Republicans are criticizing Democrats over a report by Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) Office of Inspector General, which revealed that inconsistent communication between Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has led to a failure to monitor location and status of unaccompanied immigrant children, also known as UCs.
The report highlights the complex process aimed at addressing the needs of children who arrive alone at the border. After initially being processed by ICE, they are placed under the care of HHS. But the report found that ICE failed to notify HHS when migrant children did not appear for their immigration court proceedings:
"During our ongoing audit to assess ICE's ability to monitor the location and status of UCs who were released or transferred from the custody of the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), we learned ICE transferred more than 448,000 UCs to HHS from fiscal years 2019 to 2023. However, ICE was not able to account for the location of all UCs who were released by HHS and did not appear as scheduled in immigration court. ICE reported more than 32,000 UCs failed to appear for their immigration court hearings from FYs 2019 to 2023.
The report added that, as of May 2024, ICE had also failed to serve Notice to Appear (NTA) on more than 291,000 UCs, which suggests that the number of unaccompanied immigrant children who did not appear for their immigration court dates may be much larger.
The report emphasized that unaccompanied children who do not appear for court are at a higher risk for trafficking, exploitation, or forced labor.
The GOP is condemning the Biden administration as a result, saying its mismanaging the situation at the border and releasing a statement which described the report as "stunning" in its introductory paragraph:
"The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Office of Inspector General released a stunning report that found under border czar Kamala Harris nearly 300,000 illegal immigrant children are unaccounted for. The stunning report goes on to say that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has "no assurance" that these unaccounted illegal immigrant children "are safe from trafficking, exploitation, or forced labor."
The statement by the GOP goes on to say that "the invasion of illegal immigrants" is "one of the top issues facing Americans" and claiming that "no person bears more responsibility for this crisis than border czar Kamala Harris." The letter then suggests the only way to fix "the historic crisis" is by voting for Trump.
Republican leaders, including Speaker Mike Johnson and key committee chairs, responded quickly to the report in a press call, as reported by Border Report. "The southern border is a national security disaster and a humanitarian catastrophe, and Kamala Harris cannot be trusted to fix it," Johnson said. "It is on her watch that all this has happened."
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