HHS Inspector General: Report says agency neglected to adequately screen the hosts assigned to migrant children

WASHINGTON, DC- The Inspector General of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced last week that the Biden administration failed to properly vet and monitor adults in homes where migrant children were placed in 2021, the Daily Wire reported. 

The report, released Thursday, accused the government of failing to conduct basic background checks, including criminal backgrounds. 

In March and April of 2021, HHS placed nearly 17,000 children with adults. 

In his report, the IG examined 342 case files of migrant children, which was a tiny portion of the thousands of children who showed up at the southern border in the previous months, many of them victims of human trafficking into the United States by Mexican drug cartels. 

In 16% of those cases, the report said, HHS failed to prove the existence of any basic safety checks such as background and address checks. Worse still, in nearly one-third of the cases reviewed by the IG, there was no available documentation for the adults. Their IDs had several issues, including missing holograms or blurry images, raising legitimate concerns that the documents had been forged. 

“We found that children’s case files and sponsor records were not always updated with important documentation and information,” said Haley Lubeck, an analyst with the inspector general’s office. 

In addition, about twenty percent of the cases showed HHS didn’t check on children in a timely manner, sometimes for several months. HHS responded to the report by claiming they were already addressing some of the shortfalls found in the IG report. 

“The overwhelming majority of findings and recommendations address records management and documentation issues that (the agency) has already improved through training, monitoring, technology, and evaluation,” HHS spokesman Jeff Nesbit claimed. 

This isn’t the first time HHS has faced criticism. For example, last year, the agency was criticized for releasing migrant children too quickly, resulting in some of them being exploited for child labor. An investigation by the New York Times in 2023 found that dozens of illegal migrant children, including some as young as twelve, were working overnight or at dangerous jobs in the U.S. 

Meanwhile, the influx of migrants at the southern border continues, with estimates showing hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens are entering the United States each month. In December, for example, some 302,000 illegal aliens were encountered at the border, a number that does not include so-called “gotaways.” That number set a record and was the first time the number of illegals crossed the 300,000 mark since records have been kept. 

Overall in 2023, 2.5 million illegals were apprehended crossing or attempting to cross the southern border, again not including gotaways, according to Customs and Border Protection. It is estimated that there were at least 96,000 gotaways last year, but the number is likely much higher. 

As a result of his failure to stop the invasion at the southern border, the Daily Wire said Biden’s approval on immigration hit an all-time low of 32% last month. At the same time, his overall approval record also remains at historic lows.