Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) accused top officials at President Joe Biden’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) of withholding information regarding 85,000 migrant children released into the United States with whom the agency has lost contact.
Earlier this year, the New York Times reported that more than 85,000 unaccompanied alien children (UACs) released into the U.S. interior had been lost in the system after being sent to live with adult sponsors — most of whom were not their biological parents — by HHS.
The agency’s losing contact with tens of thousands of UACs after their release into American communities coincides with a boom in labor trafficking among migrant children.
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In April, Blackburn sought details about HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra’s involvement in the UAC pipeline, specifically those with whom the agency had lost contact. The agency, Blackburn said, responded but did not answer any of the questions she asked.
In September, Blackburn sent another letter to Becerra requesting details about the 85,000 missing UACs, suggesting HHS had withheld information from lawmakers.
“Your agency’s written response to my inquiry, which you did not even take the time to write yourself, was completely inadequate and an insult to the duty of oversight entrusted to the United States Senate,” Blackburn wrote:
I asked you specifically about your knowledge of this crisis and your involvement in the alleged whistleblower retaliation that has taken place under your watch, yet your Assistant Secretary declined to answer a single question. Additionally, I asked you to provide the documents you received regarding the potential exploitation of these migrant children, but Assistant Secretary Hild failed to produce a single document. Instead, over five months later, my inquiry was met with general information about your failed policies. [Emphasis added]
Blackburn said she wanted to know when exactly Becerra first became aware of the missing UACs and requested all documents related to the issue.
During a Senate Finance Committee hearing in April, Becerra said he had “no idea” if 85,000 UACs had lost contact with HHS officials, suggesting he had never heard the figure before it was published in the Times.
Then, at a hearing in July, Becerra could not guarantee that 100 percent of adult sponsors’ homes were inspected before a UAC was placed in their care — a requirement for many pet adoption programs, Rep. Debbie Lesko (R-AZ) noted.
DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas admitted in March that many of those 85,000 missing UACs had ended up in a growing migrant child labor trafficking pipeline.
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The situation of UACs being released to adult sponsors is so dire that the Labor Department Inspector General opened an investigation into the Biden administration’s handling of the issue.
The federal probe was opened after a bombshell report from the Labor Department found that from October 2022 to July 2023, there was a 44 percent increase in children discovered working U.S. jobs in violation of the law — many of whom were UACs.
Since Biden took office, more than 300,000 UACs have been placed with adult sponsors throughout the U.S., but whistleblowers have warned that HHS is not properly vetting those sponsors, and migrant children are ending up in labor trafficking, sex trafficking, and domestic servitude as a result.
WATCH — Whistleblower: Federal Government Facilitating “Multi-Billion-Dollar Child Trafficking Operation” at U.S. Border
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.