National News
Young immigrants are at risk from sponsors with criminal records, senators say
December 07, 2015 posted by Steve Brownstein
Federal officials placed immigrant youths with convicted criminals, including sex traffickers and human smugglers, then refused to remove them even after a whistle-blower alerted officials, two senators alleged Tuesday.
At least 3,400 sponsors -- about 12% of 29,000 listed in a government database -- had criminal histories that included domestic violence, homicide, child molestation, sexual assault and human trafficking, the whistle-blower told Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) and Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas).
“The whistle-blower brought the claims to the Judiciary Committee's attention after raising concerns with supervisors reportedly yielded no immediate corrective actions,” Grassley's office said in a statement.
“Although the whistle-blower claims to have relayed these concerns to supervisors in August of 2015, apparently these individuals have no immediate plans to remove [unaccompanied minors] from their criminal sponsors, but are 'discussing options,'" the senators wrote in a letter to the secretaries of Homeland Security and Health and Human Services, whose departments are responsible for processing the youths.
Officials from Health and Human Service's Office of Refugee Resettlement, which screens sponsors, responded in a statement.
“It is not the practice of the Office of Refugee Resettlement to place unaccompanied children with sponsors who have serious criminal convictions,” spokesman Mark Weber said.
“The safety of the children is our primary concern and any allegation of even potential harm is taken seriously and will be investigated.”
Officials have insisted that sponsors are subject to vetting -- including criminal history checks and, in some cases, fingerprint checks -- if the sponsor is not a parent or legal guardian, is considered a safety concern or is claiming a particularly at-risk child such as a trafficking victim. In August, staff members also started conducting safety checks with youths and sponsors a month after placement.
Border Patrol turns over unaccompanied minors to the Office of Refugee Resettlement, which places them at shelters, then with parents, relatives or other qualified sponsors. Federal officials are not required to provide follow-up services. State child welfare agencies are not required to notify federal authorities of alleged abuse or neglect by sponsors.
The resettlement office maintains a database that allows staff members to track sponsor names, addresses, assessments, and the number and names of unaccompanied children they have tried to sponsor, Weber has said.
The Times reported in August that immigrant advocates complained that the sponsor system lacked oversight and follow-up, and that problems worsened last year with an influx of more than 68,500 unaccompanied minors, mostly from Central America. Recent months have seen another increase.
The senators noted in their letter that federal regulations prohibit the youths “from being released to a sponsor if there is substantial evidence that the child would be at risk of harm. Yet, due to a breakdown with screening and background checks of sponsors, many of the most vulnerable are being victimized.”
Although the resettlement office is supposed to conduct background checks for prospective sponsors, “often these background checks are not thoroughly performed and sponsors are not properly vetted or even fingerprinted … and children are paying the price,” Grassley and Cornyn wrote.
The problems are not new, the senators noted: In 2013, the office issued an alert warning of three fraudulent sponsors in Colorado, Iowa and Minnesota who were seeking to claim unrelated unaccompanied minors.
In December, federal investigators rescued half a dozen Guatemalan youths from an Ohio egg farm and arrested smugglers who had posed as sponsors, according to authorities. The youths had allegedly been forced to work without pay and in effect held hostage in dilapidated trailers, The Times reported. Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), chairman of the Senate’s permanent subcommittee on investigations, began an inquiry into that case and into the resettlement office.
