 5
WITNESSES
Robert Carey, Principle, Migration Works LLC
Oral Testimony................................................. 7
Prepared Testimony............................................. 10
Jessica Vaughan, Director of Policy Studies, Center for
Immigration Studies (CIS)
Oral Testimony................................................. 15
Prepared Testimony............................................. 17
Sheena Rodriguez, Founder and President, Alliance for a Safe
Texas
Oral Testimony................................................. 27
Prepared Testimony............................................. 29
Tara Lee Rodas, HHS Whistleblower, Federal Inspector General
Employee
Oral Testimony................................................. 32
Prepared Testimony............................................. 34
LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC. SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING
All materials submitted for the record by the Subcommittee on
Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement are listed
below.......................................................... 61
Materials submitted by the Honorable Andy Biggs, a Member of the
Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and
Enforcement from the State of Arizona, for the record
A letter to Assistant Secretary Contreras, Assistant
Secretary of the Administration for Children and Families
(ACF), Oct. 24, 2022
A letter from the Administration for Children and Families'
(ACF), Office of Refugee Resettlement, Jan. 10, 2023
Statement from Robin Dunn Marcos, Director of the Office of
Refugee Resettlement, submitted by submitted the Honorable
Jerrold Nadler, Ranking Member of the Committee on the
Judiciary from the State of New York, for the record
Materials submitted by the Honorable Pramila Jayapal, Ranking
Member of the Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security,
and Enforcement from the State of Washington, for the record
An article entitled, ``Meet Latin America's First Millennial
Dictator,'' Aug. 26, 2021, Slate
An article entitled, ``Why El Salvador's president Nayib
Bukele wants everyone to know about his new prison,''
Mar. 7, 2023, CNN
A press release entitled, ``FACT SHEET: Unaccompanied Children
(UC) Program,'' Apr. 17, 2023, Administration for Children and
Families, Press Office, submitted by the Honorable Veronica
Escobar, a Member of the Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity,
Security, and Enforcement from the State of Texas, for the
record
APPENDIX
Materials submitted by the Honorable Pramila Jayapal, Ranking
Member of the Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security,
and Enforcement from the State of Washington, for the record
A statement from Kids in Need of Defense (KIND)
A collaborative statement from the Church World Service,
First Focus on Children, Women's Refugee Commission,
Legal Aid Justice Center, National Immigrant Justice
Center, the Young Center, Michigan Immigrant Rights
Center, and Save the Children
A statement from the Young Center for Immigrant Children's
Rights
An article entitled, ``Meet Latin America's First Millennial
Dictator,'' Aug. 26, 2021, The Slate Group
A statement from the Honorable Jackson Lee, a Member of the
Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and
Enforcement from the State of Texas, for the record
THE BIDEN BORDER CRISIS: EXPLOITATION OF UNACCOMPANIED ALIEN CHILDREN
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Wednesday, April 26, 2023
House of Representatives
Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security,
and Enforcement
Committee on the Judiciary
Washington, DC
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 3 p.m., in
Room 2141, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Tom McClintock
[Chair of the Subcommittee] presiding.
Members present: Representatives McClintock, Biggs, Roy,
Spartz, Van Drew, Nehls, Moore, Jayapal, Nadler, Escobar,
Jackson Lee, Ross, Cicilline, and Swalwell.
Mr. McClintock. The hour of 3:00 has arrived, and a quorum
being present, the Subcommittee will come to order.
Without objection, the Chair is authorized to declare a
recess at any time.
I want to welcome everyone to today's hearing on the Biden
border crisis and the unaccompanied alien children crisis that
has accompanied it.
I will now recognize myself for an opening statement.
On Inauguration Day our border was secure. The Remain in
Mexico policy had slowed illegal immigration to a trickle,
court-ordered deportations were being enforced, and the border
wall was nearing completion. By the afternoon of that day, Joe
Biden had reversed these policies, producing the largest
illegal mass migration in history.
In the last 27 months, they deliberately admitted two
million illegal aliens into our country, a population larger
than the State of Nebraska. While the Border Patrol was
overwhelmed, another 1.5 million known got-aways have entered
as well. That is an additional illegal population larger than
the entire State of Hawaii.
The Trump policy slowed encounters of unaccompanied
children to 33,000, the lowest level in eight years. In the
last fiscal year, a record 152,000 came across. That is almost
a fivefold increase.
Biden had exactly the same tools available to him as Trump,
so it should be obvious that this is a deliberate policy that
ignores not only the welfare of Americans but that of the
migrant children as well.
On a border trip last year, I asked a CBP officer how to
stop the trafficking of children into this country. His answer
was immediate: get them safely home.
He said the cartels charge thousands of dollars to traffic
these children, and they don't give refunds. The moment
children are returned home, their business will dry up.
On another border trip I was shocked to learn that no
effort is made to get these children back to their homes, and
very little effort is made vetting the so-called sponsors of
these children, and very little is shown in following up on
their welfare once they are abandoned to these so-called
sponsors.
So, what happens to them? The administration's response is
basically don't know, don't care. A recent The New York Times
investigation shed some light on this question.
After they get to the U.S., many are forced by their so-
called sponsors into dangerous jobs with fake identity
documents. Earlier this year a sanitation company, employing
over 100 illegal alien children in jobs in slaughterhouses and
meatpacking plants in the Midwest, paid $1.5 million of civil
penalties after a Federal court found that these children were
using caustic chemicals to clean razor-sharp saws, and working
overnight shifts.
In one of the great ironies of bill titles, the Trafficking
Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008 makes this
possible. While children from Mexico and Canada are immediately
sent safely home, all others are admitted. That is a tremendous
incentive to send unaccompanied children to the border.
In 2014, even the Obama Administration recognized the
danger and asked Congress to provide it with,
. . . additional authority to exercise discretion in
processing the return and removal of unaccompanied minor
children from non-contiguous countries like Guatemala,
Honduras, and El Salvador.
The House passed a bill to do just that, but Senate Democrats
blocked it.
The Trump Administration was able to staunch the flow with
new and strict requirements to ensure the safety of these
children once placed with a sponsor, as well as Title 42
expulsion authority. In 2021, the Biden Administration
dismantled Trump era requirements to vet sponsors and perform
background checks for individuals in the sponsor household,
many of whom are involved in smuggling the children in the
first place. The Biden Administration stopped subjecting them
to Title 42.
We now know that the administration simply lost track of
over 85,000 of these children. In September 2022, Axios
reported that,
. . . roughly one in three follow-up calls made to released
migrant kids or their sponsors between January and May went
unanswered.
Don't know, don't care.
According to The New York Times, the cabinet secretary
responsible for these children, Xavier Becerra, likened the
sponsor placement process to an assembly line that wasn't
moving fast enough. He complained,
If Henry Ford had seen this in his plant, he would never have
become rich and famous. This is not the way you do an assembly
line.
Last week this Committee approved a bill that would help
stop this tragedy by returning these children safely home, as
we already do for children coming from Mexico or Canada. No
Democrat supported our bill. I am hopeful that after hearing
the testimony of our witnesses our colleagues will rethink
their opposition to this long-overdue reform.
Although we are focusing today on young and vulnerable
children, we should note that a large majority of so-called
unaccompanied children are late teenagers or young men claiming
to be minors. That is a subject for another day.
I am now pleased to recognize the Ranking Member for five
minutes.
Ms. Jayapal. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Since this is the first Immigration Subcommittee hearing of
the 118th Congress, I just want to start by congratulating you
on becoming Chair, and also saying how honored I am to serve as
Ranking Member.
As the first South Asian American woman elected to the
House, I came to this country by myself at the age of 16. It
took me 17 years on an alphabet soup of visas to actually
become a U.S. citizen.
Prior to coming to Congress, I devoted a decade-and-a-half
to working on the issue of fair and humane immigration policy.
So, this is an issue that is both personal and collective for
me. I am very proud to be the first immigrant to serve as
either Ranking or Chair of this Subcommittee.
Looking forward to working with you and being in a position
to help shape the debate of reforming our immigration system
around the values of dignity, humanity, and respect.
I also want to sincerely thank Representative Zoe Lofgren
who has for the last 15 years either Chaired or been the
Ranking Member of the Immigration Subcommittee. She is a
stellar champion for a working and humane immigration system. I
know she is going to continue to be an invaluable resource for
this Committee and for our whole Congress.
Now, to the work of the hearing.
Unfortunately, between the hearings that we have held and
the cruel, extreme, and unworkable immigration legislation that
was marked up last week, this majority is once again showing
that they are not serious about finding real solutions to fix
our complex immigration system.
This hearing is ostensibly about showing that the majority
cares about the exploitation of children. Just last week, the
same majority passed legislation out of this Committee that
would actually gut protections for unaccompanied children. That
bill passed out of Committee with not a single Democratic vote,
and even Republican colleagues decrying the bill as extreme,
un-American, and not ready for prime time.
Specifically, that bill would allow unaccompanied children
to languish in Border Patrol facilities for up to a month; it
would force children to appear within two weeks before an
immigration judge, with no access to an attorney; and it would
send children back to their home countries where they are at
high risk for exploitation and abuse.
The bill would decimate the bipartisan Trafficking Victims
Protection Reauthorization Act, which Congress passed on a
sweeping bipartisan basis, and establish the U.S. Government's
central framework for keeping unaccompanied children out of the
hands of trafficking.
Democrats want to protect children, not make it even more
difficult for them to be safe. We have got more work to do,
real serious work to make that happen.
I was heartbroken reading The New York Times articles about
young children who are being taken advantage of by unscrupulous
sponsors and employers, and the potential warning signs that
were missed. This increase in child labor is actually a trend
that has been steadily on the rise, especially since 2018 under
the former President. It is completely unacceptable.
That is why I was very pleased to see that the Office of
Refugee Resettlement has announced an audit of their sponsor
vetting process. I look forward to seeing the results of that
audit.
I was also encouraged by the Department of Labor, and
Health and Human Services' recent announcement of a variety of
new efforts to combat exploitative child labor, including a new
interagency task force to improve coordination and information
sharing among agencies.
At the same time, we know that the Office of Refugee
Resettlement and the administration overall need more resources
to do more to ensure the safety of kids. We in Congress have a
responsibility to provide sufficient funding to those agencies
to do this critical work.
That includes funding to increase post-release services for
children after they are placed with a sponsor, as well as
increased appointment of counsel. Improvement in both of these
areas will help protect children from mistreatment,
exploitation, and trafficking.
The Department of Labor also needs to be more aggressive in
going after these unscrupulous employers to the fullest extent
of the law. Many of these employers, by the way, were using E-
Verify, which just goes to show how ineffective that system is,
which was in the majority's bill last week. They should be held
accountable for hiring kids and subjecting them and all workers
to harsh conditions.
Every policy is about real human beings. So, I just want to
close with a success story of an unaccompanied child who came
to the United States a few years ago.
Fifteen-year-old Alejandra fled the gangs of El Salvador
with her 10-year-old brother and sought safety here in the
United States. Here, they reunited with their mother after
being separated for 10 years.
When she arrived in the United States, Alejandra did not
speak English. She had problems understanding her teachers and
she debated dropping out of school. She drew inspiration from
her mother and from the support network around her, including
the legal representation that she was fortunate to obtain. She
persevered.
She ended up graduating high school as the salutatorian of
her class, and going to George Washington University on a full
ride, where she majored in biology.
There are so many Alejandras out there waiting for Congress
to help keep them safe and help them succeed by passing humane
immigration laws. That is what we should be focused on today.
I look forward to hearing from our witnesses today. The
protection of children from exploitation, abuse, and
trafficking should be a bipartisan issue. I hope my colleagues
approach it that way today.
I yield back.
Mr. McClintock. Thank you.
We have with us the Ranking Member of the House Judiciary
Committee. Mr. Nadler is recognized for five minutes for an
opening statement.
Mr. Nadler. I thank the gentleman.
Mr. Chair, today's hearing would have been more appropriate
to conduct last week, before the Republican majority marked up
its extreme, enforcement-only immigration legislation. The
majority's supposed concern for the exploited children that are
the subject of today's hearing is hard to reconcile with a bill
that would render unaccompanied children more vulnerable to
exploitation and abuse.
That legislation would eliminate the right of many
unaccompanied children at the border to seek protection in
Immigration Court from human trafficking and other dangers, and
to receive robust screenings by child welfare experts for
evidence of mistreatment.
That legislation would leave these unaccompanied children
with the right merely to cursory screenings by law enforcement
personnel lacking child welfare expertise, screenings that
would largely fail to identify signs of trafficking and
exploitation.
This would lead to the summary return of too many children
with valid protection claims, the same dangers they fled.
Even more alarmingly, the Republicans' bill would subject
unaccompanied children to detention in jail-like Customs and
Border Protection facilities for up to 30 days, 10 times longer
than what is permitted under current law.
Unaccompanied children would undergo their first
Immigration Court hearing within 14 days of their border
screening. This would leave them with almost no time to obtain
counsel, to understand their legal options, or, in many cases,
to comprehend what a court hearing even is, much less to
demonstrate their eligibility for legal protection from
trafficking and other mistreatment.
As if that is not bad enough, the bill would prohibit
Health and Human Services from funding counsel for
unaccompanied children, stripping thousands of children of the
lawyers they depend on to protect them from exploitation and
other harm.
As we pointed out last week, many of the components of the
bill were not discussed in a hearing this Congress. That makes
sense, given that we are four months in, and this is the first
hearing the Immigration Subcommittee has held.
It is too bad, because if this Subcommittee had met
earlier, we could have also discussed the flaws of the E-Verify
system. Some of the companies that employed and exploited the
children who were the subject of recent reporting, used the E-
Verify system to ensure that their employees are eligible to
work. It clearly did not work correctly, or it was abused.
It would have been helpful, before we marked up legislation
that mandated nationwide E-Verify, to learn about these issues.
We could have discussed how H.R. 2640 contains modest
protections for authorized workers, but it assigns no penalties
to employers who violate these protections under E-Verify,
rendering these provisions practically meaningless.
Yes, I think the Committee would have learned a lot if it
had actually held a hearing on this issue before marking up
that cruel and extreme piece of legislation.
At last week's markup we heard a lot from our Republican
colleagues about the so-called missing 85,000 kids, as reported
by The New York Times. Let's be clear, that headline was
misleading when such allegations were made against the Office
of Refugee Resettlement under the previous administration, and
it is misleading today. We will discuss that issue in greater
detail during the hearing.
However, The New York Times reporting of children
unlawfully working in factories, slaughterhouses, and other
dangerous jobs is very concerning. ORR and the Department of
Labor have taken some positive steps forward to address these
issues.
Make no mistake, more must be done. That will take
significant resources devoted to both agencies, agencies that
would likely see draconian cuts if the Republicans were
successful in their efforts to hold our economy hostage to
their extreme debt reduction demands or they threaten a
catastrophic default on our Nation's credit.
As we consider Federal efforts to address the exploitation
of children, it is not helpful that in multiple Republican
legislatures across the country States are loosening their
child labor laws to allow children to lawfully work in some of
these dangerous occupations.
The fact that Republicans are actively making it easier for
young teenagers to work in assembly line plants,
slaughterhouses, and night shifts in States like Iowa and
Arkansas, is appalling. It only encourages the exploitation of
these vulnerable children.
It is hard to take seriously the party that boasts of its
concerns for exploited children, while simultaneously stripping
vital protections from unaccompanied children, promoting
policies that would create the conditions for these children to
be exploited, and then starving agencies of the resources
necessary to protect them from exploitation.
If Republicans want to engage in a serious effort to
protect children, Democrats stand ready to work with you.
I look forward to hearing from the witnesses today. I yield
back the balance of my time.
Mr. McClintock. Thank you.
Now we are very honored to have four witnesses with us
today.
Ms. Tara Lee Rodas is a Federal employee with the Council
of the Inspectors General for Integrity and Efficiency. She is
speaking to us today in her personal capacity as a
whistleblower who witnessed and reported the harm and danger to
unaccompanied alien children while working as a volunteer with
the Office of Refugee Resettlement in the Department of Health
and Human Services.
She worked at the Pomona Emergency Intake Site in
California that housed and processed thousands of unaccompanied
alien children arriving at the southwest border in 2021.
Ms. Sheena Rodriguez is the founder and President of the
Alliance for a Safe Texas. She is a mother and former teacher
who founded the Alliance for a Safe Texas during the current
border crisis. As part of her work, she has interviewed many
women and children who have crossed our southwest border and
has testified before the Texas State Legislature regarding the
impacts of the border crisis.
Ms. Jessica Vaughan is the Director of Policy Studies for
the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington, DC, based
research institute that examines the impact of immigration on
American society. Her area of expertise is immigration policy
and operations, covering topics such as unaccompanied alien
children, visa programs, immigration benefits, and immigration
enforcement.
Finally, Mr. Robert Carey served as the Director of the
Office of Refugee Resettlement within the U.S. Department of
Health and Human Services under the Obama Administration. Prior
to his service at ORR, he served as Vice President of
Resettlement and Migration Policy at the International Rescue
Committee.
Mr. Carey has served as Chair of the Refugee Council of the
United States of America.
I want to welcome all our witnesses and thank you for
appearing. We will begin by swearing you in.
Would you please rise and raise your right hand.
Do you swear or affirm under penalty of perjury that the
testimony you are about to give is true and correct to the best
of your knowledge, information, and belief, so help you God?
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. McClintock. Great. Thank you very much.
Let the record reflect that the witnesses have answered in
the affirmative.
Please know that your written testimony will be entered in
the record in its entirety. Accordingly, we would ask that you
summarize your testimony in five minutes.
Mr. Carey, why don't we begin with you?
STATEMENT OF ROBERT CAREY
Mr. Carey. Thank you, Mr. Chair, Ranking Member, and
Members of the Subcommittee for the opportunity to appear
before you today.
I am Bob Carey. I was the Director of the Office of Refugee
Resettlement, ORR, in the Department of Health and Human
Services, from March 2015-January 2017.
ORR, in addition to its work on behalf of refugees,
asylees, and other vulnerable populations, is responsible for
the care and maintenance of unaccompanied children while they
are in U.S. Government custody, and their placement with U.S.-
based sponsors while they go through their immigration
proceedings. The placement process includes vetting of sponsors
to verify their relationship to the child and the suitability
of the placement.
The overwhelming majority of sponsors are immediate or
close family members.
The vetting process is rigorous and is derived from a range
of sources, including records obtained from the countries of
origin through their U.S. consulates, and documentation
provided by U.S.-based sponsors. There are, however,
limitations on ORR's capacity to review information obtained
both prior to and after the release of children.
The office, and the agency in which it is housed, are not
investigative or law enforcement bodies. Many of the children
profiled in recent coverage were taken into custody at our
southern border. They faced physical and sexual violence, human
trafficking, forced gang recruitment, and the very real
possibility of death in their home countries and in flight.
Rather than fall prey to these forces, they fled, often to join
family in the U.S.
They remain vulnerable even after arriving. It has been
alleged that approximately 85,000 children have been ``lost by
ORR.'' In fact, most of these children were released to the
care of a parent or close relative. I believe that failure to
respond to follow-up phone call from an unknown phone number
does not constitute being lost.
Recent investigations have documented the use of child
labor in workplaces in the U.S., including, among others,
unaccompanied children admitted to the U.S. pending
adjudication of their asylum claims. There are multiple
explanations for this: Inadequate funding and enforcement of
existing child protection and labor laws, outdated statutes
that allow large corporations to skirt workplace responsibility
by using intermediaries, partisan politics designed to divide
and demonize foreign-born people, and insufficient coordination
among government agencies, among others.
Since I left ORR, Congress has repeatedly directed ORR to
enhance protections for children. In response, ORR has
dramatically increased the number of children who received
post-release services. Properly implemented, post-release
social services, often referred to as PRS, are essential to
ensuring the safety, stability, and transition to permanency of
unaccompanied children released from Government custody to
sponsors in the United States.
I am pleased to see ORR's progress, as I believe these
vital services are vital tools to ensure a child's safety while
they go through Immigration Court processes. Further, ORR has
stated that it plans to provide legal representation to 100
percent of unaccompanied children by the end of Fiscal Year
2027, which is an essential objective.
No less crucial for protecting children is access to an
attorney. Currently many, if not most, unaccompanied children
lack an attorney. The TVPRA requires that, ``to the maximum
extent practicable,'' HHS ensure legal counsel for
unaccompanied children ``to represent them in legal proceedings
or matters and protect them from mistreatment, exploitation,
and trafficking.'' This includes mistreatment and exploitation
in the workplace.
Providing unaccompanied children with attorneys for the
duration of their case is one of the best ways to intervene
early when children are working in illegal and dangerous
conditions and, thus, to protect them from abuse.
Attorneys also help evaluate children's eligibility for
legal protections and supportive services specifically designed
for survivors of trafficking, severe crimes, and abuse. This
includes work authorization, where eligible, which helps older
teenagers access safe, lawful, and appropriate employment; and
serves as a bulwark against dangerous working conditions, wage
theft, and other labor abuses in the unregulated workforce.
Let me conclude by reiterating that unaccompanied children
are by and large children in need. When the exploitation of
underage, unaccompanied children occur, it required multiple
failures.
The solutions require addressing all five of these factors:
(1) Accountability for those who exploited children;
(2) Accountability for those that profit from child-labor
exploitation;
(3) Expanded and enhanced access to post-release services,
legal services, and child advocates;
(4) Expanded legal authority and resources to act
affirmatively to investigate possible child-labor exploitation
and to provide protection to affected children;
(5) Better communication across Federal agencies.
Also, ORR can do a better job of protecting children.
Mr. McClintock. Mr. Carey, I am sorry to interrupt, but
your time expired about a minute ago.
Mr. Carey. Right. Thank you for your time.
Mr. McClintock. We will be getting to you with questions.
Mr. Carey. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Carey follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. McClintock. The Chair is next pleased to recognize Ms.
Vaughan.
STATEMENT OF JESSICA VAUGHAN
Ms. Vaughan. Thank you, Mr. Chair and Ranking Member for
having a hearing on this topic, which has been ignored for too
long. It is disturbing and sad to hear the stories of what
these younger migrants go through. They are no less deserving
of personal safety and protection just because of the
circumstances under which they arrived.
It is also infuriating, though, because the dysfunction in
the ORR placement program has been known for a long time, for
about 10 years since States and local communities that have
been dealing with the influx starting raising the alarm.
What is most infuriating is that even with all the well-
documented risk and problems associated with the Federal
government taking custody of minors, and adults claiming to be
minors, who are smuggled in, and then releasing them to
unvetted sponsors, and the washing its hands of responsibility
for them, even knowing the risk, still, the Biden
Administration chose to throw gasoline on that dumpster fire by
actually expanding opportunities for the illegal smuggling of
minors into the country, and expanding opportunities for these
minors to be trafficked for cheap labor, commercial sex, gangs,
and more.
It was done by dismantling the relatively effective
policies enacted by prior administrations that had tried not
only to improve the UAC placement system and mitigate the risk
of trafficking, but to decrease the flow of child migrants.
Under the Biden policies, the annual number of UACs
referred to HHS custody after crossing illegally has tripled
from an average of 40,000 a year to more than 120,000 in each
of the last two years. Half of the 600,000 unaccompanied minors
who have been released in the country since 2012 have arrived
on Biden's watch.
Not only did he relax border controls and suppress
immigration enforcement inside the country, when the numbers
predictably exploded his officials responded by gutting what
few meager protections for child migrants still existed. As HHS
Secretary Becerra revealed in his now notorious video
statement, the goal was to release these kids faster, with few
questioned asked, to make it a more efficient assembly line.
This assembly line is staffed by crony contractors spending
billions of taxpayer dollars on what is now a pipeline for
child labor trafficking.
It is truly an urgent task for Congress to address this
problem. There is no question that the placement process for
UACs can be improved. These improvements should be informed by
experts like those here today who know the system, by child
welfare agencies within the States and communities where the
migrants are placed, and by the Federal immigration and other
law enforcement agencies who understand the smuggling and
trafficking business. We need these improvements, and we need
more oversight on HHS and its contractors.
Just last night I got a message from an insider voicing
their concern about how HHS lets its contractors operate the
youth migrant shelters with unlicensed and untrained staff who,
apparently, are utterly unqualified to be in charge of these
kids. We would never allow this to happen in a school or any
other juvenile setting involving American kids.
Fixing the shelter and placement system is not going to
solve the problem really. Based on my experience, I see no
change that the Federal government can construct a system for
processing unaccompanied illegal alien minors that is up to the
task of handling the huge number of kids, more than 120,000
last year, who will continue to come, who will continue to be
put in the hands of criminal smugglers, traffickers,
unscrupulous employers, abusive sponsors, as long as they know
that they are going to be released into the country once they
get here.
The fundamental problem which Congress can solve is with
the law.
First, the loopholes in the TVPRA must be closed, allowing
the Government to swiftly repatriate the minors to their homes
if they are not at risk, which most are not.
Congress must direct and fund ICE to boost its anti-
trafficking and its worksite enforcement activities to go after
the illegal and exploitative employment of the young migrants.
It is also imperative to restore ICE's authority to arrest
sponsors who it finds have been involved in smuggling, or
trafficking, or illegal employment of these minors, which was
taken away from them by the Harris Amendment that passed a
couple of years ago, which I noted in my written statement.
Congress should use its appropriations authority to force
HHS and DHS to have meaningful coordination with State, local
governments, and their child welfare agencies.
Finally, Congress should reform other provisions in the law
that entice minors to come illegally, such as the Special
Immigrant Juvenile Program, which should be limited to
accommodate only those youths who have no responsible parent or
guardian to care for them.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Vaughan follows:]
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Mr. McClintock. Great. Thank you very much for your
testimony.
Next, we will hear from Ms. Rodriguez for five minutes.
STATEMENT OF SHEENA RODRIGUEZ
Ms. Rodriguez. Good afternoon, and thank you, Chair and
Members of the Committee, for giving me this opportunity to
present my eyewitness testimony and express my concerns
regarding what is happening to the children at the southern
border because of the current administration's policies. I am
Sheena Rodriguez, Founder and President of Alliance for a Safe
Texas. As a U.S. citizen, mother, and former educator who
deeply cares about our country and the welfare of all children,
I was compelled to see for myself what was occurring at our
southern border.
I have been to various parts of the border in Texas and
Arizona nearly three dozen times and under two years. What I
have witnessed would and should disgust and terrify every
American. In April 2021, when Texas Governor Greg Abbott
learned of allegations of abuse of unaccompanied minors in a
Federal facility in San Antonio, he stated, quote, ``the Biden
Administration is presiding over the abuse of children.''
He also called on the administration to shut these
facilities down. Instead, the administration has only expanded
them without communicating with State and local authorities.
Local communities are not told how long the minors will be
there or where they will go when they are released and with no
concern to the local--of impact to the local cities.
I am requesting that Congress launch a full investigation
into the Federal agencies responsible for approving these
contracts. These are just a handful of many examples I have
encountered. During one border trip to the Del Rio area in
December 2021, the group I was with encountered six men who had
illegally entered the U.S. and were hiding in the brush.
They surrounded our vehicle believing that we were their
transport to smuggle them further into the U.S. When we spoke
to them, they said that they had witnessed cartel operatives
murder children who were traveling alone and could not pay the
smuggling fees. One man claimed he witnessed children being
used and traded as currency. Another encounter in La Joya, I
met and spoke with a 10-year-old Honduran girl who arrived by
herself carrying only a small piece of paper with handwritten
phone numbers on it.
She stated the numbers were given to her by a woman and an
NGO along the route who told the young girl the numbers were to
her father who she said that she would be staying with, a man,
the young girl claimed, she had never met or spoken to. Also,
in La Joya, I met a 14-year-old girl reportedly abused by her
father and claimed that she was held for 11 days in a bodega
and abused further. Similarly, she was told by a stranger that
she would be going to stay with her mother who the teen claimed
again she did not know.
I also met teenage boys between the ages of 14-17 who
claimed cartel operatives often transported children through
Mexico and held them at the bodegas where armed cartel members
stood guard. Many were told they were going to stay with
sponsors in America with several claims, again, that the teens
had never met or personally communicated with their supposed
sponsors. Since January 2021, there have been over 356,000 UACs
encountered at the southern border, a majority of which have
been released into the U.S., more than 10,000 of which that
have been released in my respective area of North Texas.
The current administration has admitted they do not keep
track of the whereabouts when they're released into the U.S.
With the use of taxpayer dollars, tens of thousands of children
are simply missing. How many of the missing children are in my
city or in yours? This has forced the State of Texas to take
actions we never should've had to take as a direct result of
the failed Federal policies.
Currently, we have bipartisan support for my State level
legislative sponsored letter calling for a State investigation
into the trafficking of unaccompanied minors in Texas. I'm
calling on Congress to investigate the Federal agencies
responsible for these minors to locate these children and to
act with urgency to end the policy of releasing UACs in the
U.S. with sponsors and nonfamily members they do not know. I am
also calling on Congress to require that all alleged family
members undergo a DNA test.
The abuse of children is not a political or partisan issue.
It is a humanitarian and legal issue. I am calling on Congress
to investigate the actions of DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas,
HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra, border czar, and Vice President
Kamala Harris and to identify their role in facilitating the
abuse of children through Federal agencies and demand that they
be held accountable.
I agree with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis who describes
what is happening as, quote, ``effectively the largest human
smuggling operation in American history.'' We can no longer
turn a blind eye and pretend that this isn't happening.
Congress has the power to stop this which is why I am calling
on you to do what is right. Americans and these children
deserve no less. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Rodriguez follows:]
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Mr. McClintock. Thank you for your testimony. Our final
witness is Ms. Rodas who's recognized for five minutes.
STATEMENT OF TARA LEE RODAS
Ms. Rodas. Good afternoon, Chair McClintock, Ranking Member
Jayapal, and distinguished Members of the Committee. It is an
honor to be here. I thank you for the invitation to share my
testimony.
My goal is to inspire action to safeguard the lives of
migrant children, including the staggering 85,000 that are
missing. Today, children will work overnight shifts at
slaughterhouses, factories, restaurants to pay their debts to
smugglers and traffickers. Today, children will be sold for
sex.
Today, children will call a hotline to report they are
being abused, neglected, and trafficked. We don't know if
they're going to get the help they need. For nearly a decade,
unaccompanied children have been suffering in the shadows.
I have to confess I knew nothing about their suffering
until 2021 when I volunteered to help the Biden Administration
with the crisis at the southern border. As part of Operation
Artemis, I was deployed to the Pomona Fairplex emergency intake
site in California to help HHS Office of Refugee Resettlement
reunite children with sponsors in the United States. I thought
I was going to help place children in loving homes.
Instead, I discovered that children are being trafficked
through a sophisticated network that begins with recruiting in
home country, smuggling to the U.S. border, and ends when ORR
delivers a child to a sponsor. Some sponsors are criminals and
traffickers and members of transnational criminal
organizations. Some sponsors view children as commodities and
assets to be used for earning income.
This is why we are witnessing an explosion of labor
trafficking. Now, whether it's intentional or not, it could be
argued that the U.S. Government has become the middle man in a
large-scale, multibillion dollar child trafficking operation
that is run by bad actors seeking to profit off of the lives of
children. As for me, my interest is the safety of the children.
I do not view this as a political issue. I view this as a
humanitarian issue. I assure you my motives are the highest and
best. I want the children protected.
So, I want to tell you some of what I witnessed personally
at the Pomona Fairplex. I saw vulnerable indigenous children
from Guatemala who speak Mayan dialects and cannot speak
Spanish. That means they cannot ask for help in English. They
cannot ask for help in Spanish.
They become captives of their sponsors. I have sat with
case managers as they've cried to tell me the horror of what
has happened to children as they made the journey to this
country. I saw apartment buildings where 20, 30, and 40
unaccompanied minors had been released.
I saw sponsors trying to simultaneously sponsor children
from multiple ORR sites at one time. I saw sponsors using
multiple addresses to obtain sponsorships of children. I saw
numerous cases of children in debt bondage and the child knew
they had to stay with the sponsor until the debt was paid.
Realizing that we were not offering the children the
American dream but instead putting them in modern day slavery
with wicked overlords was a terrible revelation, a terrible
revelation. These children are a captive victim population with
no access to law enforcement or knowledge of their rights. They
are extorted, abused, neglected, and that is why I blew the
whistle in 2021.
I witnessed firsthand the horrors of child trafficking and
exploitation. My life will never be the same after what I saw.
I have hope because I'm counting on you.
It's my hope that you'll take action to end this crisis to
safeguard the lives of these vulnerable children. People have
asked me what can be done? What would you suggest?
Well, first, I think HHS' No. 1 priority is oversight. They
must commit to oversight, transparency, and accountability. If
I could wave a magic wand, this, I believe, could be quickly
solved by experts in the IG community.
There is a Pandemic Analytic Center of Excellence or the
PACE as we call it. I believe if data analysts at the PACE
could look at the data, children could be rescued. Criminals
could be prosecuted if the PACE had access to this data. It
shows where the children are and who has them.
I think also we need to change the culture of speed over
safety. Speed is the wrong performance measure when dealing
with children. We need to revamp the vetting process of
sponsors and have case managers who have investigative
backgrounds, data analytics backgrounds, and some certified
fraud examiners.
I think we need to reimagine a system where the sponsor is
the accountable party. Sponsors should be required to report to
ORR. Last, stop retaliating against whistleblowers.
Stop retaliating against the people who are trying to tell
the truth to save the children. As it is written, a wise man
listens to advice while a fool continues in his folly. HHS
needs to be wise to care for these children.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Rodas follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. McClintock. Thank you very much. Your time has expired.
Ms. Rodas. OK. Thank you for the opportunity.
Mr. McClintock. You're very welcome, and we'll get to
questions now. Under the five-minute rule will be given Mr. Van
Drew of New Jersey.
Mr. Van Drew. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. First, I want
to thank you for whistleblowing. It's people like you and all
of you that when you come forward and tell the truth. Those are
big words, tell the truth.
You want to know--and I'm going to be a little different
and I'm going to be a little bit political because we have the
other side of the aisle saying that we're hurtful, we're cruel,
we're harsh, and we're inhumane. Our bill is bad. They were in
the majority when this was all done.
This is their plan. I've spoken to Mr. Mayorkas numerous
times, more than once, more than twice, more than three times.
He has told me that there's nothing wrong, everything is fine,
everything is good. Our system is working, and it's better than
ever.
The bottom line is we changed the system a number of years
ago where we opened our gates. We opened our doors. We don't
have all the ability to take care of everybody all the time and
that's the truth.
We have enough problems in America that we can only help
legal immigrants and do things at a certain pace. We just can't
let the gates be open. That is exactly what was happening under
this administration.
It's exactly what they've done. I don't want to be
partisan. Believe it or not, I don't like being partisan. I
have to be in this case because when Mr. Mayorkas tells me
nothing is wrong, when you see that adults are pretending to be
children in some cases as well and taking advantage, when you
see little babies that are just tossed aside, when you see
children that are bought and sold, used for sex slavery and
worse multiple times, the stories are horrific.
I know how you were sick. You know what? I don't want
anybody from the other--if we want to find solutions, we have
solutions. People have to stay home or go back home.
We need legal immigration. We need a border, a border that
really works, a border that is solid, a border that doesn't
allow this to happen to children. You know what? The real goal
here is to bring in as many undocumented people.
You talked about speed, and that's the way they're doing
it, as they possibly can, as fast as they can to just bring
them in. So, the numbers go up double, triple. We see just
millions upon millions of undocumented illegal immigrants.
It doesn't do them good. It certainly doesn't do these
children good. That's what's cruel. That's what's harsh. That's
what's inhumane. That's what's wrong and what's going on, and
it has to be stopped.
We do need a system and we do have to look at HHS. That
should've been done in the beginning two years ago when this
all started. We weren't in control.
We didn't have the ability to do it. We talked about it. We
asked about it. We pushed for a change. We didn't have the
ability to do it.
So, I don't want anybody--and if they can do it. You come
to me and say that it's my fault in the minority at the time or
that it was the Republicans fault or that we're mean, bad
people that want to hurt, no. This is the system that you set
up on the other side of the aisle.
This is your system. This is what you did. This is what you
made. Of course, it's not going to work. Of course, it's worse.
It is so much better if children--they're trying to bring
children that are undocumented over.
Let them go back to their home. Let them go through a legal
process. I know it takes time, but it's the only way that's
going to work.
We are destroying our country. We're hurting little babies.
We're destroying other countries in the way that we're doing
this.
What we're also doing is making a place for the cartels in
America. I read somewhere recently. They said our latest
challenge is going to have to be like the military to go after
the cartels.
The cartels shouldn't even be in America. They shouldn't
have the ability to do this to these children. These children
and their families, whatever, are given false hope and false
aspirations and I'm tired of it.
I'm tired of being blamed for something that somebody else
made, that somebody else created that we didn't do. Mr. Chair,
I yield back. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm going to actually yield--yes.
Mr. Biggs. Many thanks, and I thank the gentleman for
yielding. Mr. Carey, during your tenure of about two years,
there were roughly 93,000 unaccompanied minors that came to
HHR--or excuse me, ORR during your time. Is that a fair
statement? You need to put the microphone on.
Mr. Carey. I would have to check on those numbers.
Mr. Biggs. That's what the official website indicates. Are
familiar that since January 2021, there's been 356,000--just
under 357,000 unaccompanied children that have come across?
Mr. Carey. Yes, I'm aware of that.
Mr. Biggs. Thank you. I yield.
Mr. McClintock. The gentleman yields back. Ms. Jayapal for
five minutes.
Ms. Jayapal. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to discuss the
85,000 so-called lost children that we've heard so much about
in this Committee. Mr. Carey, as you testified, The New York
Times wrote a detailed article with some very concerning
stories related to unaccompanied children unlawfully working in
some very dangerous conditions.
I've said before that these incidents are extremely
upsetting. They need to be addressed. The article also
discussed how the Office of Refugee Resettlement did not know
the whereabouts of those 85,000 unaccompanied children who have
been released to sponsors since the Biden Administration began.
Many outlets and some of my colleagues have latched onto
this headline to claim that the Biden Administration has,
quote, ``lost 85,000 children.'' So, I want to start with the
most important question because you ran the Office of Refugee
Resettlement. Are those children actually lost by the Federal
government?
Mr. Carey. No, they are not. Approximately 85 percent, and
during my tenure, 90 percent of those children were going to
parents or very close relatives. Upwards of 70 percent, I
believe, were going to their parents.
So, it was the reunification of families that was taking
place. Now, it is true that some of those calls are not
answered. However, not answering a phone call I do not believe
constitutes losing a child.
There are some very legitimate reasons why those calls
might not be answered. They're unknown numbers from the U.S.
Government. They're not recognized.
I think that understandably people do not answer calls from
unknown numbers. They may be fearful of traffickers, other
forces. So, in short, I do not believe that constitutes being
lost.
Ms. Jayapal. So, when somebody says lost, what they're
talking about is that a phone call to verify and speak to the
child was not answered. Then that gets constituted as, quote,
``lost.'' So, if I remember correctly, in 2018, the previous
administration was accused of the same issue when headlines
appeared stating that the Trump Administration lost 1,500
children in a three-month period. Is that correct?
Mr. Carey. Yes.
Ms. Jayapal. Those claims were untrue as well?
Mr. Carey. I believe those claims were, in fact, true
because the families were separated. Some children went at the
time of entry. They were separated. There were data bases did
not track where the parents went and where the children went.
So, the situation was substantially different.
Ms. Jayapal. You're talking about a time when the Trump
Administration actually separated thousands of children from
their families. In fact, I remember going and visiting some of
those parents in a Federal detention center. They had no idea
where their parents were.
In fact, the government had no idea where those kids were.
Can you discuss why the Office of Refugee Resettlement does not
do more in its follow-up? I mean, that is one of the things
that has been raised that I think we all want to understand. In
your opinion, what more could the Office of Refugee
Resettlement be doing?
Mr. Carey. Well, I think it's important to understand what
the parameters are on the ORR office operations. The statutory
authority granted to ORR extends only up to the time of
release. So, ORR has no authority to track or to investigate.
It's not an investigatory body. So, it's--or a law
enforcement body. So, substantial resources are directed in
that area. It lacks the expertise, tools, staff, and resources
to conduct investigatory processes.
Ms. Jayapal. So, you mentioned in your testimony that ORR
has no authority over children working, for example, illegal
child labor. Is that correct? ORR--
Mr. Carey. That's correct.
Ms. Jayapal. Who has responsibility for that?
Mr. Carey. That would be the Department of Labor, I
believe.
Ms. Jayapal. So, that is really not a function of ORR. I
want to thank you, Mr. Carey, because I think this question of
additional post-release services and in fact even some of the
Republican witnesses have talked about this. I think that's an
area that we believe is important to ensure that there are in-
person follow-ups, to ensure that there is appointment of
counsel.
That's something we didn't cover. That's only going to help
ensure that these kids stay stafe and that their claims are
heard. So, I appreciate your testimony.
It's important that we get the facts out there, that we
don't use the word, lost, in way that's not factual because
really what we're talking about is a phone call was made. That
was not responded to. That phone call was not responded to for
all the reasons that you mentioned. I thank you, and I yield
back, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Carey. Thank you.
Mr. McClintock. Mr. Biggs of Arizona.
Mr. Biggs. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I do think it's
interesting that the Ranking Member of the Subcommittee earlier
today and in the previous hearing referred to the crisis of the
border as the so-called crisis, just like she referred to
85,000 lost children as so-called lost children. I think that
gives you the mindset that you need to see.
When I was down at La Joya one time, I remember a CBP
agent, and we went down there. If you remember how it is in La
Joya, you go and you can watch people coming across the river.
They're coming up the road, and there's a sign that tells them
where to go, which way to go because that's where CBP is. It's
just myself and an agent. It's nighttime, and we saw a group.
They saw us. We're 200 yards away. There's 150 or so of
them. They don't want to come because they're not quite sure
who we are.
So, we yell at them. We're Border Patrol. Come on up. So,
they come on up. There was nobody over the age of 18, no one.
We had kids who were three years old coming across.
Who are they coming with? A coyote had brought them across
the river and said, ``go your own way. Go with this group of
people.'' Is that humane, Ms. Rodas?
Ms. Rodas. No.
Mr. Biggs. Ms. Rodriguez, is that humane?
Ms. Rodriguez. No, absolutely not.
Mr. Biggs. Ms. Vaughan.
Ms. Vaughan. No, not at all. There are policies that entice
people to come like that. Frankly if we're talking about
relying on phone calls as so-called monitoring of kids post-
placement, that's not--
Mr. Biggs. I'm going to get into that. Don't go there yet.
I'm going to get into that. I've been in Yuma, and I have seen
the evidence of kids being reused to create a family unit.
Same kid, same kid, over and over again, rent-a-kid, not
humane. We're told that calling 85,000 children lost that have
been placed--and by the way, it's not 90 percent going to
parents anymore. It's a third or less going to parents in
today's statistics and numbers.
The Ranking Member wants to get the facts out. Those are
the facts. Ms. Rodas, you have said the U.S. Government is the
middleman in a multibillion dollar migrant child trafficking
operation. What did you mean when you use the term, middleman?
Microphone, please.
Ms. Rodas. So, the U.S. Government is receiving the
children from the smugglers at the border. HHS is a 2.7
trillion-dollar agency. Over the last two years has spent
approximately 10 billion dollars. So, they are using that money
to receive those children and then transport those children to
the end user.
Mr. Biggs. When you say end user, we're not talking
necessarily even a blood relative. So, I heard the Democrat
witness talk about vetting. Can any of you talk about vetting?
I can talk about vetting, but I want to hear from the
witnesses. Tell us about the vetting that you've observed.
Ms. Rodas. Well, in my personal capacity as the deputy of
the Federal case management team, vetting I would like to say
with Mr. Carey what he said is they are not an investigative
organization, nor are they law enforcement. There was no one. I
was shocked and I am stunned that was no one with law
enforcement experience overseeing where children are going.
You have people applying for children who we know are
members of transnational criminal organizations, yet there's no
one with any data analytics background or anything like that
overseeing this operation. It doesn't really pass the
commonsense test when we're pumping billions of dollars into a
program that's overseen by people who simply are not qualified
to do the job. When one individual can sponsor 20, 30, or 40
people and no one is asking a question about it, there's
something seriously wrong and flawed with that program.
Mr. Biggs. That's ultimately how they found that one child
in Yuma, because everybody was going to the same place in
Charleston, South Carolina. Ms. Vaughan, you were going to
expand on the phone calls which I agree with you. I only have
time to ask the question. What goes on in that phone call? Then
I want to submit some stuff for the record, Mr. Chair, after
she's done.
Mr. McClintock. Briefly.
Ms. Vaughan. Yes, a phone call is not sufficient to detect
whether the child is in a safe environment. A phone call is not
enough to know if a child is being abused, or if a child is in
a forced labor trafficking situation. That is not acceptable
monitoring and shouldn't be considered monitoring at all.
That is just a contractor going through the motions of
trying to see if a child is there. Frankly, I think almost all
these kids are actually lost because the Federal government is
taking no responsibility.
Mr. McClintock. Thank you. The gentleman's time has
expired, but you have some unanimous consent requests?
Mr. Biggs. Yes, Mr. Chair. I have a letter that I wrote to
ORR, the Director of ORR in October, and her response in
January of this year admitting that they had lost contact with
more than 42,000 children.
Mr. McClintock. OK. Without objection. We now recognize Mr.
Nadler.
Mr. Nadler. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Carey, I want to
discuss the vetting process the Office of Refugee Resettlement
undertakes before it releases any unaccompanied child to a
sponsor. Here's some of the news organizations talk about this
process. Do you think the children are just given to anyone?
It's really much more extensive than that. Can you discuss the
assessment that ORR does of each sponsor, what kind of
application interview and background checks does each potential
sponsor undergo?
Mr. Carey. Certainly. I'd like to point that at the time
that the children are turned over to ORR from CBP, there is
documentation that they have determined is valid or worth
passing on. So, before a child enters ORR custody, there has
been a vetting process. That continues for the--that is why
children tend to be in our care for on average one month where
the ongoing vetting process takes place.
It is a rigorous one. It involves relationships with the
countries of origin where primary information is available. Any
documentation is available from the sponsors including
fingerprinting, licensing, license information, whatever checks
out against multiple data bases, including those for criminal
records or anything of that sort. So, it is a rigorous process,
and it goes on for at least a month. So, establishing family
relations that are done in concert with the countries of origin
and original documents are obtained.
Mr. Nadler. Despite the fact that there have been some
pretty heartbreaking stories of sponsors being traffickers or
using the children to work, it's my understanding this past
Fiscal Year over 85 percent of sponsors are close family
members. Is that correct?
Mr. Carey. Yes, it is.
Mr. Nadler. Would you say that percentage is about on par
with what you saw when you were the Director of ORR under the
Obama Administration?
Mr. Carey. It was very close. It may have changed. It
varies over time, so a percentage or two different but roughly
the same.
Mr. Nadler. Can you share any experiences you had as
Director of ORR of reuniting an unaccompanied minor with their
family in the United States?
Mr. Carey. Yes, in many instances, it is known that
families have been separated for extended periods of time.
Children have been traumatized in their home countries. The
rule of law is limited.
They've often been targeted gangs or violent elements often
as they reach adolescence. So, children are being put in the
care of their families which is, I believe, where children
should be if at all possible. It has been established that
congregant care facilities are not an idea location and are, in
fact, harmful for children.
So, I do think that ORR is reuniting families, and that's
the authority that was given to it by Congress. So, the
research is rigorous. It's exhaustive, and it's based on
whatever information is available. As I said before, ORR is not
an investigatory body.
So, there are limits as to what it can do. There are data
bases, there's fingerprinting, there's the background checks,
and there are interviews.
Mr. Nadler. Thank you. Based on what we're hearing today,
the reality is that the issues Ms. Rodas and The New York Times
have flagged should not be happening under current law and
policy. I'm very glad that ORR has announced that it's
conducted an audit of its vetting process. Mr. Carey, can you
discuss the inherent tension that exists between trying to
ensure the safety of all these children, while also ensuring
the children are not held in ORR custody for a long period of
time?
Mr. Carey. Yes, it is a delicate process because children
could, in theory, be kept in care indefinitely. The goal is
ultimately to reunite children with a caregiver, with a parent,
with a family member, or an individual who is designated by
their parent as the ideal sponsor. So, it's important that
children be closely--their placement be closely vetted which it
is to the extent possible, but also paramount that children can
be reunited with a family member and placed in a home
environment.
Mr. Nadler. Thank you. I'd like to submit--Mr. Chair, I'd
like to submit for the record the testimony of the Director of
ORR in front of the House Oversight Committee that more than 85
percent of unaccompanied kids are reunited with their families.
Mr. McClintock. Without objection.
Mr. Nadler. Thank you. I yield back.
Mr. McClintock. The Chair now recognized Mr. Roy of Texas.
Mr. Roy. Thank you, Chair. I would note that were my child
one of the 15 percent, even if I take the Chair or the Ranking
Member I should say at their word, I would be pretty frustrated
about your child being lost. If you're saying your kid is at
school and they say, well, we kept up with 85 percent of them.
Boy, would you feel good about the education system?
Because what about those other 15 percent of kids, even if
you take the Ranking Member at his word? I've got a FOIA
request here from Judicial Watch from--this is now six years
dated. It is a laundry list of incidents put out by ORR, the
FOIA request detailing laundry list of abuses of children.
This one, a young girl reported she was inappropriately
touched by an unknown male immigrant in the group after
entering the U.S. Another one, several people reported to staff
they were inappropriately touched, another where somebody paid
money to have sex with her, another--go down the list of
hundreds of these examples. Somehow in the greatest country in
the history of the world, the most powerful country in the
history of the world, we think this is a system that we should
defend.
It blows my mind that my colleagues on the other side of
the aisle want to defend a system of laws that allows this to
occur to children, and then brush away that MAGA extremist The
New York Times for daring to point out that 85,000 kids aren't
being found from the first contact my colleagues on the other
side of the aisle say. Oh, OK. We just didn't get them on that
first call.
I would ask each of the witnesses very quickly, do you
think that the data that's showing that since President Biden
took office that 356,665 unaccompanied alien children have
crossed the southern border that we know of and been placed in
HHS custody is a system that attracts that number of children
unaccompanied to come across our border to be exploited by
cartels, to be put into the sex trafficking trade, to be put
into the slave labor trade, to be sexually abused, to die on
ranches in South Texas, or to drown in the Rio Grande? Yes or
no, is that a system that you're proud of as an American and
that you think is good?
Ms. Rodas. No, Congressman.
Mr. Roy. Thank you, ma'am. Ms. Rodriguez?
Ms. Rodriguez. No, sir. I'm appalled.
Mr. Roy. Ms. Vaughan.
Ms. Vaughan. No indeed.
Mr. Roy. Mr. Carey.
Mr. Carey. I'd like to point out--
Mr. Roy. It's a yes or no question. Are you proud of a
system in this country that has 356,000 unaccompanied alien
children that allow that to occur to children that we know? By
your own acknowledgment and testimony, by our own
understanding, children are being abused and raped. They get
killed in this process. The system that we created to allow and
attract that flood across sour border, do you think that is a
good system and are you proud of it as an American?
Mr. Carey. These children are fleeing violence and threats
of death in their country of origin.
Mr. Roy. The numbers have been spiking under this
administration because of the policies of this administration
and it is well documented. I just want to make clear. You're
standing behind the policies of this administration that you're
proud of these policies and that is allowing to occur to these
children?
Mr. Carey. I do not currently work for the administration.
I was--
Mr. Roy. Doesn't matter to me. Are you proud of the
administration's policies and what currently is occurring to
these children because of the policies attracting 356,000
unaccompanied alien children when we know the data, 85,000
lost, reams of scores--you worked there. You know of the rapes,
of the people getting killed, and of the slave labor. Do you
think this is a system that we should say we're proud of?
Mr. Carey. I believe we should provide protection to
children who are fleeing death and persecution.
Mr. Roy. Let me ask you a different question.
Mr. Carey. They should be allowed an opportunity--
Mr. Roy. Do you believe that the TVPRA policies adopted
that unchecked and unfixed by this current Democratic
Administration and my colleagues on the other side of the
aisle, did that have anything to do with attracting all those
children across the border?
Mr. Carey. Well, I do believe that the Trafficking Victims
Protection Act is an important component of U.S. child
protection--
[Simultaneous speaking.]
Mr. Roy. Is it a magnet right now, the way it's currently
constructed? While children were riding on the top of train
cars, President Obama was appalled. Jeh Johnson was appalled.
This administration doesn't seem to care. Yes or no, is our
current system a magnet to kids?
Mr. Carey. I do not believe it is.
Mr. Roy. You don't believe it's a magnet?
Mr. Carey. No.
Mr. Roy. Well, that's the problem. I yield back.
Mr. McClintock. The gentleman yields back. Next is Mr.
Swalwell.
Mr. Swalwell. Thank you. Ms. Rodriguez, welcome and thank
you for coming today to testify. Ms. Rodriguez, were you at the
Capitol on January 6th?
Ms. Rodriguez. Was I at the Capitol?
Mr. Swalwell. Yes.
Ms. Rodriguez. No, sir. I was on the premises outside of a
reflection pond waving a flag.
Mr. Swalwell. So, you were on the Capitol grounds?
Ms. Rodriguez. I'm not sure if that's technically Capitol
grounds. I was near the street.
Mr. Swalwell. Is this your tweet right behind me at 3:05 on
January 6, 2021?
Ms. Rodriguez. I really do not know. I can--
Mr. Swalwell. Are you @SecureBorderTX?
Ms. Rodriguez. Yes, sir.
Mr. Swalwell. OK. Can you see that picture?
Ms. Rodriguez. I can.
Mr. Swalwell. Did you go any farther than you were in that
picture?
Ms. Rodriguez. No, sir.
Mr. Swalwell. Did you ever cross any police barricades on
January 6th?
Ms. Rodriguez. Not that I'm aware of.
Mr. Swalwell. Did you ever see any violence on January 6th?
Ms. Rodriguez. No, I did not. I did see a red flare go up.
I don't remember the time. That was about it. I did not
encounter any violence. As a matter of fact, it was quite
peaceful. I was involved in some prayers the day before.
Mr. Swalwell. So, January 6th, over 150 officers were
injured. One lost an eye. One lost a finger. One lost a life.
You didn't see any violence?
Ms. Rodriguez. No, sir. I did not. That was not my
experience.
Mr. Swalwell. You agree, though, that violence against
police officers took place that day?
Ms. Rodriguez. Sir, I'm not quite sure that this has to do
with the exploitation of children like the young girl who wore
this band.
Mr. Swalwell. I guess you recall--you publicly tweeted
this. The majority knew that you were on the Capitol grounds on
January 6th. So, your credibility is just as every witness
including the Democratic witness is fair grounds for
questioning. So, I guess my question is you are aware that
violence took place at the Capitol on January 6th?
Ms. Rodriguez. That's what the media says.
Mr. Swalwell. OK. Do you believe the media?
Ms. Rodriguez. Inherently, I do not.
Mr. Swalwell. No, about January 6th.
Ms. Rodriguez. About January 6th? I can only go by my
personal experience. Absolutely, if waving a flag and praying
outside of the Supreme Court and standing outside waving a flag
on public property is a crime, I'm not--again, I'm really not
sure what relevance. We have children that are being raped
using our taxpayer dollars.
Mr. Swalwell. Others--
[Simultaneous speaking.]
Ms. Rodriguez. I'm not quite sure what this has to do with
me waving a flag has to do with that.
Mr. Swalwell. So, you were among a crowd that did commit
violence. My question for you is--I accept you at your word.
You did not commit any violence that day. You didn't see any
violence that day. Certainly, it's not a lie. It's not made up
that 150 officers were injured.
[Simultaneous speaking.]
Mr. Swalwell. My question is to your credibility. Will you
condemn the violence that took place against the officers that
day?
Ms. Rodriguez. Absolutely. I absolutely condemn any
violence, including the violence that is occurring at our
southern border using our taxpayer dollars. Absolutely.
Mr. Swalwell. OK. Did you tell the majority before they
invited you here that you had participated on Capitol grounds
on Janu-
ary 6th?
Ms. Rodriguez. Did I tell the majority that I waved a flag
on--
[Simultaneous speaking.]
Mr. Swalwell. Did they know that you had been at the
Capitol on January 6th--
Ms. Rodriguez. It was not a question that I was asked. No,
sir.
Mr. Swalwell. As it relates to January 6th, you also posted
a tweet that encouraged people to attend that day and, quote,
``fight for Trump.'' Do you remember writing on January 1,
2021, imagine over a million patriots screaming fight for
Trump. Think Congress and the Supreme Court will hear us. When
you say, fight for Trump, and then there was actually fighting,
physical fighting on behalf of Trump--
Ms. Rodriguez. Sir--
Mr. Swalwell. What did you mean?
Ms. Rodriguez. --are stating that I tweeted that?
Mr. Swalwell. You don't remember tweeting?
Ms. Rodriguez. No, sir. I honestly do not.
Mr. Swalwell. OK. So, on January 1, 2021, you sent a tweet
that said, imagine over a million patriots screaming, quote,
``fight for Trump'' on the 6th. Think Congress and SC which I
believe is Supreme Court will hear us then, #fight for Trump.
Your testimony is that you did not say that?
Ms. Rodriguez. I'm saying I do not--I honestly do not
remember tweeting that. I was not very active on Twitter.
Mr. Swalwell. Well, you also tweeted at 4:00, I just got
home--you said I just got hole safely, I think you meant home--
at BWI airport as the gate filled up with those of us with
Trump gear on and several Army soldiers near time to boarding.
Our gate was surrounded by airport security.
Mr. McClintock. Will the gentleman yield for a moment?
Mr. Swalwell. No, I will not yield. So, you tweeted
regularly throughout the days leading up to January 6th. You
ask people to fight for Trump, and then you took a picture of
yourself near the Capitol. So, I just want to know when you say
fight for Trump and people ultimately fought for Trump, do you
regret those words?
Ms. Rodriguez. Sir, I do--the second one that you just
read, yes, because that was a very traumatic experience. I
couldn't understand why my gate surrounding--and BWI was
surrounded by Guardsman and how I was--we as a whole, everyone
that was on that plane, were threatened to be removed. I could
not understand because again I did not experience any type of
violence. As far as the first one that you--I would have to go
back and look at that. I really do not honestly remember
tweeting that first one.
Mr. Swalwell. I'll make sure to get it to you.
Mr. McClintock. The gentleman's time has expired.
Mr. Swalwell. I just want to correct. I said January 6th
for the BWI airport. It was January 7th. I just want to--
January 7th was when you tweeted--
[Simultaneous speaking.]
Mr. McClintock. Mr. Nehls.
Mr. Nehls. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Ms. Rodriguez, I apologize
that you had to--you're here for a hearing on the border. They
don't want to talk about a border. Mr. Swalwell is down there.
Obviously, everybody knows he's made some comments. He's got a
checkered past.
[Simultaneous speaking.]
Mr. Swalwell. I'm sorry? A checkered past? I would ask--
Mr. Nehls. It's my time. Alleged affairs and relationships
with Yum Yum.
[Simultaneous speaking.]
Mr. Swalwell. No, no, no, no, no. You don't get to say that
shit. That's not true.
Mr. Nehls. He's had alleged relationships with Yum Yum.
[Simultaneous speaking.]
Mr. Nadler. I ask the gentleman's words to be taken down.
Mr. Swalwell. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. You don't get to
say that, pal.
[Simultaneous speaking.]
Mr. Nadler. We ask the gentleman's words to be taken down.
He's casting a slur on another Member.
Mr. Nehls. I am here--
Mr. Nadler. I ask the words of the gentleman be taken down.
He's casting a slur on another Member.
Mr. McClintock. Let us have some order and civility here,
and we will take up the issues one by one.
Mr. Nadler. Mr. Chair, I ask that the words of the
gentleman be taken down as expressing a slur on another Member.
Mr. Cicilline. I join in that request.
Mr. McClintock. The specific words were--
Ms. Jayapal. He mentioned that Mr. Swalwell had a checkered
past. I don't have the rest of the exact words. It was a direct
slur on a Member of this Committee. That is not acceptable.
Mr. McClintock. We are going to consult the precedents and
take a temporary recess.
Ms. Jayapal. Thank you.
[Recess.]
Mr. McClintock. Would the gentleman wish to withdraw his
words?
Mr. Nehls. Yes, and I would like to rephrase. This is the
same Member that was removed from the Intelligence Committee
that he previously served on. So, now let's get right down to
the serious business as it relates to our southern border.
My question is more related to those who claim to be minors
but pose as the adults. I've got several articles in here,
Border Patrol nabs hundreds of illegal immigrant adults posing
as children. Border Patrol nabs illegal immigrants who pose as
unaccompanied minors to avoid deportation.
This is an article here with our school districts across
the country that are dealing with this. This is from city
officials in Lynn, Massachusetts that talked about adults now--
adults that are in this country. They posed as minors.
They're in this country. Now, we've got 23-, 24-, 25-, and
30-year-old people in our high schools. Think about that.
They're in our high schools. They're across the entire country.
City superintendent of schools, Catherine Latham in Lynn,
Massachusetts says this is out of control. These individuals
are in their schools. There's very little documentation.
It says, Federal policy prohibits city officials from
inquiring into a child's immigration and citizenship status and
background. We've got problems here, folks. We've got problems,
and the left is just continuing to ignore it. They're ignoring
it. Mr. Carey, what proof--since we've got individuals coming
in here, what proof is required to determine a minor's age?
Mr. Carey. Well, you talked about screening at the border.
So, Customs and Border Protection, I believe, is the law
enforcement entity that determine that these--
Mr. Nehls. DNA, my friend, do they do--
Mr. Carey. No, I think these children were determined not
to be eligible as minors before they would have been turned
over to ORR.
Mr. Nehls. OK.
Mr. Carey. So, a law enforcement body determined that they
were not minors and they did not go into ORR.
Mr. Nehls. Yes, so DNA, birth certificates, passports,
medical records, what does somebody need to produce?
Mr. Carey. Well, in fact, birth records and a host of other
materials are collected, both from country of origin and--
Mr. Nehls. What happens if they don't have any of these
documents, sir?
Mr. Carey. Well, I believe there are individual
circumstances. Those are, in fact--
Mr. Nehls. What is the protocol then?
Mr. Carey. Well, I think it would vary greatly. I do not
know what it is currently, because I'm not in the office.
Mr. Nehls. This guy here behind me, I'd like to spend a
moment with this guy. This guy here, 24 years old, he posed as
a minor. He comes into this country, shares a fake name.
It's not him. He wasn't a minor. He said he was 16-17. He
comes in. He's 24 years old. ORR releases him. They send him to
Florida. He's over there hanging out with a fellow, his
sponsor, not a father, not a mother, just a sponsor.
What does he do a few short months later? He kills him. He
kills him. Now, I don't know what the protocol is down there.
When I look at this guy, he's got more chin whiskers than most
40-year-olds have.
Look at that guy. Now, how does a guy like that get into
this country as a minor? He comes in. He says, my name is such-
and-such. No such name. He gets released into this country, and
he took a life.
There's just more than this guy. There are hundreds if not
thousands of them in this country posing as minors. I could sit
here and talk about the MS-13 gangs that are coming in here and
harming our American people and our citizens. What are we doing
about it?
Ms. Vaughan, I wish I had more time. I do. Ms. Rodriguez,
ma'am, thank you for what you do. Thank you for exposing what
this administration has done to this country, putting the
American people last each and every time. We're in control now,
and I can damn well tell you, help is on its way. Thank you,
sir. I yield back.
Mr. McClintock. Ms. Ross.
Ms. Ross. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Earlier this year, I joined
several of my colleagues on this Committee to visit McAllen and
Brownsville, two Texas border towns. While there, we visited an
Office of Refugee Resettlement facility that houses
unaccompanied children.
All these children had families or sponsors in the United
States who were waiting to take them. We learned that to ensure
these kids are treated humanely when they leave ORR custody,
ORR conducts an assessment of the sponsors to determine that
the child is placed in an appropriate environment. What struck
me most about our visit to the border was how much our
immigration and asylum system relies on nonprofits and
community services in areas like McAllen and Brownsville.
The Biden Administration is working to scale up post-
release services through which children and their sponsors are
connected to community-based services with the goal of being
able to provide these services to every child soon.
Unfortunately, this Committee has already seen too many
proposals this year to strip unaccompanied children of basic
protections. The Border Security Enforcement Act would leave
kids with a mere cursory screening by law enforcement
personnel, lacking child welfare expertise who would be less
likely to pick up on signs of trafficking and exploitation
which I take extremely seriously.
As a State legislator, I moved through trafficking bills in
North Carolina. It would also result in a summary return of
many kids who fled legitimate dangers in their home countries.
Children who arrive at our southern border have often escaped
violence, human traffickers, and gangs in their own countries.
Mr. Carey, in your opinion, is it better to allow children to
remain in the United States if we can properly vet the sponsors
or to summarily deport them with limited due process back to a
dangerous situation?
Mr. Carey. Thank you for the question. It is well
documented that these children are coming from three of the
most violent countries in the world where there are
extrajudicial killings where children are recruited or targeted
by gangs or violent elements at the time they reach
adolescence. So, no, I do not think without a proper hearing a
determination of their legal access to asylum is determined
with ideally legal representation as recommended by the TVPRA
and Flores.
I also think a society is defined by the way we treat our
most vulnerable. Returning--and children are among the most
vulnerable. So, returning children to a situation in a country
where their lives are at risk, and some have been killed on
return does not reflect well on us. I do believe they should
have access to a legal hearing determining the nature--that
their claim is either valid or invalid.
Ms. Ross. Thank you very much. We did hear from some of
those children adolescence who had left very dangerous
situations. Mr. Chair, just for a brief period of time before I
reclaim my time, I'd like to yield about 15 seconds to Mr.
Nadler.
Mr. Nadler. I thank the gentlelady. Mr. Carey, I just
wanted to ask if I'm correct in that what you were saying
before is that conditions in their home countries are pushing
these people, kids and adults, out. It does not matter who the
President of the United States is or what their policies are.
These kids would be coming because of conditions in their home
countries.
Mr. Carey. Absolutely. That's very well documented.
Mr. Nadler. Thank you very much. I yield back. I thank the
gentlelady for yielding.
Ms. Ross. Thank you. Just I completely agree with all the
witnesses that we need to do more. When we went to the border,
we saw just sad, sad situations with children. I want you to
know, all of you to know, that I am committed to helping and
hopefully in a bipartisan way, helping these children and
making sure that they are safe. Mr. Carey, just in the 10-
seconds that we have, have we seen any improvements in the
situation that you think Congress should invest in further?
Mr. Carey. Absolutely. I think post-release services which
would provide legal representation and social workers on an
expanded level which I know ORR is increasing and would like to
have fully in place within the next two years provides another
eye on these children, provides a degree of protection that
might not otherwise be present. Also, where present, over 90
percent of the children show up at their hearings.
If there is a problem, there are entities and individuals
who can determine that it exists and refer to social service
providers or law enforcement as appropriate. So, I think that
is what I do think that there should be. There is unfortunately
an audit process going at ORR to determine what the flaws are
and how those can be improved upon. I do think that clearer
lines of authority and communication between those entities,
such as, ORR which are in essence social service providers and
law enforcement and other bodies would be an improvement on the
current program.
Mr. McClintock. The gentlelady's time has--
Ms. Ross. Thank you, Mr. Chair, for your indulgence.
Mr. McClintock. Mr. Moore.
Mr. Moore. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just a week ago, The New
York Times reported that the Biden Administration has down-
played repeated signs that migrant children are being widely
exploited. I will go on the record and say it doesn't sound
like just the Biden Administration based on what I'm hearing in
here.
Ms. Rodas, you mentioned something. It kind of--it
triggered a response a while ago. You said these kids are being
recruited in their home country. What do you mean by that?
Ms. Rodas. So, I'd be happy to submit for the record. We
have children saying that there are radio advertisements in
their hometown. So, in Huehuetenango, for example, in
Guatemala, they're actually advertising on the radio, come with
us. We'll give you passage. We'll give you passage to the
United States.
There's an example of a sponsor who currently is in Austin,
Texas at this moment. He attempted to sponsor four children,
one from the Pomona Fairplex emergency intake site and three
from the Pecos emergency intake site promising work to these
children who are making $2.50 a day on the coffee farm he owns
in Guatemala. So, he lured them here.
Now, fortunately they were put into long-term care. They
are being lured here, Facebook ads and other things. Children
are being lured here and then put to work here.
Mr. Moore. So, it doesn't sound like they're fleeing as
much as they're being moved to come here in a lot of ways from
what I'm hearing.
Ms. Rodas. In many ways, they're not fleeing, in many ways.
Let's take El Salvador, for example. No one is fleeing from
Nayib Bukele. He has a very safe society right now.
Yes, maybe in times past, people were fleeing El Salvador
from the gangs. Sadly, the gangs have now set up operation
here. We have evidence that there are many of them who are
running the networks here who have the children.
It's indisputable evidence. The Department of Homeland
Security has transnational criminal organizations on the top
watch list. Some of whom got their fingerprints here in
Washington, DC, and neighboring areas are sponsoring the
children. It's indisputable.
Mr. Moore. You mentioned debt bondage. What do you mean
when you say debt bondage? Who does the money go to?
Ms. Rodas. So, the money goes to the trafficker who
ultimately brings them here. The New York Times actually
showed, Hannah Dreier did an amazing expose where she actually
showed the debt page of the child, how much the child had to
pay for food, how much the child had to pay for rent, all of
those things.
Mr. Moore. So, the administration is really--we're engaged
in creating slavery. We are trafficking slaves to this country.
Ms. Rodas. Absolutely. There is no doubt. We have created a
pull. Because this criminal element tragically views children
as a commodity and they see us as the middleman because we're
paying the flight directly to the end user, the trafficker.
[Simultaneous speaking.]
Mr. Moore. I remember. I was at Fort Bliss, the emergency
intake center. I mentioned this last week in a hearing. I was
there as they were shipping kids on buses all over the country.
I actually asked the admiral running the place. I said,
we're doing background checks. We're sending these kids to
Google addresses. He's, like, no, we're just building the bus
as we drive it. So, they were just shipping. American
taxpayers, basically we're trafficking children.
Ms. Rodas. Yes.
Mr. Moore. Making the cartel wealthy in the process and
creating a bunch of minors in bad, bad situations.
Ms. Rodas. Yes, yes. Going back to 2014 which was
astounding to me because I did not know when I deployed for
this mission that one child had ever been trafficked through
the program. So, the horror when someone sent me the 2016
Senate report, I'm sitting there on the Pomona site seeing all
these strange things and all these multiple sponsors at
multiple addresses trying to collect these kids from multiple
sites. I read the report. I thought, which side am I on?
Mr. Moore. Right, which side are you on.
Ms. Rodas. Which side because we know about trafficking all
the way back then how teens were lured from Guatemala, put in
slave labor conditions where they were held sometimes at
gunpoint. Their families were threatened to be killed.
Mr. Moore. So, I've got about 45 seconds. Thank you for
being a whistleblower. I guess they didn't treat you very
nicely when you blew the whistle I understand.
Ms. Rodas. No, they did not. They threatened me with
investigation. They walked me off the emergency intake site.
They took my badge. My agency--thankfully I work for the
Council of the Inspectors General.
I'm not here in that capacity. They actually offered to
send agents to retrieve me to escort me home because they were
concerned for my safety. It's a terrible thing when you blow
the whistle and to try to save children and then you are
retaliated against for trying to help. HHS did everything they
could to keep all this silent.
Mr. Moore. Let me ask one more question. You said these
kids--they talk about, oh, we're sending them to their moms and
their dads. You're saying they hand them a piece of paper and
tell them this is your mom, and this is your dad? Is that what
I gathered from the testimony?
Ms. Rodas. Well, as they're making their journey, that
happens. Then also the case managers who are not law
enforcement, right, they're not investigative, they are
receiving documents, photographs of documents on their WhatsApp
phone. There's a perfect example.
A 20-plus-year-old man sponsored what we believed was his
sister who was only 16 years old. He submitted a birth
certificate for himself and her as brother and sister. Then
about 10 days after she's released, we see she's for sale on
his WhatsApp page. Her shirt is buttoned down to her navel.
She's all made up. The documents, there is no one at HHS
vetting the children--
Mr. Moore. That's where we need law enforcement. I'm out a
time. Mr. Chair, I yield back. Thank you.
Ms. Jayapal. Mr. Chair, I have a unanimous consent request.
Mr. McClintock. State the request.
Ms. Jayapal. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would like to seek
unanimous consent to enter into the record two articles, one
from Slate Magazine, Nayib Bukele is Latin America's first
millennial dictator, and another one from CNN, why El
Salvador's President Nayib Bukele wants everyone to know about
his new prison. This one actually talks about how he went and
conducted secret talks with the MS-13 leaders in prison and
wanted--essentially it was looking to release those gang
members.
Mr. McClintock. Without objection.
Ms. Jayapal. Just wanted to make it clear that we're not
talking about a country that has a benevolent government. Thank
you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. McClintock. The gentlelady is recognized to make a
unanimous consent request, not a speech. Mr. Cicilline.
Mr. Cicilline. Thank you.
In just the first four months of 2023, U.S. officials have
encountered more than 70,000 unaccompanied children. These
children, some of them too young to even fully understand where
they are, are some of the most vulnerable people to go through
our immigration system. They desperately need to be shown care
and compassion, the same that we should want for any of the
children in our own lives.
Instead, as we know, they are increasingly being put to
work in illegal and unsafe jobs, or even worse, sent back into
unsafe conditions or human traffickers. We cannot allow this to
happen.
What do our Republican colleagues propose we do about this?
Just recently, my colleagues across the aisle passed out of
this Committee a bill which guts existing protections for
unaccompanied children and blocked efforts to allow government-
provided lawyers to represent these children at hearings.
Simply put, they are making an already complex problem worse.
I know every single Democrat on this side of the dais is
ready to do all that we can to improve this effort and ensure
that we have the Federal resources devoted to ensuring that no
children are forced to work illegally or in the hands of anyone
they shouldn't be.
So, I want to ask you, Mr. Carey, first, we all recognize
that more has to be done to protect these vulnerable children.
What authorities do you suggest Congress give to help these
children? Would government-provided counsel, for example, be
helpful to protecting children released to sponsors? What sort
of role could an attorney play? Do you think legislation that
our colleagues just passed that bans the government from
providing counsel to unaccompanied children would result in
more exploitation of children or less?
Mr. Carey. I certainly think it would provide more
exploitation. When children are in touch with an attorney, they
are in regular touch. It ensures they show up at their hearings
determining whether they have a claim and whether their lives
were in danger in their country of origin. It also is an extra
party who is seeing the child, who can assess whether they are
in physical danger, whether they are going to school, and
whether they are still living with their parents or their other
sponsors.
So, yes, I do believe that post-release services, which
would also include access to social services, and a host of
other physical health services, ensuring that physical needs
are being taken care of, educational services and linkages with
other community-based services for which children are legally
entitled to access. So, yes, I believe these would be extremely
beneficial.
Mr. Cicilline. Mr. Carey, in your testimony, you also
indicated that HHS does not have the authority to investigate
what happens to children after they leave HHS custody. What
agencies do have the authority to investigate those who might
put children in exploitative or dangerous working conditions,
or other--
Mr. Carey. Well, certainly, the Department of Labor has the
authority to investigate and enforce labor law, and that would
certainly extend to the exploitation of children in unsafe
working conditions or underage children working in conditions
of that sort.
So, other law enforcement bodies, I believe, as well,
though I'm not expert in that area.
Mr. Cicilline. So, what can Congress do to ensure that the
Department of Labor, as an example, has what it needs in terms
of resources to go after employers who put children in any kind
of danger?
Mr. Carey. Well, I coauthored a piece in Slate with a
colleague who is a labor law expert about a month ago. She
determined, the research that she did show, the Department of
Labor is very much underfunded. So, the ability to inspect and
enforce labor law is, I gather, quite limited. So, certainly,
funding to that body to enable it to investigate and prosecute
would, I believe, be a critical factor in reducing the
potential for exploitation of children.
Mr. Cicilline. Finally, in light of that statement you just
made, our colleagues are about to pass a proposal to deal with
the default of the United States, where they are proposing
massive cuts--a 22 percent cut, in fact--on HHS, the Department
of Labor, and the Office of Refugee Resettlement. So, rather
than increases, there are going to be very serious cuts.
How would those cuts, which they are going to vote for this
afternoon or tomorrow, how would those impact the catastrophe
that we've heard about with respect to unaccompanied minors?
Mr. Carey. Well, I believe that the expansion of post-
release services which is underway--and hopefully, will be
funded--would be a critical element in expanding the protection
of children beyond the point at which ORR has the authority to
do so. So, that is moving forward, and that has expanded in
recent years since my departure. Those include mental health
services, social work support, physical health services,
educational, and other community-based services. I think all
these enhance the protection of children beyond the extent that
ORR is able to do so. So, I think cutting back those services,
inherently, increases the threat to children and society writ
large.
Mr. Cicilline. Thank you. I yield back, Mr. Chair.
Mr. McClintock. I'll now recognize myself for five minutes.
First, Ms. Rodriguez, on behalf of the Committee, I
apologize for the personal attack that was hurled your way in
the vile insinuations. That has no place in this Committee.
Ms. Vaughan, I want to nail down this question of 85,000
children being simply lost by the administration. We're told
that's OK; they're just not answering their phones. What does
it actually mean to lose track of these children?
Ms. Vaughan. Well, HHS has consistently denied that it has
any authority or responsibility to--
Mr. McClintock. The point is, they're supposed to be doing
follow-up phone calls, correct?
Ms. Vaughan. Right. Well, that's what they--
Mr. McClintock. Those follow-up phone calls for those
85,000 children now are simply going unanswered. We don't know
where they are. How do we know what has happened to them?
Ms. Vaughan. We don't, and that's the problem. I don't
think we really know what happens to those who do answer the
phone.
Mr. McClintock. Ms. Rodas, what kind of vetting is actually
done to assure somebody claiming to be a relative actually is?
Ms. Rodas. Well, again--
Mr. McClintock. Not a DNA test, for example?
Ms. Rodas. --as Mr. Carey mentioned, there are no
investigative or law enforcement people involved in the vetting
process. In my experience, with what I witnessed at the Pomona
Fairplex emergency intake site, case managers were receiving
photographs of documents. There is no way--there was a very
small percentage that we were actually able to put through the
consulate to verify. People are just going off the word of who
is ever sending in the documentation.
The vetting process is, practically, nonexistent. They like
to talk about a vetting process, but there's no law enforcement
involved in the vetting. So, how can there be a vetting
process?
There's lots of talk about the post-release services. Post-
release services, 25 percent of the children who we released
got it.
Mr. McClintock. Do we visit--
Ms. Rodas. It's not enforceable.
Mr. McClintock. Do we send somebody to visit these homes
before these children are deposited in them?
Ms. Rodas. No, absolutely not. The history is about--six
percent of homes are ever seen. So, we're talking about taking
a child--
Mr. McClintock. We've got pet shelters that offer more
vetting than that.
Ms. Rodas. Yes, exactly.
Mr. McClintock. What kind of follow-up is done to assure
the welfare of the child?
Ms. Rodas. Well, a phone call--that we don't know who's
answering the call? We cannot verify that--
Mr. McClintock. So, first, when we do make contact, we
don't know if we're actually talking to the so-called sponsor?
Ms. Rodas. Exactly.
Mr. McClintock. For 85,000 of them, they're not even
answering? They've just completely fallen off the radar?
Ms. Rodas. Yes, Chair, yes.
Mr. McClintock. Ms. Rodas, it's been reported that the
cartels charge thousands of dollars to traffic these children.
How are these debts repaid?
Ms. Rodas. How many debts actually get repaid?
Mr. McClintock. No, no, how are the debts repaid?
Ms. Rodas. By working and sometimes enslaved labor. There
was an example, when Project Veritas went and knocked on doors
in some of the hot spots that I gave them, a 16-year-old girl
said she's being pimped by her sponsor, who claims to be her
aunt, but the little girl says, ``I don't know. I've never met
her.''
Mr. McClintock. Ms. Rodriguez, you heard similar stories in
Texas, is that correct?
Ms. Rodas. Yes.
Ms. Rodriguez. Yes, sir, that is correct, with a lot of
the, especially the younger children that I personally met
along the border, again, they come with these small, little
pieces of paper with handwritten numbers on them. They're told,
from what they tell me, of who their sponsors are going to be,
that this is a lot of them, it's their tio, like their uncle,
their mother, or their father that they've never met, and they
don't know who they are until--they've never met them.
Mr. McClintock. The Florida grand jury did a five-month
study of this issue in their State and discovered exactly the
same thing. So, we're seeing that in California. We're seeing
it in Texas. We're seeing it in Florida.
When we're told these placements are carefully vetted, are
we being gaslighted?
Ms. Rodas. Yes, Chair.
Mr. McClintock. Ms. Vaughan?
Ms. Vaughan. Yes, and that's why the State of Florida, for
example, the grand jury there is recommending that the State
pass a law requiring these sponsors to come forward, so that
the State can do the vetting, because they know that the
Federal government is not doing it. It's simply not happening.
Mr. McClintock. Now, if these children were safely returned
to their homes, what would that do to the cartels' business
model?
Ms. Vaughan. It would dry up. This would be--
Mr. McClintock. That's what Border Patrol Officers have
told me when I'm down there--is, if you get them safely home,
they said they don't offer refunds. Word will spread very fast
that's a bad investment, and the perilous journey won't be
attempted. Indeed, give us just a little bit of insight into
that journey.
Ms. Vaughan. Well, we know from reports of NGO's that a
very large percentage of the kids who come are abused.
Something like at least 60 percent of the female migrants are
abused physically, often sexually.
It's a difficult journey. The cartels and the smugglers
treat them like commodities. They don't care about whether they
get enough food, shelter. It's terribly traumatic, and it has
to be dealt with by the places where they end up.
Mr. McClintock. Thank you.
Ms. Jackson Lee?
Ms. Jackson Lee. I thank the Chair and I thank the Ranking
Member, and, of course, acknowledge all the witnesses.
There are many of us who have lived through this in real
time. I have been in the Congress since a number of legislative
changes and, as well, the lawsuits that resulted in the
settlement, the Flores settlement agreement from 1997, and the
Homeland Security Act of 2002, and the William Wilberforce
Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008. So,
we've seen the effort to be responsible to the children.
I do want to set the record straight. It's that, during the
entire four years of the Trump Administration, when they
abusively took children and separated them from families. It
has taken the Biden Administration until this time, and
continuing, trying to reunite those families. There was no
effort by the past administration to reunite the children.
So, though it is not attributable to the witnesses, this is
a misstatement of this hearing. I would prefer that we had
appropriately named hearings, because I don't think anyone can
document the ``Biden Border Crisis: Exploitation of
Unaccompanied Alien Children.'' I'm not sure if they're trying
to suggest the President is exploiting them or innocent workers
are trying to exploit them. I'm not sure what that phraseology
means, but I think we need to be precise in what we are
speaking of about the abuse of children.
I abhor the abuse of children. I have been at the border,
and I have held unaccompanied children--desperately sent,
because they come from desperate circumstances. The whole
question of reuniting, or if they'll safely, if they can just
safely return--some of these children leave places that no
longer exist. Family members are dead. They've been taken over
by violence, gangs, and there's nothing there. So, I do think
it is important that we stand up a system that respects,
coddles, nurtures, and protects these children.
So, I'm going to start off, Mr. Carey, discussing the
85,000 lost children. I know that you're not in government now,
but you served before. You know that The New York Times wrote a
detailed article with some very concerning allegations related
to unaccompanied children unlawfully working in some very
dangerous conditions. The article also talked about how the
Office of Refugee Resettlement did not know the whereabouts of
about 85,000 unaccompanied children who have been released to
sponsors since the Biden Administration began.
Many outlets'--and some of my colleagues have latched onto
this--headlines say that the Biden Administration has lost
85,000 children. Let's start with the most important question.
I do want to say this: You were in the Obama Administration. We
have been--children have been unaccompanied. We saw processes
being utilized--not perfect, because in trying to settle
children, I know for sure, being at sites where you wanted to
make sure that children were going to loving relatives to
someone that was going to care for them.
In the course of securing sponsors, the sponsors showing
up, and some of these sponsors were the ones that were on the
little notes that the children had with a phone number. So,
those who were dealing with these children were only trying to
get them where they needed to be.
Again, I reiterate the fact that the children under Trump
were snatched away from their families, purposely, to
discourage them from coming.
Can you explain why they're not, in fact, lost? My time is
short, so I'm just going to--and did this same issue, also,
occur during the previous administration? Would you answer
that, please?
Mr. Carey. Yes. Thank you.
I would contend that every child receives a call, a follow-
up call. Many do not answer. So, not answering a phone call,
particularly if you're with your parents, I do not believe
constitutes being lost.
In many cases, they are known to other bodies, to the legal
system which they're going through to hear their claim; to
determine if they have a--go through, if they are, as they're
going through that legal process, whether they have an asylum
claim. So--
Ms. Jackson Lee. They could be in school? They could be
under teenagers, children?
Mr. Carey. Right, yes. Many other entities may well be
aware of their location, but, especially, their parents to whom
they've been released.
Mr. McClintock. The gentlelady's time has expired.
Ms. Spartz?
Ms. Spartz. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I, actually, went to the border many times in the last
Congress, and recently did. It's unfortunate that it's not a
bipartisan issue. Because, I'm a mother of two teenaged girls,
and if I would do what is done to some of these children, I
would be in jail for child neglect. These kids deserve the same
level of protection as everyone else, and we're creating
perverse incentives.
Unfortunately, I think the pendulum has swung too far with
this administration, because they really wanted to quickly push
kids out of care; that they don't have overwhelmed shelter
versus worrying about safety.
Because when I went several years ago to Texas to some of
the shelters, I think people who worked there was very
disturbed that proper background checks were not used, and
COVID was used as a pretense to do that.
I don't know, Ms. Rodriguez, if you are aware or not--or
any of you--that they did stop because we don't have a COVID
pandemic now. Is it still the background check--it was
inexcusable to use COVID, not really to worry about the safety
of these children. Do you know if this guidance, and this field
guidance, is still in place? Or now, they're doing better
checks? Are you aware, any of you?
Ms. Rodas. Thank you, Congresswoman.
To my knowledge, all the field guidance that was put in
place is still in place, which means that background checks for
household members are no longer required. So, in instances
where a person is sponsoring, and there's five other adult
males in the room, or in the dwelling, none of them need to go
through any type of background check at all.
So, it is a system that is easily abused. Because there are
situations where, when reporters go knocking on the doors,
they're finding a child, unrelated female, and male as well,
living with five or six adults to whom they are not related.
Ms. Spartz. Yes, and it's unfortunate because now we have
traumatized kids with massive debts to a cartel. I guess
cartels don't sue them, but some very creative attorneys do.
So, no one is really dealing with that issue.
We have a situation in Indiana, actually, the judges are
shocked to see what's happened in some meat packing plants with
child labor. I think no one even realized until these kids had
some violations that they had to go into a court system. It has
become a huge, a huge problem.
I think that shouldn't be a partisan issue. We created
child slavery here in this country. We're talking about China
having slaves. What are we doing in the United States of
America with government money? That's inexcusable and is a
humanitarian crisis, in addition to a security crisis.
I also wanted to see, as I understand, they have these
post-release services. I hear from some people on the ground
that, actually, a sponsor can deny these services. Is that
correct? Have you heard that?
Ms. Rodas. Yes. Yes, Congressman, that's absolutely
correct. That, actually, is what contributed to the Marion,
Ohio situation, is that a call was made, and then, the case was
just simply closed.
So, today, post-release services are absolutely not
enforceable. It would also mean that you have a case manager
who's trained enough to know to even activate the post-release
services.
So, just because there's post-release services, it's not
required. It is not mandatory, and the sponsor can say, ``Thank
you very much. Do not call me again. Bye.'' Because there is no
authority that HHS has, or Office of Refugee Resettlement has,
to hold the sponsor accountable.
This is what's most baffling. It is a simple fix. The
sponsor needs to be held accountable. Why is this a difficult
thing? I do not understand. It's the simple, simple fix.
Sponsors are accountable. Sponsors are accountable to put the
children in school. The sponsor should be accountable to take
the child to the immigration hearing. That is what the sponsor
signs up for, but that is not what the sponsor is held
accountable for. There's no legal mechanism to make them
accountable. If that changed, then children would not be
trafficked.
Ms. Spartz. Well, I appreciate for doing the hearing. Mr.
Chair, hopefully, we will actually be able to have the
discussions. The discretions from the administration went awry,
and HHS has to respond to us.
Because this is inhumane. This is irresponsible, and it
only benefits cartels with making a lot of money on desperate
people that come from very poor conditions, and the American
government shouldn't be subsidizing. Otherwise, we're
hypocrites when we criticize other countries for doing things
like that. I think this shouldn't be a partisan issue.
I appreciate you being here today, and I hope we can,
actually, find solutions to stand with these children and stop
this incentivizing, this insanity on the border for national
security.
So, thank you. I yield back.
Mr. McClintock. Thank you.
Ms. Escobar?
Ms. Escobar. Well, I would like to thank the witnesses for
being here today.
I would like to express my frustration. I wish this were a
real hearing that would result in real solutions and real
improvements that would benefit children. Unfortunately, this
is not a serious hearing. This is a hearing that is intended to
completely distort the record, and really, it's strictly for
political purposes.
I do agree with my colleague, the gentlelady from Indiana.
We do need bipartisan solutions, and we do need a bipartisan
effort, if we are going to truly address this. So, what would
that look like?
First, I would like to preface my comments by sharing with
you all. I represent El Paso, Texas. Fort Bliss, which is in El
Paso, is home to one of the largest emergency intake
facilities.
I have spent a lot of time at the emergency intake
facilities. I have spent a lot of time talking to children. I
am bilingual. So, I speak to the kids in their native language.
I have spoken to enumerable staff--former/current staff. I,
myself, have pushed on the administration at times when I've
had to.
What I have found is, unfortunately, here in the House of
Representatives, there is an absolute unwillingness by my
Republican colleagues to participate in real solutions.
So, what would some of those solutions look like?
First, legal pathways: True legal pathways for children to
reunify them with their family members would absolutely
circumvent the horrific journey that many of them take. We
can't get them to work with us on more legal pathways.
Another solution: Investing in programs to make sure that
there is robust support. We can't get that, either. In fact,
the President's budget, the amount of funding that he requested
was actually ratcheted down by Republican colleagues. Then,
when we had the omnibus vote, the vote for the budget that
would fund HHS and the Department of Homeland Security, and a
number of other agencies, the chairman voted against it last
December.
So, when you starve a system, and you do everything
possible to create legal pathways, you're not serious about
solving these issues. In fact, when you call for the
reinstatement of horrific policies by the previous
administration, including deliberate family separation, you're
not interested in solutions that help kids.
Last week, when we were here trying to create protections
for children, so that they could have access to legal counsel--
or, so that they would not be deported, even infants by
themselves--my Republican colleagues all voted against those
protections.
So, let's not pretend this is a serious hearing wanting to
truly help children. There is nothing further from that fact.
Mr. Chair, I would like to enter into the record a fact
sheet by HHS, the Administration for Children and Families. One
of the witnesses claimed that there is no home study. The fact
sheet disputes that, and the facts are that ORR requires a home
study for children who are 12 years and under before
unification with a nonrelative sponsor. May I have unanimous
consent to enter this into the record?
Mr. McClintock. Without objection.
Ms. Escobar. Every time I visited the emergency intake
facility at Fort Bliss, and I spoke to kids, their complaint
was that the background system was taking too long, and that
they were not being reunited quickly enough with their families
because it was so stringent.
Mr. Carey, in the remaining 40 seconds, is there any other
misinformation that you would like to clarify?
Mr. Carey. Yes. I think it's important to recognize that
the ORR vetting system is rigorous. Any system is imperfect,
but it is balancing the need of children to be reunited with
their families--with their mothers, with their fathers--versus
staying in care.
The resources to do so, I believe should be increased. I
believe there should be more interagency cooperation and clear
lines of authority and leadership, such that the lines of
communication between ORR and other entities that are coming in
touch with these children are perhaps improved.
Ms. Escobar. Thank you for those real solutions. That is
what we should focus on, and it should be bipartisan.
I yield back.
Mr. McClintock. All right. Thank you.
Seeing no other Members seeking recognition, that concludes
today's hearing.
I want to thank our witnesses for appearing before the
Subcommittee today.
Without objection, all Members will have five legislative
days to submit additional written questions for the witnesses
or additional materials for the record.
Without objection, the hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 5 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
All materials submitted for the record by Members of the
Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and
Enforcement can be found at the following links:
https://docs.house.gov/docs.house.gov/Committee/Calendar/ByEvent.aspx?EventID=115798.
docs.house.gov/
Committee/Calendar/ByEvent.aspx?EventID=115798.