WASHINGTON — The government has made only incremental improvements to its troubled efforts to care for thousands of migrant children detained entering the U.S. without their parents, perpetuating a problem the Trump administration has aggravated with its “zero tolerance” immigration crackdown, a bipartisan Senate report said Wednesday.
The 52-page study said no federal agency takes responsibility for making sure children aren’t abused or used in human trafficking once the government places them with sponsors, who sometimes aren’t their parents or close relatives. Immigration judges are ordering the deportation of growing proportions of these children partly because the government does little to ensure they get to court, and officials haven’t provided sufficient mental health services for some of them, the report said.
“Major deficiencies persist that leave the children at significant risk for trafficking and abuse and undermine our immigration system,” said the report by the Senate Homeland Security Committee’s investigations subcommittee. It said a recent attempt at coordination between the departments of Health and Human Services and Homeland Security “does little to offer hope that federal agencies are working to improve” children’s safety, and it called the situation “untenable.”
DHS, HHS and the Justice Department said in a joint statement that the report “misses an opportunity to address decades of congressional inaction” that has spurred the influx of unaccompanied children. They faulted the report for “erroneously” saying President Donald Trump had worsened the problem and accused lawmakers of ignoring problems like immigrants joining gangs and smuggling and trafficking by criminal organizations.
