[Senate Hearing 114-290]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 114-290
ADEQUACY OF THE DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH
AND HUMAN SERVICES' EFFORTS TO PROTECT
UNACCOMPANIED ALIEN CHILDREN FROM HUMAN TRAFFICKING
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
PERMANENT SUBCOMMITTEE ON INVESTIGATIONS
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON
HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
----------
JANUARY 28, 2016
----------
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COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin, Chairman
JOHN McCAIN, Arizona THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware
ROB PORTMAN, Ohio CLAIRE McCASKILL, Missouri
RAND PAUL, Kentucky JON TESTER, Montana
JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin
MICHAEL B. ENZI, Wyoming HEIDI HEITKAMP, North Dakota
KELLY AYOTTE, New Hampshire CORY A. BOOKER, New Jersey
JONI ERNST, Iowa GARY C. PETERS, Michigan
BEN SASSE, Nebraska
Keith B. Ashdown, Staff Director
Gabrielle A. Batkin, Minority Staff Director
John P. Kilvington, Minority Deputy Staff Director
Laura W. Kilbride, Chief Clerk
Benjamin C. Grazda, Hearing Clerk
PERMANENT SUBCOMMITTEE ON INVESTIGATIONS
ROB PORTMAN, Ohio Chairman
JOHN McCAIN, Arizona CLAIRE McCASKILL, Missouri
RAND PAUL, Kentucky JON TESTER, Montana
JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin
KELLY AYOTTE, New Hampshire HEIDI HEITKAMP, North Dakota
BEN SASSE, Nebraska
Brian Callanan, Staff Director
Margaret Daum, Minority Staff Director and Chief Counsel
Kelsey Stroud, Chief Clerk
C O N T E N T S
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Opening statements:
Page
Senator Portman.............................................. 1
Senator McCaskill............................................ 5
Senator Johnson.............................................. 7
Senator Carper............................................... 8
Senator Lankford............................................. 24
Senator McCain............................................... 28
Prepared statements:
Senator Portman.............................................. 51
Senator McCaskill............................................ 57
WITNESSES
Thursday, January 28, 2016
Mark Greenberg, Acting Assistant Secretary, Administration for
Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services; accompanied by Robert Carey, Director, Office of
Refugee Resettlement, U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services....................................................... 10
Tiffany Nelms, Associate Director, Unaccompanied Children's
Services, U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants........... 35
Jennifer Justice, Deputy Director, Office of Families and
Children, Ohio Department of Job and Family Services........... 37
Kimberly Haynes, Director for Children's Services, Lutheran
Immigration and Refugee Service................................ 39
Alphabetical List of Witnesses
Greenberg, Mark:
Testimony.................................................... 10
Prepared statement........................................... 61
Haynes, Kimberly:
Testimony.................................................... 39
Prepared statement........................................... 87
Justice, Jennifer:
Testimony.................................................... 37
Prepared statement........................................... 83
Nelms, Tiffany:
Testimony.................................................... 35
Prepared statement........................................... 78
APPENDIX
Majority Staff Report............................................ 101
Mark Greenberg letter to Senator McCaskill....................... 412
UAC Apprehensions Chart.......................................... 416
Apprehensions: First Quarter Chart............................... 417
Kimberly Haynes FAQ and Statement of Principles from the Lutheran
Immigration and Refugee Service................................ 418
Statements for the Record from:
Church World Service......................................... 427
The Young Center............................................. 428
We Belong Together........................................... 433
Responses to post-hearing questions for the Record from Mr.
Greenberg and Mr. Carey........................................ 435
ADEQUACY OF THE DEPARTMENT OF.
HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES' EFFORTS TO
PROTECT UNACCOMPANIED ALIEN CHILDREN FROM HUMAN TRAFFICKING
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THURSDAY, JANUARY 28, 2016
U.S. Senate,
Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations,
of the Committee on Homeland Security
and Governmental Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m., in
room SD-342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Rob Portman,
Chairman of the Subcommittee, presiding.
Present: Senators Portman, McCain, Lankford, Ayotte,
Johnson, McCaskill, Tester, Heitkamp, and Carper.
Staff present: Brian Callanan, Matt Owen, Rachael Tucker,
Margaret Daum, Mel Beras, Kelsey Stroud, Will Council, Richard
Marquez, Crystal Higgins, Brandon Reavis, Eric Bursch, Liam
Forsythe, Stephanie Hall, Mark Delich, Quin Roberts, Molly
Sherlock, Monica Carmean, Sarah Seitz, Samantha Roberts, Holly
Idelson, Melissa Egred, Brooke Ericson, and Joske Bautista.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR PORTMAN
Senator Portman. This hearing will come to order.
Six months ago, many of my constituents in Ohio opened
their morning papers to read the shocking news that law
enforcement had discovered a human-trafficking ring operating
in Marion, Ohio--a small town about 50 miles north of Columbus,
Ohio.
Six defendants were charged with enslaving multiple
victims, including more than six migrant children from
Guatemala, on egg farms in Marion County, Ohio. The details of
the crime laid out by U.S. Attorney Steve Dettelbach were
chilling. Traffickers lured the child victims to the United
States with the promise of schooling and a better life. The
parents of some of the victims even signed over the deeds to
their properties back home as collateral for debt incurred to
pay for the journey. But not long after their arrival, these
children--some as young as 14 years old--were forced to work 12
hours a day, 6 to 7 days a week. The work was grueling. And the
living conditions were squalid, with children packed into a
dilapidated trailer. They said that some of the kids were
living on mattresses underneath the trailer.
To compel them to work, the traffickers withheld their
paychecks and threatened their families. As the indictment lays
out, the defendants, and I quote, ``used a combination of
threats, humiliation, deprivation, financial coercion, and debt
manipulation'' to create ``a climate of fear and
helplessness.'' Five of the six defendants have now pled
guilty.
It is intolerable that human trafficking--modern-day
slavery--could occur in our own backyard in the 21st Century.
But it does. What makes this Marion case even more alarming is
that a U.S. government agency was actually responsible for
delivering some of the victims into the hands of their abusers.
In 2014, more than six of the children found on the Marion
egg farms traveled, without their parents, across Central
America to our Southern Border. When they arrived here, they
were entrusted to the U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services (HHS), like thousands of other unaccompanied children
(UAC) who have been detained at the border. Under Federal law,
it is then HHS' job to find and vet a relative or trusted
family friend to care for the child until their immigration
court date or else house them in safe shelters. Instead, HHS
delivered the Marion children into the hands of a human-
trafficking ring that forced them into these slave labor
conditions we talked about.
How could this have happened in America?
After the release of the indictment last summer, Senator
McCaskill and I launched an investigation to find out. How did
HHS hand over a group of children to human traffickers? Was it
a tragic failure to follow agency procedure in each of these
cases? Or was the problem that the agency's procedures do not
work and need reform? These were very important questions not
only because of the Marion cases, but because of the number of
additional children who are at risk.
Over the past 2 years, HHS has placed about 90,000 migrant
children--the vast majority from Central America--with adult
sponsors in the United States. That surge of migrant children
coming into the United States illegally is a topic of some
debate. There is certainly evidence that this Administration's
executive actions on immigration encouraged the surge. But
whatever your views on immigration policy, everyone should be
able to agree that the Administration has a responsibility to
ensure the safety of the migrant kids that have entered
government custody until their immigration court date.
Unaccompanied children are uniquely vulnerable to human
trafficking because many are in debt to the smugglers who
arrange for their passage. The risk is that the smugglers may
then force them to work off that debt once they arrive. That is
why Federal law specifically provides that HHS protect these
kids from traffickers and others who seek to victimize them.
We investigated these protections as part of a thorough, 6-
month, bipartisan inquiry. The Subcommittee requested and
reviewed thousands of pages of child placement case files,
internal emails, and other documents from HHS. We interviewed
several senior officials at HHS; we consulted with experts in
child welfare and trafficking protections. That bipartisan
staff report has been issued today, and it details the
troubling findings from that inquiry.
Our conclusion is that the Department of Health and Human
Services' process for placing unaccompanied children suffers
from serious, systemic failures. The horrible trafficking crime
that occurred in Marion, Ohio, could likely have been prevented
if HHS had adopted common-sense measures for screening
sponsors, and checking in on the well-being of at-risk
children--protections that are standard, by the way, in foster
care systems run by all the States, including Ohio.
And, unfortunately, the systemic defects that contributed
to the Marion cases appear to have exposed unaccompanied minors
to abuse in other cases reviewed by the Subcommittee.
First, the victims of the Marion traffickers were placed
with alleged family friends or distant relatives--which are
known as ``Category 3'' sponsors. As it turned out, the
sponsors were not really family friends at all. Two of them
were basically sponsors for hire--strangers hired by human
smugglers just to get the child out of HHS custody and then
immediately pass them on to the traffickers. HHS did not know
that, though, because it does not insist on any real
verification of the supposed relationship between the sponsor
and the child, apart from the say-so of a relative. One Marion
case file actually contains no explanation at all of the
child's relationship with the sponsor or his family. We learned
that this kind of lax relationship verification is standard
practice in Category 3 placements. A lost opportunity to
protect these kids and others.
Second, HHS missed obvious indications that the sponsors in
the Marion cases were accumulating multiple unrelated
children--a sign that should have triggered greater scrutiny
for risk of trafficking. Our review of the Marion case files
reveals an interconnected web of sponsors of multiple children
sharing the same address. HHS failed to connect any of these
dots.
Third, remarkably, HHS did not visit a single sponsor's
home to interview the sponsors and assess the proposed living
conditions before placing them. We have learned that home
studies are universally conducted in foster care placements--a
close analogy to this situation--but HHS has done them in only
about 4 percent of these unaccompanied children placements over
the past 3 years. Only about 4 percent. This policy, of course,
places thousands of children at risk every day.
Fourth, HHS' procedures for what to do after a child is
placed with a sponsor also failed. Only one victim of the
Marion human-trafficking ring was the subject of any kind of
post-release home visit to check on the child's well-being.
But, shockingly, the adult sponsor was allowed to block the
child welfare worker, on contract from HHS, from visiting that
child, even after the caseworker discovered the child was not
living at the home on file with HHS. As a result, the
government missed another opportunity to uncover the crime
being perpetrated. Incredibly, this was not a mishap. It is
official HHS policy. HHS allows sponsors to refuse post-release
services offered to a migrant child--even to bar contact
between the child and an HHS Office of Refugee Resettlement
(ORR) care provider attempting to provide those services.
Basically, when a sponsor says no, the caseworker is instructed
simply to write, ``Case closed.''
Finally--and this is hard to believe--at the time of these
cases, if a potential sponsor said on his application that he
lived with three other adults, and that if anything happened to
him, a backup sponsor could care for the child, which is
sometimes required, HHS policy was not to conduct background
checks of any kind on any of the sponsor's roommates or the
backup caregiver listed on the form. None. Background checks
were only run on the sponsor himself. And this is even more
incredible to me: If that check turned up a criminal history,
HHS policy was that no criminal conviction, no matter how
serious, automatically disqualified a sponsor.
On these points, however, I can report that in response to
our 6-month investigation, just this week HHS strengthened its
criminal background check policy effective January 25--as
outlined in our report. This is progress. But I continue to be
troubled by the fact that HHS told us that it is literally
unable to figure out how many children it has placed with
convicted felons, what crimes these individuals committed, or
how that class of children are doing, how they are faring
today.
The bottom line is that this is unacceptable. HHS has
placed children with non-relatives that have no verified
relationship with the child, who receive no home visit or in-
person interview, whose household members have unknown
backgrounds or criminal records, and who can freely cutoff
social workers' access to the child. Worse, when senior HHS
officials were alerted to trafficking risks due to the Marion
cases and other evidence of children working in debt labor,
they failed to adequately strengthen their policies--despite
the fact that the Senate Appropriations Committee tells us that
HHS has more than $350 million in unspent funds for this very
program over the past 2 years. That is for this program, $350
million in unspent funds.
Perhaps the most troubling, unanswered question is this:
How many other cases are there like the Marion trafficking
case? The answer is HHS does not know. The Subcommittee has
reviewed more than 30 cases involving serious indications of
trafficking and abuse of unaccompanied children placed by HHS
over the past 3 years. But human trafficking occurs on a black
market, and other forms of abuse occur in the shadows. The
Department maintains no regular means of tracking even known
cases of trafficking or abuse, and it does little to monitor
the status or well-being of the tens of thousands of children
it has placed. There are, in the words of one leading care
provider, untold numbers of effectively ``lost'' migrant
children living in the United States.
What I can say with confidence is that HHS' policies expose
unaccompanied minors to an unreasonable risk of trafficking,
debt bondage, and other forms of abuse at the hands of their
sponsors. That must change. Today we will seek answers from the
Administration and discuss a path forward toward what I know is
our shared goal of strengthening this system to protect every
child in America.
Without objection, the joint staff report and the appendix
to the report will be made part of the record.\1\
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\1\ The staff report referenced by Portman appears in the Appendix
on page 101.
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With that, I will turn to our Ranking Member, Senator
McCaskill, for her opening statement. And I want to thank
Senator McCaskill for being a good partner on this
investigation, for working very hard on this issue, and for her
passion for these kids. Senator McCaskill.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR McCASKILL
Senator McCaskill. Thank you, Chairman Portman. I want to
thank you for bringing the topic of this hearing and the
Subcommittee's investigation to our top priority at this
moment. It has been a cooperative and bipartisan investigation,
and I appreciate as always the opportunity to work with you to
bring these issues to light.
If the Ohio cases that Senator Portman just described
represented the total number of unaccompanied children
exploited by their sponsors, we would be justified in holding
this hearing. As the Subcommittee has discovered, however, the
unaccompanied children who were trafficked in Marion are only a
few of those who have fallen prey to trafficking or abuse by
their sponsors.
I find the situation in front of us today unacceptable, and
I am disgusted and angry.
HHS placed one 16-year-old with a sponsor who claimed to be
her cousin. In fact, he was completely unrelated to her and had
paid for her to come to the United States as a mail-order
bride. The minor, who had endured a sexual assault in her home
country, was forced to have sex with her sponsor. She appealed
to a post-release services provider for help and was ultimately
removed by Child Protective Services (CPS).
In another case, a 17-year-old was released to an unrelated
``family friend'' who reported living with three additional
unrelated adult men. HHS released this teen to the sponsor
without conducting background checks on any of the unrelated
adult men with whom he would be living, without conducting a
home study of his sponsor's home, and without providing any
post-release services. Last June, this minor contacted HHS to
let the agency know that his ``sponsor'' was actually the son
of a labor recruiter, who had approached the teen in Guatemala
about an opportunity to work in the United States. Upon being
placed by HHS with the sponsor, the minor was forced to work 12
hours a day in conditions that made him sick, literally sick.
The teen ultimately ended up living in a home belonging to his
employer, along with 14 other employees, before running away.
Similar examples fill the case files reviewed by the
Subcommittee, and keep in mind, we only reviewed a fraction of
these files and found so many objectionable situations. We only
looked at a fraction. Vulnerable and traumatized minors abused
by their sponsors or forced to engage in backbreaking labor for
little or no pay, while being housed in unsanitary and
dangerous conditions.
This is not just a failure of our moral obligation to
protect the most vulnerable. It is a failure of a legal
obligation as well. Under the 1997 Flores Agreement, the
Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA), and
other statutes, HHS has responsibility for ensuring that
unaccompanied minors are released to sponsors capable of
providing for their physical and emotional well-being. At a
minimum, HHS must make an independent finding that the child's
sponsor ``has not engaged in any activity that would indicate a
potential risk to the child.'' For many children, HHS failed to
fulfill this fundamental responsibility.
The Subcommittee's investigation also revealed that HHS has
failed to address systematic deficiencies in their placement
processes, even after these deficiencies were highlighted by
the Ohio case. In many cases reviewed by the Subcommittee, HHS
failed to ensure that the relationship between a child and a
proposed sponsor was even properly verified, failed to detect
individuals who attempted to sponsor multiple children, failed
to ensure sponsors had adequate income to support the child
under their care, failed to conduct background checks on all
the adults living in a sponsor's home, as Senator Portman
mentioned, and failed to employ home studies and post-release
services to detect red flags for abuse and trafficking.
In addition, the Subcommittee found that HHS does not even
maintain regularized, transparent guidelines governing the
placement process and has not established specific policies and
programs to protect unaccompanied minors from traffickers--
despite a clear mandate from Congress in 2008 to do so.
Further, HHS has failed to fulfill its obligation to
clarify its role in the UAC placement process with respect to
the other various Federal agencies--and this is what really
drives me crazy. HHS to this day is claiming once they put this
child with a sponsor in Category 3, they have no more legal
responsibility. Are you kidding me? And, by the way, the
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) kind of says the same
thing. Well, that is HHS because they are children. Somebody is
going to step up as a result of this hearing and take full and
complete responsibility of these minor children that we have in
our country.
Nothing breaks my heart more than the notion that these
parents and their children facing unspeakable problems in their
home countries took a risk that every parent in this room
cannot even imagine taking. They said, ``Yes, take my child. I
want this child out of this country because I love this child
so much.'' And they believed America was someplace that they
would be safe and maybe have a future. And we have two Federal
agencies that have abdicated their responsibility for the
welfare of these children.
Now, much of it was to try to get them out of detention.
And, by the way, everybody needs to understand there are
categories, and if it is a relative or someone that is easily
verified as a relative, that is Category 1 and 2. But keep in
mind, if somebody cannot prove Category 1 or 2, they put them
all in Category 3 when you did not have to prove anything. They
reduced the time of home studies from 30 days to 10 days for
one reason: Get them out of detention. Understand, these
children, as we will hear today in this hearing, are in
caregiving facilities where they are visiting museums and they
are playing soccer and they are getting three meals a day. What
is wrong with keeping these children in detention longer in
order to make sure that we are not placing them with someone
who is going to illegally use them as child labor or in sex
trafficking. The priorities here are all out of whack.
I am not going to finish my formal prepared statement. I
will enter it into the record,\1\ because, frankly, I think it
is important that all of us today quit thinking about what is
on paper and think about these children and how hopelessly lost
they are when someone shows up knowing that nothing is going to
happen and says, ``Yes, I will sponsor that child,'' and then
they stick them in a trailer and have them clean chicken coops
12 hours a day, 7 days a week, for no money.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Senator McCaskill appears in the
Appendix on page 57.
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We can do better in the United States of America. And I
know there are not people at HHS or DHS that wanted this
outcome. But because no one stepped up and took responsibility,
that is the outcome we are dealing with. And we have to get it
fixed, and we have to get it fixed now.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Portman. Thank you, Senator McCaskill. Thank you
for your work and your staff's work on putting together a
comprehensive report that I encourage everyone to read and for
your passion for this issue.
We are now joined by the Chairman and Ranking Member of the
full Committee. I appreciate them being here. I would like to
offer them the opportunity to make some brief comments before
we go to the witnesses.
OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN JOHNSON
Chairman Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to
commend you and the Ranking Member on instigating this
investigation and this oversight. I share your outrage. This is
shameful what has happened.
I think you all know I am kind of big into facts and
figures and root causes, and, Mr. Chairman, you asked how this
happened. And, again, your investigation shows the detail of
what went wrong within the agencies.
I guess I want to in my opening comments here kind of pull
back and talk about the larger cause or causes of these
tragedies, really.
I would first say that the first proximate cause of this is
how we have been handling the crisis of unaccompanied children.
What has happened is we have become more--it is being swept
under the rug. Remember when this was a big issue a couple of
years ago? And, by the way, we have the chart\2\ up here, in
2014, here we hit over 50,000 unaccompanied children coming in
from Central America.
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\2\ The chart referenced by Senator Johnson appears in the Appendix
on page 416.
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But what has happened in that intervening time period and
why it is not in the news so much anymore is we have gotten
more efficient at apprehending, processing, and dispersing.
And, unfortunately, we are processing and we are dispersing
children into these horrific circumstances. So there is one
proximate cause, our efficiency in sweeping this crisis under
the rug because we are also sweeping the crisis under the rug
because we do not want to really recognize what I think is the
root causes of this surge.
Now, I realize there are legitimate differences of opinion
in terms of what is the proximate cause of that surge. But just
take a look at that graph. In 2009, 3,300 unaccompanied
children; 2010, 4,400; 2011, 3,900. And then in 2012, President
Obama issued his Executive memorandum, Deferred Action on
Childhood Arrivals (DACA), which, regardless of what the
memorandum actually says, sent a very strong signal to children
and families in Central America that if you get into America,
you are going to be able to stay. And the reality is, again,
regardless of what the memorandum says, if they get into
America, they are able to stay. They are processed, they are
dispersed into some of these horrific circumstances.
Take a look at the figures. The 28,000 that came in 2015,
3.6 have been returned. Of the 51,000 in 2014, 2.6 have been
returned. So these children and these families, they use social
media. They communicate with people back in Central America.
The reality is they know if they get into America, they are
able to stay.
So, again, I guess we kind of all breathed a sigh of relief
in 2015 that there were only 28,000 unaccompanied children. A
lot of families are coming in here as well. But, again, 28,000
versus a few thousand in 2009, 2010, and 2011.
Now, let us put up the next chart,\1\ because this is what
we have to be concerned about.
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\1\ The chart referenced by Senator Johnson appears in the Appendix
on page 417.
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Again, the numbers actually came down in 2015. Look at
where we are in just the first quarter of 2016. 2014, the
massive surge, the crisis level, we had, again, a total of
51,705 in that entire fiscal year (FY). But in the first
quarter there were about 8,600. We are already up to 14,000 in
the first quarter of 2016. Why isn't this big news?
Again, it is because we have become more efficient at
apprehending, processing, and dispersing, and we see the
horrific results of that efficiency.
So, again, we have to recognize what our policies are
doing. We took a trip down to Central America and visited
Guatemala and Honduras with Senator Heitkamp, Senator Carper,
and Senator Peters. In meeting with the President of Honduras,
one of his requests of our delegation was, ``Would you please
look at your laws and end the ambiguity in your laws that
actually incentivize our children, their future, from leaving
their countries and coming to America?'' And, again, the
tragedy is they come into some of these circumstances because,
let me repeat it one more time, we have become efficient at
processing and dispersing and sweeping this under the rug. We
have to end that sweeping under the rug process, recognize
reality, and change our laws.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Portman. Thank you, Chairman Johnson.
Ranking Member Carper.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR CARPER
Senator Carper. Thanks so much. My thanks to you and to
Senator McCaskill for holding this hearing and to our witnesses
for being here.
There have been news accounts of late that certainly caught
my eye and probably the eyes of some of you as well. The report
said that the number of folks who are here illegally has
actually begun to drop, which almost seems counterintuitive
when you think about, as we are mindful of the flow of
immigrants from Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador; we are
mindful of the President's proposal to bring in last year 2,000
Syrian refugees, this year 10,000 refugees. And yet that number
of illegal immigrants in this country appears to be dropping.
At first I did not believe it, but now I am convinced it is
true.
The question one might ask is: Well, why? Why is that
happening? And as it turns out, if you add together the
countries of Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador, compare them
to Mexico, my recollection is that the combination of those
three countries that make up the Northern Triangle may add up
to 25 million people.
Let me see. What is the population of Mexico? Do you know.
Does anybody know? I think it is under 200 million. That is a
lot of people.
Senator McCaskill. Ten million just in Mexico City.
Senator Carper. It is probably close to 200 million. So
roughly eight times more people live in Mexico than in these
three countries combined, and there are more people going back
into Mexico than there are Mexicans now coming into the United
States. And that is why the net flow is actually dropping, and
the number of citizens here is actually dropping.
Two weeks ago today, I was in Guatemala with the Vice
President and Secretary Jeh Johnson. We met with the Presidents
of those three countries to talk about their Alliance for
Prosperity--it is their version of Plan Colombia--which they
have committed to implement to focus on governance, fixing
governing institutions, to focus on security, corruption, lack
of rule of law, impunity, and the last one is just to focus on
economic development, how to create a more nurturing
environment for job creation and job preservation, which
depends a lot on, frankly, winning the war against corruption
and criminal behavior. That is their game plan. They developed
that.
What we have done in sort of a counter-response is almost
like Home Depot: You can do it, we can help. All right? They
can do this stuff. It is laid out in their Alliance for
Prosperity. And what we need to do is a number of things that
are actually funded in the omnibus bill that we passed last
year, about $750 million to support--not to give money to these
countries, but the taxpayer dollars from these countries, that
$750 million is not going to go to Honduras, Guatemala, and El
Salvador's Governments. They will go to other entities. It will
actually focus on corruption, rule of law, courts, prosecutors,
prisons, and focus on economic development and so forth. I
think it is a smart approach.
So as we focus here on a terrible situation which violates
for me the Golden Rule, which violates for me Matthew 25, the
least of these, obviously we have to be concerned and care a
hell of a lot about what is going on that is shameful. But at
the same time, we have to be able to walk and chew gum at the
same time, and part of what needs to go on is we need to help
these countries, these three countries, which make up about
one-eighth the population of Mexico, get their act together and
turn themselves around as Colombia has. They can do it, and we
can help.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Claire.
Senator Portman. Thank you, Senator Carper.
I would now like to call our first panel. Mark Greenberg,
who is here with us this morning, is the Acting Assistant
Secretary for Administration for Children and Families (ACF),
which is part of the Department of Health and Human Services.
He was previously Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy at the
Administration for Children and Families. Before joining HHS,
Mr. Greenberg was the Director of the Georgetown University
Center on Poverty, Inequality, and Public Policy and was a
senior fellow at the Center for American Progress.
Bob Carey is also with us this morning. He is the Director
of the Office of Refugee Resettlement at the Department of
Health and Human Services. He previously served as vice
president of resettlement and migration policy at the
International Rescue Committee.
I appreciate both of you for being here this morning, and I
look forward to your testimony. It is the custom of this
subcommittee, as you know, to swear in all of our witnesses. At
this time I would ask you both to stand, please, and raise your
right hands.
Do you swear the testimony you will give before this
Committee will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but
the truth, so help you, God?
Mr. Greenberg. I do.
Mr. Carey. I do.
Senator Portman. Thank you. Let the record reflect that the
witnesses answered in the affirmative.
Gentlemen, all of your written testimony will become part
of the record in its entirety. We would ask you to try to limit
your oral testimony to 5 minutes.
Mr. Greenberg, I would like you to go first.
TESTIMONY OF MARK GREENBERG,\1\ ACTING ASSISTANT SECRETARY,
ADMINISTRATION FOR CHILDREN AND FAMILIES, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF
HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES; ACCOMPANIED BY ROBERT CAREY,
DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF REFUGEE RESETTLEMENT, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF
HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES
Mr. Greenberg. Chairman Portman, Ranking Member McCaskill,
and Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for inviting us to
testify today. I am Mark Greenberg. I am the Acting Assistant
Secretary at the Administration for Children and Families, and
with me is Bob Carey, the Director of the Office of Refugee
Resettlement.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Greenberg appears in the Appendix
on page 61.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
One of ORR's principal goals is to ensure that all
unaccompanied children are released to sponsors who can care
for their physical and mental well-being. The number of
children that have been referred to ORR's care over the last
number of years has grown significantly, and HHS has worked
hard to adapt to this rapid increase in the size of the
program, bringing on additional staff, expanding the network of
providers, and adjusting a number of policies to respond to the
unexpected fluctuations in migration, the needs of the
children, and the challenges of managing a program that grew
nearly tenfold over a 3-year period.
I want to be clear that we view the Marion, Ohio, labor
trafficking case as a deeply dismaying event. Child safety is a
priority for us. We are committed to continuing to make
revisions to strengthen our policies, to learn all that we can
from this and our ongoing experiences in operating the program.
As I explained in my written testimony, I cannot discuss
the specific details of the children in the Ohio case due to
the ongoing criminal investigation, but we will continue to
assist the Subcommittee in its work.
In the next few minutes, I do want to talk briefly about
ORR's process for placing unaccompanied children with suitable
sponsors and then describe a number of steps that ORR has taken
over the last year to strengthen our policies relating to the
safety and well-being of children.
Unaccompanied children are referred to ORR by other Federal
agencies, usually the Department of Homeland Security. They are
generally cared for when they arrive in one of a network of
ORR-funded shelters while staff works to determine if there is
an appropriate sponsor a child can live with while awaiting
immigration proceedings.
Under the governing law, HHS releases children in our care
to parents, guardians, relatives, or other qualified adults.
Most children are placed with a parent. Most of those who are
not placed with a parent are placed with other relatives. We
only turn to family friends if there is no suitable parent or
relative. In all cases, when we make placements, we seek to
balance the importance of timely release with safeguards which
are designed to maximize safety.
ORR is continually working to strengthen its policies and
procedures and in the last year took a number of steps to do
so. Let me quickly highlight five changes that did occur.
First, for a number of years, ORR has operated a help line
that had mainly been used by parents seeking to find out if a
child was in ORR custody or for sponsors that had questions
with legal proceedings. Last May, ORR expanded that help line
so that it is available to children calling with safety-related
concerns as well as to sponsors calling with family problems or
child behavior issues or needing help connecting to community
resources.
Second, the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization
Act, requires a home study before a child is released in four
situations: when a child has been a victim of a severe form of
trafficking, a special needs child with a disability, a child
who has been a victim of physical or sexual abuse, or a child
whose proposed sponsors presents a risk of abuse, maltreatment,
exploitation, or trafficking. In July, ORR broadened the
circumstances where home studies would be used to include all
children age 12 and under being released to non-relatives or
distantly related relatives. Later in July, ORR further
expanded that requirement to apply in all cases where a non-
relative has previously sponsored a child or proposes to
sponsor more than one child to whom the sponsor is not related.
Third, under the TVPRA, ORR must offer followup services or
post-release services in cases where there has been a home
study and may offer such services for children with mental
health or other needs that could benefit from ongoing
assistance from a social welfare agency. In July, ORR began a
pilot project to provide post-release services to all children
released to a non-relative or a distant relative sponsor as
well as to children whose placement has been disrupted or is at
risk of disruption and is within 180 days of release and they
have contacted the help line.
Fourth, in August last year, ORR started conducting check-
in phone calls with sponsors and the unaccompanied child in
their care 30 days after the child's release. The calls are
intended to identify any issues concerning child safety and
provide sponsors with resource assistance. If the provider
believes that the child is unsafe, the care provider must
report this to local child protection agencies and/or local law
enforcement.
Fifth, ORR's longstanding policy had been to conduct
background checks on other individuals living with a potential
sponsor when a home study is conducted, and earlier this month,
ORR enhanced its background check policy so that household
members as well as backup care providers identified in a
sponsor safety plan are subject to background checks in all
cases.
I have highlighted five areas where we have made
significant changes. We discuss additional ones in the written
testimony. I want to emphasize that this is part of an ongoing
process for us of continuing to review our policies to
strengthen our safeguards as the program has expanded.
We appreciate the work that the Subcommittee has done. We
look forward to continuing to work with the Subcommittee to
strengthen the program, and we will be happy to answer any
questions.
Thank you.
Senator Portman. Thank you, Mr. Greenberg. Mr. Carey.
Mr. Carey. Mr. Chairman, I do not have written testimony,
but I am happy to answer any questions.
Senator Portman. You do not wish to make a statement?
Mr. Carey. No, I do not have a prepared statement.
Senator Portman. OK. Let us start where we finished with
our own opening statements, and we look forward to hearing from
you, Mr. Carey, in response to our questions at least.
Senator McCaskill and I started this investigation because
of these public reports that HHS has placed a number of these
unaccompanied children into the hands of human traffickers,
specifically this case in Marion, Ohio. When we learned the
details of those cases, we were shocked by the fact that HHS
had approved these placements, they had done so without really
verifying the sponsors were who they said they were, without
noticing the applicants were trying to accumulate multiple
children, without even questioning, for instance, whether one
sponsor had adequate financial means who reported on your form
that this person was making $200 a week in income, without ever
laying eyes on any of the homes that children would live in.
Here is one of those homes. This is a trailer you see
behind Senator Lankford in Marion, Ohio, we talked about
earlier. There were multiple children in that one trailer.
Worse, when a child welfare worker discovered that one
child did not really live where he was supposed to live, the
sponsor refused to allow any followup services, just said,
``No, you cannot even check on this child.'' And HHS policy was
to say, Fine, you can block these child welfare workers who are
on contract with HHS. Close the case. Do not do anything. That
was policy.
I have to tell you that when I heard those details for the
first time, I thought it sounds like everything that could go
wrong did go wrong. But, Mr. Carey, your Deputy Director in
charge of the unaccompanied children program told our lawyers
that, one, she was unaware of any failure to follow HHS policy
in the Marion cases; and, two, that she was unaware of any
alternative practices that would have led to a different
outcome.
So I guess what I want to ask you both this morning--and I
want an answer yes or no--is whether you agree with those
conclusions from your Deputy.
So, first, do each of you believe that HHS policy was
followed in the Marion cases? Yes or no, please. Do you agree
that HHS policy was followed in the Marion cases?
Mr. Greenberg. I have been advised by staff that it was
followed, the policy that was in effect at the time. I do want
to emphasize, as you heard in my remarks and per my testimony,
that we have made a number of----
Senator Portman. So your answer is HHS policies were
followed.
Mr. Carey, what is your answer?
Mr. Carey. I was not at ORR at the time, but I was informed
that policies that were in place at the time were followed for
these cases.
Senator Portman. So this was based on policy, these
horrible situations we have talked about. It is HHS policy that
if a child turns out not to live where the sponsor says they
will and a caregiver offering post-release services wants to
contact the child and make sure he is OK, the sponsor can
refuse those services and block access to actual child. Does
that offend you? It just does not seem like common sense.
I would ask, does anybody in the room think that that is
offensive? Raise your hand if you think that is wrong, that you
cannot even check on a child.
[Hands raised.]
Mr. Greenberg. Senator Portman, I do want to be clear that
we are following the law that Congress enacted. Our reading of
the law is that we do not have the authority to make these
visits mandatory.
Senator Portman. Congress enacted a specific law to avoid
these kind of cases. In fact, you just talked about it, and you
said that if a kid is at risk of trafficking, you have to
provide these additional services, and you did not do it. So
that is just not accurate.
Let me ask you the second question. Do each of you agree
with your Deputy that there are not any alternative practices
that would have led to a different outcome? Yes or no.
Mr. Greenberg. Senator Portman, I cannot speculate----
Senator Portman. Just yes or no.
Mr. Greenberg [continuing]. For an individual case as to
whether that would have been the circumstances----
Senator Portman. But, Mr. Greenberg----
Mr. Greenberg. I cannot talk about----
Senator Portman [continuing]. You are a guy who has concern
for these kids. You have a history of working in this area. You
do not think that there could have been a better outcome with
alternative practices?
Mr. Greenberg. What I can emphasize is that we are
continually looking at how to strengthen our practices. As I
have described, we have taken a number of steps over this last
year to do so. I cannot for any specific case say if this
practice had been in place, it would have made a difference. We
absolutely want to ensure that we have the needed policies and
practices in place, and we welcome the Committee's
recommendations to us for additional ones that we should
consider.
Senator Portman. Mr. Carey, do you agree with your Deputy
that there are not any alternative practices that would have
led to a different out?
Mr. Carey. We are deeply concerned about the well-being of
all of the children in the care of ORR and do the utmost in our
power----
Senator Portman. But let me ask you if you can answer the
question yes or no, please. You are under oath. We have asked
you to come here to testify. You did not do an opening
statement. At least answer the question.
Mr. Carey. The procedures in place at the time were
followed. There are additional procedures that have been in
place since that time. I would be reluctant to speculate what
an impact on an ongoing criminally----
Senator Portman. The Deputy says she is unaware of any
alternative practices that would have led to a different
outcome. Do you agree with that, yes or no?
Mr. Carey. I would be reluctant to speculate about what
might happen in a case that is part of an ongoing
investigation.
Senator Portman. Wow. Mr. Greenberg, I want to ask you
about a particular policy you have heard a lot about, the
Department's policy about home studies. As I think one of the
other witnesses here today will tell us, State foster care
systems, which are a pretty close analogy to what you do, never
put a child in a temporary home without laying eyes on the
living environment. HHS performed in-home reviews in only about
4 percent of the cases over the last 3 years. That is
information you gave us, 4 percent.
If you would turn to page 212 of the Appendix of the staff
report, you will see an email exchange. This is the appendix to
the report, page 212. Do you recognize this email exchange,
page 212?
Mr. Carey. The report has not been shared with us, Senator.
Senator Portman. We gave you copies of this email. Let us
provide additional copies of the email. Clerk, could you please
provide those?
Mr. Greenberg. Yes, and I am reviewing the email now,
Senator.
Senator Portman. OK. You have the email. OK, good.
[Pause.]
My question to you is: Do you recognize this email chain?
It is with you. Do you recognize it? Just yes or no.
Mr. Greenberg. Yes, it certainly appears to be our email.
Senator Portman. OK. Let me put this in context. Last
summer, ORR was considering expanding home studies--in other
words, to actually go and look at these places like this
trailer--and decided to require them when a child under age 13
is placed with a non-relative. When that proposal came to you
as head of the Administration for Children and Families, you
wrote an email to ORR leadership raising concerns about it.
Here is what you wrote: ``I assume the reason for under 13 is
that it is a smaller number for a pilot and that we will have
the greatest concern about young children less able to
communicate about their need for help. Right? But this is
probably less likely to pick up the debt labor group.'' That is
what we are talking about here this morning, the debt labor
group, these kids who were forced to work to pay off this debt.
``Do you think it would just go too far to extend to all
children going to non-relatives?'' A sensible question.
So, Mr. Greenberg, I assume you meant here that kids 13 and
older are more likely to be expected to work and, therefore,
more likely to be forced to work off debt to coyotes and to
traffickers. Is that right?
Mr. Greenberg. Yes, it is, Senator.
Senator Portman. And here you are saying that ORR's policy
change is not likely to help kids most vulnerable to labor
trafficking. Is that right?
Mr. Greenberg. It is on that specific policy.
Senator Portman. OK.
Mr. Greenberg. I have noted a number of additional
policies.
Senator Portman. You are onto something, common sense. So
in light of the trafficking risk you identified, you sensibly
asked ORR, ``Shouldn't we be performing home studies on all
non-relatives? '' This is on page 211 of the appendix. In
response, ORR Deputy Director in charge of the unaccompanied
minors program wrote back to say this: ``You are correct about
why we chose the younger children and risks associated with the
older children not being included.''
In other words, she said, yes, you are right, we are
leaving out those kids who are most vulnerable to this debt
bondage. That is exactly what happened. HHS approved the policy
change without expanding home study to kids older than 13,
despite you all knowing what you were doing for these kids who
were in the kind of situation we are talking about here today
in Marion, Ohio.
So my question to you is very simple: Do you think home
studies might have prevented the tragedy in Marion? If you had
gone and seen multiple kids living in a trailer like this, do
you think there would have been a different result?
Mr. Greenberg. Senator, as I indicated----
Senator Portman. Yes or no.
Mr. Greenberg. I simply cannot speculate as to whether a
particular policy would have resulted in a different result.
What I can say and what you can see in my email is that we were
exploring circumstances under which we could expand the use of
home studies. I expressly raised to staff the question as to
whether we should be doing home studies for all cases involving
non-relatives----
Senator Portman. And your staff apparently disregarded
that, and they did not follow that policy. And I guess, if you
cannot say this would have prevented the tragedy in Marion,
then I think that just defies common sense. Remember, much of
these sponsors were sponsors for hire by traffickers. And a
bunch of unscrupulous people were trying to accumulate multiple
children. That was obvious from any review. You did not even
have to have a home visit to see that. If you had looked at the
files, the same address appeared on multiple applications. One
of the sponsors appeared on another sponsor's applications
under an alias. I just cannot believe you would not think that
home visits would have revealed what was going on. It just
defies common sense.
Mr. Greenberg. Senator----
Senator Portman. I have gone over my time. I am now going
to ask my Ranking Member, Senator McCaskill, if she has
questions for the panel.
Senator McCaskill. OK. Just briefly, before I get into my
questioning, I want to say that DACA was not ambiguous.
Children here 2007 or earlier. This hearing is not about DACA.
This hearing is about those children who appeared at our
border, who came into our country, and, frankly, no matter how
you feel about the border, no matter how unrealistic your ideas
might be about Mexico building us a wall, no matter how you
feel about immigration, the bottom line is when a child is
admitted into our country, the United States of America should
be an example to the world about how we care for those
children. Maybe they end up not staying here forever. Maybe
they end up being deported eventually for some reason or other.
But while they are here, we have an obligation that is in the
foundation of what our country is to protect them.
Now, in 2008, Congress directed several Federal agencies,
including HHS--and you are a Harvard-educated lawyer, Mr.
Greenberg, so I know you have read this law. It says very
clearly, ``These Federal agencies''--Congress says this in the
law--``must establish policies and programs to ensure that
unaccompanied alien children in the United States are being
protected from traffickers.'' It is black-letter law, Mr.
Greenberg.
My question for you: Have you established that policy or
program specifically in response to this mandate from Congress
in 2008? Yes or no.
Mr. Greenberg. We have established a set of policies and
practices which are responsive to that mandate from Congress
and that are intended to address the protection and the safety
of children.
Senator McCaskill. Well, Mr. Greenberg, first of all, does
Mr. Carey work for you? Mr. Carey, do you report to Mr.
Greenberg?
Mr. Carey. Yes, I do.
Senator McCaskill. You do. So he is under you in terms of
the organizational chart?
Mr. Greenberg. That is correct.
Senator McCaskill. I was under the impression he was under
the other Assistant Secretary who has not been confirmed.
Mr. Carey. No. I report to Mr. Greenberg.
Senator McCaskill. OK. Well, that was not clear, by the
way, and this is from staff that has been poring through your
records and your org charts. So now we know. Can you fire Mr.
Carey?
I am not asking if you are going to. I am asking if you
can.
Mr. Greenberg. I, frankly, do not know. I would need to
talk with colleagues at the Department, and I certainly have no
reason that I would wish to.
Senator McCaskill. Well, I do not want to disagree with
you, but I have to say on the record that you have not
established a direct policy or program in relationship to that.
You have had drafts for years. How many years have there been
drafts going around? You all have not been there that long, but
you have to know, right? There has not been a draft--or there
has not ever been a regulation posted for even commenting on
this subject, has there, Mr. Greenberg?
Mr. Greenberg. Senator McCaskill, I hope that you would
both recognize the number of changes and improvements we have
made in the last year----
Senator McCaskill. You made a great improvement 3 days ago.
I am not sure it would have happened if it was not for this
hearing, but you did. I mean, no question, in the last 6 months
you guys have gotten busy. My question is: What has been going
on since 2008? And why would you sit here and say the law does
not give you any ability to protect these children when we
specifically in the law in 2008 mandated that you do so?
Mr. Greenberg. Senator McCaskill, I want to be clear that
our efforts to improve safety and do more to address well-being
for the children in the program began well before July. When I
testified before this Committee last July, I described a number
of these efforts at that time. It has been an ongoing process.
It will continue to be. We look forward to reviewing the
Committee's report and the Committee's recommendations for what
else we can be doing to strengthen our efforts.
Senator McCaskill. Well, let me ask you a hypothetical.
And, Mr. Carey, I would appreciate it if you would weigh in on
this hypothetical.
A 15-year-old Guatemalan girl is released to ``a family
friend'' as a sponsor under Category 3. She does not show up
for her hearing. What happens? Mr. Carey.
Mr. Carey. I cannot speak to the specifics of a case with
which I am not familiar.
Senator McCaskill. This is a hypothetical case, Mr. Carey.
This is not a real case. You can speak to the specifics of
this. You are not going to be able to avoid every question
here. Let us try again.
Mr. Carey. Nor do I----
Senator McCaskill. Let us try again.
Mr. Carey [continuing]. Intend to, Senator.
Senator McCaskill. A hypothetical. A 15-year-old Guatemalan
girl is given to a Category 3 sponsor, ``family friend,'' does
not show up for her hearing. What happens? What responsibility
do you have?
Mr. Carey. ORR's responsibility does not extend to the
legal representation or the legal presence at a hearing.
Senator McCaskill. Would it make you think, since Congress
said in 2008 you guys are supposed to be having policies and
program to protect these kids, would common sense tell you that
maybe if this child did not show up for the hearing, their
sponsor is maybe not being responsible?
Mr. Carey. Senator, our responsibilities with regard to
anti-trafficking are put in force from the day a child arrives
into our care. They are screened for trafficking. They meet
with clinicians in individual and group settings many times
over the course of their stay. Additional information is sought
from every source available.
Senator McCaskill. So the answer is no, you have no
responsibility, you do nothing if she does not show up for a
hearing. You are trying to say all these things happen ahead of
time. I am asking you what happens when she does not show up
for her hearing. Does anybody call the sponsor? Does anybody
decide that is time for a home visit? Does that occur? Mr.
Greenberg.
Mr. Greenberg. So in a hypothetical situation, if there are
post-release services being provided, then there would be
ongoing followup with the child----
Senator McCaskill. I am asking specifically if the fact--we
know that the majority of children who show up for their
hearings are allowed to stay in this country. We know that a
much higher percentage of children are not showing up for these
hearings if they are in Category 3. We know that. You know
that, right? If you do not know that and I know that, we are
really in trouble. You know that, right? Mr. Carey, you know
that, right?
Mr. Carey. We have limited information on the number of
children----
Senator McCaskill. No, you have to be kidding me. You are
telling me you do not know that? You have limited information?
All you have to do is pick up the phone and ask somebody. That
is what we did.
Mr. Greenberg, are you aware that Category 3 do not show up
for their hearings as often?
Mr. Greenberg. I have not seen information to that effect.
Senator McCaskill. OK. Well, I could go on for way too
long, and I do not mean to be so hard on the two of you. You
have good hearts, I am sure. But you have to step back from
this. You have to step back from this and look. What everybody
is doing is doing this, out the door, we are done. And you know
what? The Department of Homeland Security says, they say,
``When it is children, it is HHS.'' And you guys say, ``Well,
we put them with a sponsor. It is not us.'' So no one is using
the failure to show at a hearing as a moment of realization
that somebody is watching this child that is not being
responsible for their welfare. And you know what happens when
that child is finally picked up? They get deported no matter
what. So, of course, they are not going to come up later
because chances are if it is a bad-guy sponsor, he is worried
about a whole lot of other potential consequences in his life.
So it is just when I read all of this information, I mean,
I would expect you guys to read this stuff and have it all
memorized before this hearing, what we have learned from you.
And the fact that you are not aware that the chances of a
Category 3 sponsor showing up is much diminished from other
kinds of sponsors and that that should be a warning sign--and I
want to know this: When, in fact--and I know neither one of you
will answer this question, but I want it on the record. Here is
the bottom line: She does not show up for a hearing. There has
not been a blanket of home visits. Or the sponsor says, ``We do
not want you anymore to look at us, we do not have to look at
you anymore.'' And she ends up being trafficked on Backpage,
another investigation we are doing, for sex. Whose fault is
that? And if you guys think it is not your fault, if you think
you bear no responsibility for that, I think you are wrong. I
think you are flat wrong. And I would like to see a turn here
at this hearing and all of a sudden say, ``We should take
responsibility,'' because somebody is going to take
responsibility. If you need black-letter law, I can guarantee
we can get it. But I think the black-letter law is pretty
clear. I did not go to Harvard. I went to one of those public
schools. I went to the University of Missouri. And I will tell
you, when I read that law, I do not think I would have the
nerve to say that Congress has not given us the authority to
watch these kids.
Thank you.
Mr. Greenberg. Senator McCaskill, may I respond, please?
Senator McCaskill. Yes, you may.
Mr. Greenberg. Senator, as I have emphasized throughout,
our overall concern is absolutely with the safety and well-
being of the children. We are implementing a law that Congress
has enacted. It is a law that simply did not envision that
there were going to be home studies in every case. It did not
envision that there were going to be post-release services in
every case. Congress can choose to change the law to make it be
that way----
Senator McCaskill. Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a
minute.
Mr. Greenberg. If I could----
Senator McCaskill. Wait a minute. Establish policies and
programs to ensure that unaccompanied alien children in the
United States are protected from traffickers. What in the law
is keeping you from establishing right now, putting up today--
by the way, your program manual, we cannot even see it, what
you are supposed to do. It is not even available to the public.
But why don't you put up on the website today that you are
going to have home visits every case when someone does not show
up for a hearing? What keeps you from doing that as part of
this policy and program? Why can't you go back today and do
that?
Mr. Greenberg. Senator McCaskill, I will be happy to go
back and talk with our lawyers as to whether they believe we
have----
Senator McCaskill. Well, I would love to talk to your
lawyers.
Mr. Greenberg [continuing]. The authority to do it.
Senator McCaskill. You are a lawyer. You know better. You
know you can do that under this law.
Mr. Greenberg. Senator McCaskill, I have had multiple
conversations about trying to identify what our authority is
and what else we can be doing. What we are talking about today
is our understanding of our authority under the law. If the
Committee or other Members of Congress want to work to change
the law or to clarify our authority----
Senator McCaskill. Well, I need your lawyers to get me in
writing, and I would like it within a week, what it is in the
law that prevents you from doing a home visit when a Category 3
unaccompanied minor does not show up for their hearing. What
keeps you from doing a home visit? I want to know in the law
what keeps you from doing that.
Mr. Greenberg. We will followup and ask that question to
our lawyers.
Senator Portman. Thanks, Senator McCaskill. Of course, it
is much worse than that because you have kids who actually told
you, told HHS, that this sponsor was not a family friend; it
was someone to ``get me out of HHS custody.'' We have that
information now from you all. We even have a situation where
somebody said, ``As soon as I got to the airport, HHS bought my
plane ticket, the so-called sponsor took off and put me in the
hands of other people.'' They have told you that.
So the situation Senator McCaskill talks about, of course,
but it is even plainer than that. And, obviously, you have a
responsibility here. I mean, you are not going to be able to
say that there is not adequate legal basis for you to keep
these kids out of the hands of traffickers when it is so
obvious, when there was no check done.
So, I must say I am very discouraged by what I am hearing
today because you continue to try to evade responsibility when
it is so obvious. Senator Heitkamp.
Senator Heitkamp. I just sit here and I wonder how we can
possibly be having this conversation. How can we possibly not
take in all seriousness the tragic situation of these children
who are fleeing conditions that are unimaginable to us, coming
to this country, believing this country has the ability to
somehow protect them, but yet we sit here, important as what we
are, Senators and high-ranking officials, saying we do not have
the ability to protect kids, there is no law?
Mr. Greenberg, when you looked at this gap in so-called
authority, which I agree with Senator McCaskill does not exist,
but when you believed it existed, did you say, ``My goodness,
we do not have the ability to do background checks, we do not
have the ability to do home visits on a sponsor, we need to go
to Congress and get an emergency bill passed to protect
children''? Did anyone in the administration have that
conversation?
Mr. Greenberg. Senator Heitkamp, what I can say is that we
have had very active conversation----
Senator Heitkamp. Do you understand why we are angry?
Because every time we ask you a question, you got, ``How am I
going to answer that?'' Answer it by telling us what
conversations you had? This was your obligation to protect
these children. What conversations did you have, beyond what we
see here in these emails, that would suggest to us that you put
the safety and well-being of these children, in a bill that was
passed to prevent trafficking, you put the safety and well-
being of these children first? What conversation did you have
when you saw this obstacle that you have been telling Senator
McCaskill that exists in the law to change the law so that you
would actually have access? Because I can tell you, as a former
State official, if the State ran a foster care program under
IV-E like this, without home visits, they would not be getting
IV-E dollars very long. There is no State agency that runs a
foster care program like this.
I think we can completely appreciate the extent to which
DHS was overrun. But going back again to Senator McCaskill's
point, this was 2008. This was not the big surge. This is a
longstanding problem.
So what conversations--or let us ask you this from your
opinion. Did you ever once think, ``I need to get the law fixed
because these children are not getting protected? '' You have a
strong background and a strong history in protecting children.
Were you ever personally troubled by your inability to protect
children?
Mr. Greenberg. Yes. Let me say more to answer that
directly. There was some discussion before about this should
not just be a paper process, and for me this has never been a
paper process. I can tell you that I have visited the Rio
Grande Valley four times over the last 2 years. When I go, I
talk with children, providers and their staff, and with
advocates and I talk----
Senator Heitkamp. And we all do. We have all been at the
border, and I have spent time there. You came back from that
does a great job. We are here to learn. So when you came back,
listening to those children, what policy change,
recommendations did you make at DHS to prevent this from
happening?
Mr. Greenberg. What I would emphasize is it is very clear
the way the law currently works that we have limited authority
around home studies, and limited authority around post-release
services. I have conveyed that very directly to this Committee
in my prior testimony. When I publicly talk about the program,
I make very clear the limited role that HHS plays.
Senator Heitkamp. I do not mean to belabor this, but, when
I was Attorney General (AG), we have a boarding school, an
Indian boarding school that we were hearing rumors about
behaviors, and no one wanted to take jurisdiction. Everybody
said, ``No, that is somebody else.'' And I just thought
somebody has to take responsibility for this. And so we just
stepped into the void. And so, occasionally, don't you think it
is smart, even when you see something involving the welfare of
children, to step into the void, to challenge the legal
ramifications and say let us do the right thing and sort it out
later?
The problem that we have here is that there are bad people
in this country, there are bad people all over the world, and,
I would be remiss if I did not ask the question for Senator
Tester who had to leave. So I just want to say, OK, now we have
this horrible situation which has been revealed that is the
subject of this hearing. And it is Senator Tester and my
understanding that the egg farm is still in business. Is that
true, the egg farm is still operating?
Mr. Greenberg. I have no knowledge other than press
accounts.
Senator Heitkamp. OK. What do you think happens when this
all gets swept under the rug, when we are trying to really get
at the bad guys, get at the people who do this, who think that
they can continue--because these kids are invisible, continue
to operate with impunity, to operate businesses that are
nothing short of modern-day slavery, when we do not report it,
when we do not have testimony from these kids because the kids
are in the wind, they are gone?
So my point, I guess, is that not only did we put kids at
risk, but getting to prosecutions for people who do very bad
things become impossible when we do not have the children
protected. And so I would just say that I hope that what good
comes out of this hearing, which has been, I think, more
contentious than any of us thought it would get, that you guys
really take this back and say, What is the perfect system?
Maybe we cannot always have the perfect system. But at least
the worst State foster care system, can we do as good at the
worst-case foster care system in the Federal Government when we
are protecting children?
I look forward to your recommendations on what we can do
not only from a law change but also from a resource management
change.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Portman. Thank you, Senator Heitkamp.
Senator Carper would like to make a brief comment about an
earlier----
Senator Carper. Yes, I just want to correct something for
the record. Thanks so much, Mr. Chairman. I did an audible here
when I spoke briefly earlier in the hearing and trying to
explain why the numbers of illegal folks in this country was
going down. And one of the reasons was because there are more
people going from the United States into Mexico than the other
way around. I mentioned I thought that Mexico had somewhere
between 150 and 200 million people. They have 122 million
people. If you add up the populations of Honduras, Guatemala,
and El Salvador, it adds up to about just under 30 million
people. So I think the difference in population is not 8:1. It
is 4:1. But that helps to explain the changes in migration
numbers.
Thank you.
Senator Portman. Thank you. Senator Johnson.
Chairman Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Greenberg, according to your bio here, you joined the
Administration for Children and Families in 2009. Is that
correct?
Mr. Greenberg. Yes, it is, sir.
Chairman Johnson. I want to kind of direct my questions to
you because it coincides neatly with my chart where I date back
to 2009. Again, just to remind you people, about 3,300
unaccompanied children came in; the next year, 4,400; then
about 4,000; then it started ramping up.
I really want to just have you tell me what was happening
within the agency during that time period. I want to understand
the history of your manpower, how you grappled with this, kind
of what started happening in 2012, 2013, 2014, when it really
exploded.
Mr. Greenberg. Senator Johnson, although I joined ACF in
2009, I did not begin to work closely with the program until I
became Acting Assistant Secretary, which was late in 2013. I
can certainly speak to what has happened since that time.
Chairman Johnson. OK. Well, do so. I want to hear to the
extent this has just overwhelmed your management capacity.
Mr. Greenberg. As I noted in my opening comments, the
challenge for us was that the program did grow by nearly 10
times over a 3-year period. From about 6,000 kids, to nearly
60,000 kids. There is no question that in the summer of 2014,
which was when I first testified before this Committee, we were
facing a set of capacity issues about how to address the number
of children that had arrived and to ensure that we were able to
provide adequate shelter for them.
It is also the case that after that situation got under
control and as the numbers of kids went down, we did look
broadly to say this is a program that has grown 10 times in 3
years, what are the things that we need to do to strengthen it?
Part of that involved significantly expanding the staff of the
Office of Refugee Resettlement. Part of that----
Chairman Johnson. So give me some numbers on that in terms
of staff increases.
Mr. Greenberg. I will ask Bob if he can say precisely, but
approximately authorizing something in the range of about 70
additional staff.
Chairman Johnson. From what level? What was the baseline
level to what? It went from where to where?
Mr. Greenberg. I do not have the precise numbers in front
of me. It was roughly 50-something full-time staff, some
contractors, but it was roughly 50-something and adding another
70. I would ask Bob if he can respond to that.
Mr. Carey. That is accurate. Approximately 70 were added
over the course of the surge.
Mr. Greenberg. One thing that we did was greatly strengthen
our staffing. A second thing we did----
Chairman Johnson. So in 2009, we basically had about 50
people in this capacity, roughly, because you are not going to
really change much. And that was to handle about 3,300 kids,
4,000, somewhere on that level. Then it started ramping up to
10,000 to 21,000 to 51,000, and we took the offices from 50
people to 70 people.
Mr. Greenberg. No. We added 70 more----
Chairman Johnson. That is what I am saying, I mean 50 to
120.
Mr. Greenberg. That is right.
Chairman Johnson. So another 70 people, manpower to handle
literally 50,000, 51,000 more.
Mr. Greenberg. In addition, over that time we were greatly
expanding the number of grantees who were providing shelter for
the children. To highlight the other things that happened, we
increased staffing. When the prior Director of ORR left, we
made the determination to have both an ORR Director and to
create a Deputy Director for Children's Programs and to create
a Chief of Staff to strengthen the overall efforts. We created
a Policy Division within ORR. Senator McCaskill mentioned
before the issue of policy. We were concerned in 2014 that our
policy was not transparent and that it was not readily
available, therefore we created a Policy Division. They have
been working to post our policies on the website. There was
also a reference to the need for rules. We are actively working
on a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking. It is our full intent it
will be out this year. All of those things happened.
In addition to that, I do want to emphasize that this set
of things that we put in place around strengthening attention
to child safety were things that we started doing later in 2014
and early in 2015. In addition to the ones that I talked about
in my testimony, we strengthened the conditions under which we
would do child abuse and neglect (CA/N) checks. We have put in
place clear policies for when criminal convictions will matter
for purposes of disqualifying sponsors----
Chairman Johnson. OK. I am running out of time. OK, good.
Mr. Greenberg. OK.
Chairman Johnson. As I said, again, just from the outside
looking in, we have obviously gotten more efficient at handling
the surge. I do want you to address what is currently happening
in this first quarter. The fact that we went in 2014 from about
8,600 in the first quarter--again, 2014, to remind everybody,
that was the biggest year, close to 52,000 unaccompanied
children. So that year started at about 8,600 kids. This year
it is already up to 14,000--not quite double. What is
happening? What has been your reaction to that?
Again, we are not hearing the alarm bell sounding here, but
I would think based on this Committee's report, their
investigation, alarm bells should be sounding. So what is
happening here? Describe the efficiency of how we are moving
these kids and what is being, obviously, lost in the cracks in
our efficiency.
Mr. Greenberg. Between 2014 and 2015, the number of
children fell from about 58,000 to 34,000. When I testified
before the Committee in July, I talked about how the numbers
had fallen. The numbers then began rising. Normally there is a
spring-summer increase and then the numbers fall after that.
The pattern that we saw this year did not correspond to that.
The numbers did continue to rise through the fall and
through December. Our January numbers are lower than the
December numbers, but there is no question that these were
higher. We have actively kept appropriators aware of those
circumstances. We have been looking for additional----
Chairman Johnson. Well, OK. So my time is done. My final
comment is the true solution here is let us reduce and stop the
flow, and that we have to really take a look at the policies in
our own immigration laws that incentivize this behavior, and
listen to the President of Honduras who said please end the
ambiguity in our laws that is creating that.
Again, I would like to take the pressure off, but in order
to do that, we have to really look to the real root cause and
what is driving this and creating these kind of tragedies.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Portman. Senator Lankford.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR LANKFORD
Senator Lankford. Gentlemen, let me bring up a couple
things with you. The Trafficking Victims Protection
Reauthorization Act of 2008, here is the statute: ``the care
and custody of all unaccompanied alien children, including
responsibility for their detention, where appropriate, shall be
the responsibility of the Secretary of Health and Human
Services.''
The care and custody of all unaccompanied alien children is
the responsibility of Health and Human Services, including
their detention, if needed.
Of the 90,000-plus children that are out there that have
been put into care since 2008, if I were to ask you how many of
those could you find right now, that we know where they are,
how many of those do you think you could find? Give me a
percentage guess of the 90,000-plus that are out there. They
were placed in a sponsor's home, either saying this is a parent
or a relative or a non-relative sponsor. Of the 90,000-plus,
how many of them do you think you would know where they are if
I asked you to give me a phone number or an address, you could
tell me.
Mr. Greenberg. Senator, I could not guess on that. I can
tell you that we have the information at the time of release.
If the child is receiving post-release services, we will have
continued information after that.
Senator Lankford. But you have no idea how many of them you
could still contact today?
Mr. Greenberg. We do not. Again, this is based upon our
clear understanding of the law and what we are authorized to do
under the law.
Senator Lankford. ``The care and custody of all
unaccompanied alien children, including responsibility for
their detention, where appropriate, shall be the responsibility
of . . . Health and Human Services.'' So I am trying to figure
out the ambiguity in that. It would seem to be not just when
they cross the border in that detention moment, but it is the
care and custody. Once you have transitioned them to a sponsor,
is it your assumption that is no longer the care and custody,
now the law says once you give it to a sponsor it is the
sponsor?
Mr. Greenberg. That has been HHS' longstanding
interpretation of the law, and what I want to make clear is
that in the majority of cases, when children are released, they
are released to their parents.
Senator Lankford. OK. So let me ask you about that. How do
you know it is their parents? What verification are you using
that this is a parent? And how are you selecting where they go
and, when it is a non-relative, where they are placed, who that
is? Who chooses?
Mr. Greenberg. Under the law that governs us, our first
preference has to be for their parents----
Senator Lankford. Correct, so how do you know it is the
parent? That is what I am asking.
Mr. Greenberg. There is a process for verifying the
relationship between parent and child. It will involve the use
of birth certificates and other forms of identification.
Senator Lankford. OK. So let me back up, because I have
done the same thing you have. I have been down to the detention
facilities, which, by the way, before I came here to Congress,
I was the director of the largest youth camp in the country. We
had 51,000 guests a summer. We were a very large operation. So
when I went and visited a facility where there were 1,000
teenagers that were there, I am very aware of what it takes to
do all the work around that. As I went and visited and talked
to the kids and walked to the staff and interacted with the
contractors that were there, I had individuals ask me later,
``What did you think?'' I left and said, ``That facility is
exactly how I would have run my camp if money was no object.''
Because there was a tremendous number of staff and buffers and
all kinds of things wrapped around those kids. And what is
astounding to me is how it runs the first 30 days that they are
in the United States versus every other day after that for
these kids. And so many of them never show up at their Notice
to Appear (NTA), and we have no idea where they are, how they
are being cared for, what has happened, how they have
integrated into society, and we are aware that when we are put
into a home that is not a near relative often, they never show
up for a Notice to Appear, and we are aware they just
disappear.
Now, the struggle that I have is if you are aware a high
percentage is going to disappear or you are aware that we are
putting at people at risk of trafficking, why wouldn't we hold
them at their initial facilities where they are being well
taken care of until court proceedings and we know they are not
going to be at risk in other locations and they can go through
their court proceedings? And many of those are returned to
their home country. They do not have a relative here, and so
they are being returned to their home country. But, instead,
they are being released into the United States to people we do
not know who they are, we are not checking up on them, there
has not been adequate fingerprints, there has not been home
visits. There is no acknowledgment that we know where they are
months later. But we are not detaining them as the law
requires. We are releasing them knowing full well we will
probably never see them again and they are illegally into our
country. Help me understand that.
Mr. Greenberg. Senator, I would first say that I agree that
the services are very good in the shelters.
Senator Lankford. They are. It is very good.
Mr. Greenberg. we are very proud of them. We would
encourage any Members of the Committee, WHO have not visited,
to visit the shelters.
We have a legal responsibility to release the children both
under the Flores Consent Decree that governs us and under the
TVPRA, which says that children need to be in the least
restrictive setting in the best interest of the child.
Senator Lankford. So take me a year back, go a year ago
last January. We have a child that did not come with a letter
and a phone number, which many of these children are coming
across the border with a picture of someone, with a letter,
with a phone number, some sort of identification, and what you
did not say before is what I know to be true: You are selecting
these sponsors because the child has a piece of paperwork in
their hand saying, ``This is who I want to stay with when I get
to the United States,'' correct? Most often the child is
walking in and saying, ``This is the person I want to stay
with.''
Mr. Greenberg. That will often be the case.
Senator Lankford. OK.
Mr. Greenberg. Not always, but often.
Senator Lankford. But parent/non-parent, then you are
trying to guess then is this really the parent, and if it is a
non-relative, you are still trying to guess: Is this really a
good non-relative? Was this given to them by the coyote, or was
this given to them by some parent in the past? They arrive
then. They are placed in that. A year ago, did that person that
they were being placed with, was there a fingerprint done for
that individual that they were being placed with? Go back a
year ago. So the sponsor/non-relative, when they said this is
the phone number and the location I am told to go to, was there
a fingerprint done for that sponsor? Yes or no.
Mr. Greenberg. Senator, are you asking about a particular
case or about policy?
Senator Lankford. Just a yes or no. Do we do fingerprints
on the sponsors on a Category 3 non-relative that this child
walked in and had a phone number for, not knowing really all
the history of that phone number, where that came from and that
address, did we do a fingerprint on that person?
Mr. Greenberg. Yes, there should have been fingerprinting
done.
Senator Lankford. Did we do a home visit for that person?
Mr. Greenberg. A year ago, we would have only done a home
visit if it fell into one of our categories----
Senator Lankford. If they are special needs, if we thought
they were----
Mr. Greenberg [continuing]. Under the law or----
Senator Lankford. Correct. So then let me ask a question.
Did we verify that person was a legal citizen of the United
States?
Mr. Greenberg. We would not do that.
Senator Lankford. Why?
Mr. Greenberg. Because under the Flores Decree, we have an
order of release, first to parents, then to close relatives,
then other relatives----
Senator Lankford. Even if it is not--because no foster care
in the country is going to place a child in a home of someone
that is illegally in the United States, that we have not done a
full background visit, we have not done the process, because
there is this sense that if we are going to have long-term
custody or care, if it is a parent, that is a different issue.
We are talking about a non-parent in here, to be able to place
someone in a non-parent's home that is not a legal citizen of
the United States or that there were people in the facility
that were not legal.
Mr. Greenberg. Senator, both you and other Senators have
made a number of references to foster care. I want to emphasize
the foster care system is different in a lot of ways.
Senator Lankford. I understand it is. I was just looking
for the question here.
Mr. Greenberg. If I could just say a word about that. The
foster care system does involve licensing and training of
foster care parents and facilities. It involves paying foster
care maintenance payments to them. It involves a structure of
States having caseworkers who are doing monthly visits to the
child.
Senator Lankford. We all get that. That is not the
question.
Mr. Greenberg. I do want to emphasize that is a different
structure than this one. If Congress wants this structure to
look more like the foster care system, that is absolutely a
choice that Congress can make.
Senator Lankford. No, I think it is the decision on
placement. I think it is not about long-term care and training
and all those things. I get that. It is the decision on
placement to say a person's fingerprint, background check, we
know this person does not have criminal records, we know that
that person does not have a Notice to Appear that they have
skipped, and then that is obviously going to increase the
chances that a child is placed in that house that is also going
to skip a Notice to Appear, or the most basic thing that
Senator McCaskill brought up over and over again is this issue
of if a child skips a Notice to Appear, that is clearly
negligence. They are not following the law. That is a clear
issue that they were negligent in not delivering the child at
that appropriate time. That should set off an alarm on this
clear statute that says the custody and care of alien children
falls on HHS.
So I guess all we are trying to figure out is what are we
missing at this point.
Mr. Greenberg. On the specific question Senator McCaskill
raised, we will followup. We will go back to the lawyers and
talk about that one.
I want to emphasize for sponsors how different it is than
foster care. We are not paying these people anything. The
children are typically not eligible for public benefits. This
is just determination of who should the child live with while
they are awaiting their immigration proceedings. In most cases,
that is going to be the child's parent. If it cannot be the
parent, we look for a relative, and only if we cannot find an
appropriate parent or relative would we ever go to the family
friend.
Senator Lankford. All right. Thank you.
Senator Portman. Senator McCain.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR MCCAIN
Senator McCain. Well, I want to thank you, Mr. Chairman,
for holding this hearing on this very important issue, and
especially the abuses that are inflicted on these young
children once they get here.
According to this, we now have in 2016, just in the first
quarter, 14,260. Then if this keeps up, this would be a record-
breaking year. Is that true?
Mr. Greenberg. If it does keep up, yes.
Senator McCain. OK. Now, let us talk for a minute about how
they get here. They get here, 99 percent of them, in the hands
of coyotes, right?
Mr. Greenberg. I would say often. I cannot say----
Senator McCain. I am asking you straightforward questions.
You and I know that the majority of them are in the hands of
coyotes, right?
Mr. Greenberg. I cannot offer a specific percentage. I can
say when I talk to kids, I hear a range of stories about how
they get here.
Senator McCain. It is a well-known fact, Mr. Greenberg----
Mr. Greenberg. It is often a coyote.
Senator McCain [continuing]. That the majority of children
are--that coyotes are paid thousands of dollars, and they are
transported to our border. I mean, Mr. Greenberg, we are
talking about facts that are well known.
Mr. Greenberg. Senator McCain, I absolutely agree that it
is a very common thing. I just could not say that it was 99
percent.
Senator McCain. Excuse me. OK. So they are in the hands of
coyotes, right? The majority of them, right?
Mr. Greenberg. Often.
Senator McCain. Mr. Greenberg, you are a very interesting
witness. You and I know that the overwhelming majority of
coyotes are paid to bring them to the United States. They ride
on the top of trains, and they often fall off and are killed.
More importantly than that, young women who are brought by
coyotes are invariably sexually abused on the way. We know
that, right?
Mr. Greenberg. We know that happens often, Senator. What I
am saying to you----
Senator McCain. OK. And we also know that these same
coyotes that are bringing the children are also bringing drugs,
right? Same cartels. Do you know that? You do not know that?
Mr. Greenberg. Often.
Senator McCain. It is more than often, Mr. Greenberg. It is
invariably the case. And if you do not know that, then you are
not doing your job. It is well known that the majority of
children who come here are brought by coyotes, and it is well
known that the coyotes are part of the drug cartels. Are you
denying that? Yes or no.
Mr. Greenberg. Senator, I am saying that I do not know
that.
Senator McCain. You do not know that? You do not know that,
Mr. Greenberg, with your experience--I mean, this is crazy.
Everybody knows that. Talk to any Border Patrol agent. Come
with me down to Nogales, and they will tell you how they got
there, and they will tell you who brought them, and they will
tell you what happened to the children along the way. And for
you to sit there feigning a lack of knowledge of the facts is
really insulting.
Mr. Greenberg. Senator, I have talked to Border Patrol
agents and have done so regularly when I am down there. I do
not want to speak for them, but what I am told is that often
the coyotes are independent of the drug cartels. I do not have
personal knowledge on this.
Senator McCain. Why don't you have firsthand knowledge?
Every other law enforcement agent does. All the Border Patrol
people do. Everybody knows what the facts are. Mr. Greenberg,
this is a very frustrating--OK. Well, let me tell you what is
going on, Mr. Greenberg. Let me tell you. These are coyotes.
They are part of the drug cartels. The overwhelming majority of
children, their parents have paid thousands of dollars to have
them transported, and many of the young women are sexually
abused on the way. Those are well-known facts, Mr. Greenberg,
and I do not know where you have been living, but you ought to
know that, because those are facts.
So then the question is: If those are facts--and they are--
then why don't we do more in the country of origin--Guatemala,
El Salvador, Honduras--where we can have these young people
come to our consulatesor our embassies and there apply for this
asylum so they are not subjected to this terrible experience of
being transported by coyotes, and who are drug dealers as well,
to our border? And yet the information that I have is that the
State Department received 4,000 applications for the program
and conducted 90 interviews. What are you doing down there at
these embassies and consulates, when young people come to you
for shelter from the abuses and threats to their lives that are
posed by the chaos within their countries, which are, by the
way, mainly bred by drug cartels?
Mr. Greenberg. Senator, the Administration does believe
that having in-country processing is an important thing to do.
The specifics of it are under the responsibility of the State
Department.
Senator McCain. Despite the fact that of 4,000
applications, 90 interviews were held. They may believe that,
but they are not doing it. Has there been any increase in
consulate personnel or embassy personnel to handle these cases
in these three countries?
Mr. Greenberg. I am sorry. I cannot speak to that, Senator.
It is best directed to the State Department.
Senator McCain. So you would not have any idea, even though
your responsibilities are on this issue.
Mr. Chairman, I cannot ask any more questions of this
witness. This is the definition of ``non-cooperative.''
Senator Portman. Thank you, Senator McCain.
We are now into our second round, and I am going to start,
and I guess I am going to focus on the issue that I think
Senator McCain has just touched on, and Senator Lankford, which
is HHS unbelievably taking this position that somehow you are
not responsible for these kids once they leave the detention
facilities. You release them to a sponsor. Basically you are
saying we have no more responsibility.
You have taken that position even though Federal law, as
was just quoted, says that responsibility for care and custody
of all these unaccompanied minor kids rests with HHS and even
though Congress has mandated HHS actually provide post-release
monitoring in some cases specifically, and even those there is
a judicial decree that governs this program, also known as the
``Flores Agreement.''
In response to Senator Lankford's questions, Mr. Greenberg
and Mr. Carey, your response was, well, the Flores Agreement
requires us to get these kids out the door. That is basically
what your response was. Let me just make it absolutely clear.
The Flores Agreement does not authorize you to cut corners,
period. It clearly states that HHS should place children with a
family member or a family friend who is ``capable and willing
to care for the minor's well-being.'' That is in the Flores
Agreement. That is a quote.
It also says, of course, under the Trafficking Victims
Protection Act that you are forbidden from releasing any
unaccompanied alien child ``unless the Secretary of HHS makes a
determination that the proposed custodian is capable of
providing for the child's physical and mental well-being.''
So this notion that you are going to hide behind the Flores
Agreement or Federal law to me is you shirking your
responsibilities. It is clear that HHS is not permitted to skip
reasonable precautions that are necessary to make the
determination that is provided for under law specifically and
under the Flores Agreement.
To me, I guess that is the biggest concern that I have
after today's hearing, is that despite our work, the work of
others, the AP investigation, the back-and-forth we have had
with you for 6 months on this, that you continue to think that
somehow your legal responsibilities do not continue after you
place a child.
Let me ask you this question: Has HHS ever terminated a
sponsorship agreement for failure to properly care for a child
and resume custody of that child? Have you ever terminated a
sponsorship agreement?
Mr. Greenberg. Not that I am aware of.
Senator Portman. Mr. Carey.
Mr. Carey. Not that I am aware of.
Senator Portman. So out of tens of thousands of kids, you
have never, including in this case in Marion, Ohio, when those
kids were living in that trailer, with a bunch of adults, debt
labor, you have never terminated an agreement?
Mr. Greenberg. Senator Portman, if I can respond more
fully, our view that we do not have continuing custody after we
release the child is a longstanding HHS view. It was the view
before I got there. I am happy to take it back to the lawyers
and ask them about it again. Also, if this is an area where
Congress wants the law to be different, Congress should change
the law.
Senator Portman. The law already says that, and the Flores
Agreement already says that. Have you read the Inspector
General's report on this? It dates back to 2008. Have you read
that report?
Mr. Greenberg. I would have to go back and check.
Senator Portman. Well, the Inspector General of HHS
recommended that if there was any doubt about this, that HHS
and the Department of Homeland Security should enter into a
Memorandum of Understanding to clarify ``which Department is
responsible for ensuring the safety of children once they are
released to sponsors and which Department is responsible for
ensuring sponsors continue compliance with sponsors'
agreements.'' Have you read that? Have you read that report?
Mr. Greenberg. I do not recall reading that, Senator.
Senator Portman. I would encourage you to read it. HHS has
had quite a long time to think about it. It dates back 8 years.
After these 8 years have passed without any final action on
your part to clear up this basic question about HHS versus DHS,
these kinds of conditions are present. This is the result,
never having terminated a sponsorship, despite some of these
horrific conditions that we are talking about today.
I will tell you, you have missed opportunities one after
another. I talked about that in my opening statement. But this
is certainly the biggest one, just not taking the
responsibility and not doing any kind of appropriate oversight.
You talked earlier about the fact that you have these home
visits. We have looked into this, and we heard that home visits
were something that you did. You gave us some numbers on it. We
looked at your own numbers, and we found out that it was only 4
percent of the cases. Is that your understanding?
Mr. Greenberg. That is my understanding, yes.
Senator Portman. Four percent home visits. It is no wonder
you have these kinds of problems. Senator McCaskill.
Senator McCaskill. What is the most important thing you are
going to do after this hearing?
Mr. Greenberg. After the hearing, I am going to read the
Committee's report. I am going to ensure that we share it with
staff and all other interested parties in the Department, and
that we actively discuss the findings from the report and what
the implications are for our existing policies and what we can
do to strengthen our policies.
Senator McCaskill. And would you put an asterisk on the to-
do list to ask the lawyers to put in writing why they think
that you all have no responsibility after you place these
children in particularly Category 3 homes?
Mr. Greenberg. Yes. I have that on my list from our earlier
exchange, and we will absolutely followup on that.
Senator McCaskill. Yes, because it seems to be the heart of
the matter here. Let me just give you this factual recitation.
On July 1, 2015, a Federal grand jury indicted four
defendants in Marion. In October 2015, 3 months later, HHS
officials met with the Subcommittee staff of this Committee.
The staff of this Committee met with HHS. At that meeting, 3
months after an indictment, the HHS officials knew little or
nothing about the children involved in the case or with the
details of the placements with their sponsors.
I mean, this lack of urgency is cultural, Mr. Greenberg. If
I were sitting in your job and I picked up the morning paper
and said four people have been indicted for trafficking
children that your agency had placed in there are, I mean, red
lights would flash, sirens would go off. There would
immediately be a team of people to look and see what children
were placed there, were there other children placed there, what
were we told, did we look at the documents. And none of that
had occurred. It was like, ``Well, yes.''
So when were you first notified that unaccompanied children
placed by HHS had been trafficked in the Marion case? When was
your first notification?
Mr. Greenberg. To the best of my recollection, I became
aware when the indictment came out and there was press at that
time. I can tell you that at that time I did talk with ORR
about our existing policies and what else we needed to do to
strengthen them. As you can see, and as you saw in my
testimony, we broadened the home study requirements in July, to
extend to circumstances where a sponsor was trying to sponsor
more than one child or had previously sponsored a child. We
built in, in September, a requirement for the shelters to look
to see if a sponsor has been trying to sponsor more than one
child, or if multiple children are going to the same address.
Senator McCaskill. Had your documents not been subpoenaed
by the Federal authorities at that point, the information about
the sponsors? Had they not come to you in the investigation
about what information you had about these sponsors?
Mr. Greenberg. I cannot speak to the specifics of----
Senator McCaskill. Mr. Carey, did they come to ORR asking
for documents during their investigation?
Mr. Carey. I was not at ORR at that time.
Senator McCaskill. Would somebody find out the answer to
that question?
Mr. Carey. Certainly, we can find out.
Senator McCaskill. Because I am just thinking, as law
enforcement, if I am the prosecutor that is presenting that
case to the grand jury, I am going to want all those documents
in hand as I prepare that case. So I would be interested to
know if, in fact, they had asked for the documents, because you
all have documents that were signed and executed giving those
children sponsors. And some of those sponsors ended up being
felons.
Now, my last question, because I am out of time and I know
we have to get to the second panel. You have been struggling
with trying to come up with a written policy for this program
since 2008. There have been drafts of operational manuals,
there have been drafts of policies floating around for years
under consideration. You had these indictments in the middle of
last year. Up until 3 days ago, it was the policy of HHS that
it was OK if other adults in the house had been convicted of
sex crimes with children.
Now, can you relate to why I have a lack of confidence in
your ability to draw up policies and procedures? How did that
get missed? How did not looking at criminal backgrounds even of
the sponsor who takes over if the original sponsor disappears,
how is that something that in all these drafts and policies
that are floating and, we have emails, comments on them, this
has been around for years, how is that missed that you are
going to place a child in a household with convicted felons
where children have been the victims?
Mr. Greenberg. I agree that is a change that needed to be
made, and I am glad we made it.
Senator McCaskill. That does not give me a lot of
confidence.
Mr. Carey. May I clarify? The policy as it existed did not
provide an absolute bar based on a criminal history, but it
does not mean that the criminal history was assessed, and if it
was seen as a threat to the child, the reunification did not
take place. There is now an absolute bar.
Senator McCaskill. I understand. It was possible for them
to turn them down if they did the check, but they were not
doing the checks on the other adults living in the household.
And, second, if it came back, it was up to that individual to
decide whether or not that particular conviction for child
abuse was OK or was not OK. Somebody said in the process of
this investigation, ``Well, sometimes people get accused of
child abuse in a domestic situation,'' like that was somehow--
we are talking about felony convictions for child abuse. Hello.
I understand that they could have disqualified him if they
had run the criminal background checks. But they were not being
run on many of the people that would have been in these
children's lives, and even if they found the conviction, they
were not required to bar that person. That is the point I am
trying to make, Mr. Carey, and I do not think that there is
much excuse for that.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Portman. Thanks, Senator McCaskill. I would add, as
you know, that there was no criminal conviction that was too
serious.
Senator McCaskill. Right.
Senator Portman. Even if they did the background check and
found out that someone was a habitual sex offender, HHS policy
was there was no----
Senator McCaskill. Automatic bar.
Senator Portman [continuing]. Criminal background that was
too serious.
Look, I know we need to get on to the next panel. We have
some witnesses we really want to hear from. I would just end
with two thoughts.
One, this notion that there is not enough resources, just
so you know, in 2014 Congress appropriated $912 million at the
end of 2014. This is the period of time we are talking about;
$200 million were left unobligated, not spent, not committed.
That is about 25 percent of the budget was not even spent. In
2015 Congress appropriated $948 million, an increase. How much
was not spent? About $278 million. So this notion of inadequate
resources, just so you know, is not an excuse.
Then, finally, just to say we have laid out here today five
or six specific issues that we would like you to take back, and
I appreciate the fact, Mr. Greenberg, that you said you will
read the report and that you will work with us to make some of
these changes. Some were made this week. For instance, this
criminal conviction issue was made on January 25. As I said
earlier, that is progress. I am glad we had this opportunity to
have the back-and-forth with you over the last 6 months. There
is more to do, including clarifying this policy. I encourage
you to read the Inspector General's report from 8 years ago.
These are, as Senator McCaskill has said, issues that have
languished for too long without being addressed. And,
unfortunately, we see that during this first quarter we have
another surge. And we want to be sure that those kids who were
abused, who were in servitude in Marion, Ohio, that their case
can be an example not just to talk about at a hearing but to
ensure that other kids do not fall into that same trap. And
that requires you to do a better job of deciding where these
kids ought to go and monitoring their situation. And you have
every authority to do that under current law, and we insist
that you do it.
So thank you for being here this morning, Mr. Carey and Mr.
Greenberg. We appreciate your coming to testify.
We will now call the next panel.
[Pause.]
Thank you all for being here.
We are privileged to have some experts before us to talk
about some of the issues that we have just talked to HHS about.
Our first witness is Tiffany Nelms. Tiffany Nelms is the
Associate Director of children's services at the U.S. Committee
for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI) where she oversees the
organization's national home study and post-release service
program for unaccompanied children. She has a background in
case management, has worked on behalf of immigrant children and
families for 15 years, and she is a licensed social worker.
Jennifer Justice, the middle of the panel, we are pleased
to have you. Jennifer Justice is the Deputy Director of the
Office of Families and Children in the Ohio Department of Job
and Family Services (ODJFS). Among other duties, her office
oversees Ohio's child and adult protective services, foster
care, adoption, and child abuse prevention programs. Thank you
for being here.
Finally, last but not least, we have Kimberly Haynes.
Kimberly is the Director of children's services at the Lutheran
Immigration and Refugee Service (LIRS), one of the great
resettlement groups, which serves unaccompanied children, among
others. She has over 20 years of experience in child protection
and social work, including a consultant supporting a variety of
refugee assistance programs within the Office of Refugee
Assistance. We just heard from them. She has a master's degree
in social work and management administration and community
organization, with a specialty in children and youth. Thank you
for being here.
Again, it is the custom of this Subcommittee to swear I our
witnesses, so I would ask you please to stand and raise your
right hand. Do you swear that the testimony you will give
before this Committee will be the truth, the whole truth, and
nothing but the truth, so help you, God?
Ms. Nelms. Yes.
Ms. Justice. Yes.
Ms. Haynes. Yes.
Senator Portman. Thank you. Let the record reflect that the
witnesses answered all in the affirmative.
Your written testimony will be printed in the record in its
entirety. We would ask you, if you could, try to limit your
oral testimony to 5 minutes, and we will have a chance for a
little give-and-take. We may have some votes that come up, and
we want to be sure and have the opportunity to have some
dialogue with you.
Ms. Nelms, we will hear from you first.
TESTIMONY OF TIFFANY NELMS,\1\ ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR,
UNACCOMPANIED CHILDREN'S SERVICES, U.S. COMMITTEE FOR REFUGEES
AND IMMIGRANTS
Ms. Nelms. Thank you so much. Good morning. Thank you to
Chairman Portman, Ranking Member McCaskill, and Members of the
Subcommittee, for the opportunity to amplify the voices of the
thousands of children seeking safety and protection in the
United States and to share their stories.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Ms. Nelms appears in the Appendix on
page 78.
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My name is Tiffany Nelms. I am a social worker and the
Associate Director of unaccompanied children's services at the
U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, and for nearly a
decade, I have worked with these children, and their
perseverance and many successes motivates me to continue this
work; but our failures to protect and adequately support them
keeps me up at night.
For over 100 years, the U.S. Committee for Refugees and
Immigrants has protected the rights and addressed the needs of
persons in forced or voluntary migration worldwide and
supported their transition to a dignified life. We help the
uprooted by facilitating and providing direct professional
services and promoting the full participation of migrants in
community life. We understand the situation because we work
with refugees and immigrants every day.
Let me tell you about a girl who I will call Karen. Her
family eked out a meager living by selling bottled water and
candy to tourists in a popular beach town in Honduras. After
completing only a few years of school, Karen was forced to work
and help support her family. For many years, Karen's extended
family was targeted by gangs because they refused to pay a
``tax'' or ``rent.'' This tactic is commonly used by gangs to
extort money from regular people. In exchange, those who pay
the tax can live in, work in, or transit a community the gang
has claimed. When she was 10 years old, Karen's uncle was
murdered by the gang, a punishment for his refusal to pay this
``tax.'' The murder served as a warning, and Karen's parents
fled, hoping to fall off the gang's radar. Their house was
subsequently burned to the ground.
At 14, Karen's parents allowed her to marry a man in
another town to protect and provide for her. Karen became
pregnant, and after the child was born, the physical,
emotional, and sexual abuse started. She did not seek help from
the authorities because crimes against women and girls are
rarely prosecuted in her country.
Karen eventually left her husband, and she and her child
sought safety with her parents who were living with Karen's
cousin. However, this cousin was kidnapped, tortured, and
murdered by members of the local gang as punishment for
resisting their sexual advances and attempts to recruit her.
The gang left her body in pieces on her doorstep as another
warning of what could happen to Karen and her family. The
murders of Karen's uncle and cousin were never investigated.
This deepened the family's distrust of the local authorities,
and fearing she might be next, Karen fled to the U.S. border
seeking protection, where she was detained and transferred to
the care of the Office of Refugee Resettlement.
In the past 2 years, we have seen rapid increases in the
number of children, most of whom qualify for refugee status,
who are seeking basic protection from violence, abuse, and
neglect in their communities. These children's needs are not
being met in their countries of origin.
Approximately 10 percent of Central American children who
are extremely vulnerable qualify for post-release services
after reunification with a sponsor. This means they receive
three home visits in 6 months. Many of these especially
vulnerable children end up on a waitlist, and some must wait up
to 6 months after release before a provider is available to
serve them due to capacity restrictions.
There is no other system that places children, some that
have no prior relationship or recollection of their sponsor,
and provides no followup or monitoring of the child's well-
being after the placement.
Children who speak some English and at least have access to
informal ``helpers'' such as teachers, pediatricians, and
police officers--connections within their communities who are
trustworthy and will notice any irregularities or, at worst,
abuse or neglect. These are connections that are not guaranteed
for unaccompanied children with limited English proficiency
often with no connections to their communities beyond their
sponsors. These children are especially vulnerable to being
abused, neglected, exploited, or trafficked by their sponsors.
Post-release services are critical. They connect
unaccompanied children to medical and mental health care,
ensure that children are enrolled in school in compliance with
compulsory school attendance laws, and provide children with
access to legal representation, something that is not
guaranteed for unaccompanied children and which significantly
increases their likelihood of attending their immigration
hearings. In addition to ensuring access to resources, post-
release service providers monitor the children's well-being and
integration to their new homes and communities. These social
workers detect situations in which children are abused,
neglected, exploited, or trafficked.
For example, our staff has identified victims of labor and
sex trafficking among this vulnerable 10 percent of the
children that qualify for post-release services. Presently,
post-release services are stretched thin, and the quality of
these services is in jeopardy as we are asked to do more with
less, increased caseloads and not enough time to meet the needs
of the children in our care.
Here are some recommendations about how to remedy this. We
suggest that post-release services become available to every
unaccompanied child. Post-release services work. The children
served through USCRI's program have a 95-percent attendance
rate at their immigration hearings and similar outcomes for
school attendance.
We recommend that ORR expands capacity within the national
post-release services networks so children are served in a more
efficient and expeditious manner, reunited with family in a
timely and safe way, and able to access the education and
medical and mental health care that they deserve.
And we recommend that they streamline reunification
processes in consultation with national post-release service
providers.
You may be wondering what happened to Karen, the girl I
described in the beginning. Delays and lack of adequate
representation resulted in Karen being deported just after her
18th birthday. Despite our best efforts, we are currently
unable to locate her in-country to confirm her safety. We do
not know her whereabouts.
We recognize that these children have fled to the United
States seeking protection, and we take seriously our role as
guardians while their immigration claims are reviewed and
evaluated. When a child receives due process resulting in a
deportation order, he or she must return to his or her country
of origin. However, while these children are in our care, we
can do more to welcome and protect the most vulnerable among
us.
Thank you.
Senator Portman. Thank you, Ms. Nelms. Ms. Justice.
TESTIMONY OF JENNIFER JUSTICE,\1\ DEPUTY DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF
FAMILIES AND CHILDREN, OHIO DEPARTMENT OF JOB AND FAMILY
SERVICES
Ms. Justice. Thank you, Chairman Portman, Ranking Member
McCaskill, and Members of the Subcommittee. Thank you for the
opportunity to provide testimony to explain the foster care
licensing process in the State of Ohio. I oversee Ohio's child
welfare system at the Ohio Department of Job and Family
Services and have held the position since 2011. I have worked
in the child protection system for over 19 years, and in my
current position, I am in charge of supervising Ohio's child
protection programs, including protective services, foster
care, kinship, adoption, the Interstate Compact for the
Placement of Children (ICPC), and independent living services.
Today I want to highlight some of the important licensing
requirements for prospective foster applicants.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Ms. Justice appears in the Appendix
on page 83.
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Ohio's foster parent applicants must be at least 21 years
of age and must have enough income to meet the basic needs of
the household. They must be free of any physical, emotional, or
mental condition that could endanger a child or impair their
ability to care for a child.
Everyone over the age of 18 living in the house must submit
to State and Federal criminal background checks as well as an
Ohio alleged perpetrator search through the Statewide Automated
Child Welfare Information System (SACWIS). A SACWIS search is
done to see if the applicant has a substantiated or indicated
report of child abuse or neglect.
A foster parent applicant must disclose if a person between
the ages of 12 and 18 years of age residing in the household
has been convicted or pled guilty to certain offenses or
adjudicated delinquent.
A fire inspection must be completed and training must be
completed.
The required background screens must be completed no less
than every 4 years if foster parents are to continue to be
licensed. Criminal background checks are required to be
conducted by all
Title IV-E agencies per the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR).
If an applicant fails to provide the information necessary
to complete a background check, the person will be denied
certification as a foster caregiver.
If an applicant has a felony conviction for spousal abuse,
rape, homicide, or sexual assault, he or she would be
prohibited from becoming a licensed foster parent. This also
applies to all adult household members.
Ohio has a comprehensive list of misdemeanors and felonies
that prohibit applicants from becoming licensed unless certain
rehabilitation standards are evident.
When we look at financial stability, we look to see that
applicants have enough income to meet the basic needs of every
child. A foster applicant must provide proof of income for the
household for the most recent tax year period and proof of
income for the most recent 2 months, as well as their utility
bills.
Along with these requirements, a foster care home study
must be completed. This evaluation of the residence is
completed by a licensed agency's assessor and takes place
physically inside the residence with the foster parent
applicant present.
Not all foster applicants end up being licensed. Some
voluntarily withdraw, and some are denied a license. Applicants
may be disqualified for offenses in their background check, or
their living conditions may be unsafe.
Although foster care placements are often necessary, Ohio
works hard to identify relatives and non-relatives who are
familiar to the family as placement options to reduce the
trauma that comes with removing children from their parents.
Relatives and non-relatives over 18 years of age living in the
home must undergo all the same criminal background checks as
foster parent applicants. Their homes are also evaluated, and
an assessment is conducted of their ability to provide a safe
placement.
Once children are placed with licensed foster families or
approved relatives and non-relatives, monthly home visits occur
until the child is reunified or another permanent placement is
found. Monthly home visits are conducted by a caseworker
employed by the agency that holds custody of that child. State
policy reinforces this Federal requirement to provide for the
well-being of all children that have open child welfare cases.
Visitation data is required to be reported to the Federal
Government, and all States are required to meet or exceed 95
percent of all required visits.
The approval process for children who are placed across
State lines is defined in the Interstate Compact for the
Placement of Children (ICPC). This is a statutory law in all 50
States and is designed to protect children placed across State
lines so that they will be placed in a safe, suitable
environment. In accordance with Ohio laws and policies, all
home study and criminal background check requirements that I
described a minute ago apply to these placements as well.
Ohio appreciates the ongoing technical assistance provided
by the Administration of Children and Families' regional
office, and I appreciate this opportunity to provide testimony
here today, and I am happy to answer any questions the
Subcommittee may have.
Senator Portman. Thank you, Ms. Justice.
We will now go to Ms. Haynes, and I will say before you
start your testimony, Ms. Haynes, a vote has been called--in
fact, two votes, and Senator McCaskill and I have decided to
stay through your testimony. Then we are going to ask you if
you would please be patient while we run over and vote at the
end of the first one and beginning of the next one, and we will
adjourn the hearing during that period, then come back to
reconvene.
So, with that, do not be offended if we run out after your
testimony, literally run out. Ms. Haynes.
TESTIMONY OF KIMBERLY HAYNES,\1\ DIRECTOR FOR CHILDREN'S
SERVICES, LUTHERAN IMMIGRATION AND REFUGEE SERVICE
Ms. Haynes. Chairman Portman, Ranking Member McCaskill, and
Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for this opportunity to
provide the testimony about the efforts to protect children
from trafficking.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Ms. Haynes appears in the Appendix on
page 87.
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My name is Kimberly Haynes. I am a Social Worker. For the
last 5 years, I have been the Director of children's services
at Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, where I oversee
our ORR programs for unaccompanied migrant children, which
include Federal foster care, safe release support sites, home
studies, and post-release service case management services. I
have worked with unaccompanied refugee and migrant children
both here and the United States and in an international context
for over a decade.
LIRS is a faith-based organization which has been serving
refugees and migrants for over 75 years, unaccompanied children
from all over the world for over 40 years. LIRS believes all
children have the right to protection and family unity.
As the only service provider that serves unaccompanied
children throughout all stages of care, LIRS is uniquely
situated to identify the gaps in protection, make
recommendations to improve the system and U.S. policies and
practices, ensuring the safety and well-being of these
children. While I submit a more detailed written testimonial, I
wish to express that the United States has a strong domestic
child welfare system which contains many best practices that we
can use to enhance and strengthen the current system used for
unaccompanied children.
I will focus my remarks in two areas: first, on protection
gaps in the current system; and, second, provide
recommendations to improve the family reunification practices
so that incidences of trafficking or harm may be more readily
identified, prevented, and mitigated.
It is LIRS' position that ORR is in the best position to
provide the care and protection for unaccompanied migrant
children. However, it is imperative that adequate protection
practices are in place to ensure the child's safety and well-
being during and after release from ORR custody to sufficiently
support the child and family's ability to protect, care from,
and integrate into communities.
Over the years, ORR has continuously revised and expanded
its depth of knowledge and practice in serving this unique
population. As I detailed in my written testimony, one
excellent practice is the provision of post-release services
for certain vulnerable children. In recent years, however, with
a higher number of unaccompanied children arrivals, ORR has
revised certain policies in order to expedite family
reunification and limit the amount of time a child would remain
in ORR custody. ORR's budgetary limitations meant that its
capacity to provide its full range of services was limited, and
children were spending weeks in overcrowded, unsafe Customs and
Border Patrol (CBP) cells before being transferred to ORR. This
situation was detrimental to their health and well-being. LIRS
does not wish to see this happen again.
LIRS has been serving unaccompanied children and their
families for over three decades. We believe that our country
can do better than releasing children to unsafe conditions due
to the lack of resources. We need to treat these children as
children first and foremost and provide the protection we
afford all children while safeguarding their rights to family
unity.
LIRS makes the following recommendations:
First, ORR should prioritize child protection and safety in
reunification decisions over reunification timelines and fiscal
concerns. We need to see these as children who are needing our
safety and our protection and deserving family unit.
Second, ORR should ensure that all children have access to
some post-release services, at least, a minimum, one home visit
after family reunification. These services should be trauma-
informed, individualized, community-based, and case management
services. Congress should also appropriate the necessary funds
so that ORR can provide these services.
Third, ORR should revise the sponsor assessment tool and
sponsor reunification packet to ensure gathering of relevant
information. This should be an in-person risk assessment of the
sponsor, a sponsor needs assessment, and a sponsor orientation
that promotes the child's safety, stability, and well-being.
Fourth, ORR should monitor the impact of changes to
fingerprint background check requirements and revise policy
accordingly. The safety of children and screening of sponsors,
including parents, must be more consistent and appropriately
balanced.
Fifth, ORR enhance their engagement with NGO's and
stakeholders in order to help improve their policies, or our
partners such as LIRS will continue to work with ORR on
improving policies that utilize best practices in child welfare
services. However, if ORR is to fully implement these best
practices, they need the resources to do so.
Sixth, Congress and HHS should provide resources for a
nationalized child abuse and neglect database system for child
abuse and neglect checks so long that waitlists for multiple
checks mean that children are waiting for reunification an
extended period of time in facilities.
Finally, Congress should provide ORR with contingency funds
so that in times of higher arrivals of unaccompanied children
or refugees, ORR can adequately provide the services required.
Thank you for the opportunity to share reunification
recommendations and best interests for unaccompanied children.
Senator Portman. Thank you, Ms. Haynes. And we appreciate
the three of you, if you can, showing the patience to stay
around while we recess subject to the call of the Chair. We
look forward to talking about those budgetary shortfalls since
they are not spending 20 to 25 percent of the money they are
being appropriated. I do not know what they are telling you as
a service provider, but I do not think that can be the reason.
But we will talk more about that.
Senator McCaskill and I will return, and we are now
recessed subject to the call of the Chair.
[Recess.]
Thank you all for coming back. We will now reconvene this
hearing. Senator McCaskill is on her way, and I am going to
start asking a few questions, and then she will be here
shortly.
First of all, thank you for your testimony and your
willingness to spend time and help us with our report, help us
with some of the ways in which we can help address the problems
that we have identified today. Each of you has a strong history
in this area. You bring different perspectives a little bit,
Ms. Justice more from the Ohio perspective and foster care
perspective, and, Ms. Haynes, you had some very specific
thoughts that you thought would be helpful. And, Ms. Nelms, we
appreciate your testimony as well, particularly on the issues
of home studies.
My first question is about what we call ``home studies.'' I
think they are incredibly important because it is the only
opportunity to have a face-to-face meeting, and HHS, of course,
does not perform many. For 90 percent of the cases, I think
they have no idea if the sponsor is actually who he or she says
he or she is. In other words, what they are alleging in their
application may not be true.
Over the past 3 years, HHS has performed home studies in
about 4 percent of placements based on the analysis of our
staff. Can you tell us a little more, Ms. Nelms, about what you
think about home studies? In other words, for those who are not
following this closely, it is an opportunity to go and actually
see something like that trailer or to see where these addresses
are, to talk to the people face to face. Could you give us a
sense of whether you think that is something that as a care
provider you would think is important? And if you did a home
study, what would you be looking for?
Ms. Nelms. Thank you for that question. The home study
process has been changing over the years. When I started in
this field 10 years ago as a social worker, we had 90 days to
conduct a thorough assessment, interview the child, interview
the family in home country, interview the potential sponsor and
any household members, and visit the home, and really do our
homework. And this process has evolved over the last 10 years,
and I think in response to the increase in the number of
children, and also we all want children to be reunified as
quickly as possible when it is a safe and appropriate placement
and reduce their length of stay in detention.
However, it should not be by compromising the safety of the
child, and some of the changes that have happened, we saw home
studies reduced from 90 to 60 to 30, and last month, the home
study timeframe we have been given is 10 days to conduct a home
study. And that is now part of a bigger assessment, so we are
one piece, and the only thing at this point that is required is
an interview with the child and the sponsor and a visit to the
home.
As a social worker, to maintain the integrity of that home
study process, you really need one person looking at all the
facts, corroborating the stories, confirming that there is a
proof of relationship to avoid situations like what happened in
Marion where the person presents as a family friend. And a
social worker would quickly identify that in conducting a
family tree, for example, with the child and the potential
sponsor and somebody in home country that they are not able to
match those names on that family tree. That is a very easy way
to prevent something like this from happening, and this,
unfortunately, is not something that we are able to do at this
point with the recent policy changes.
Senator Portman. That is very disturbing, and in our report
we talk some about this issue, the fact that, as you say, 10
years ago there was a very different policy in place, and it
has gotten more and more strict over time to the point that you
have very little time and that there is only, again, 4 percent
of the cases now is there any home study at all. And you are
right. I mean, some of the followup questions are pretty
obvious. The family tree is one. Maybe it is like, if you were
a friend of the family, where does the family live? What color
is their house? Who is their neighbor? What is the mother's
maiden name? Just anything. They are not asking for any of
that, as I understand it.
And I would think, Ms. Justice, in your work, you ask those
questions in a much deeper way and, you do not place any kid
without going through an extremely lengthy process. But at
least to know, Ms. Nelms, that this is the person who they say
it is.
One of the cases, as you know, was this young man who was
given the plane ticket by HHS with the sponsor to go to a
particular place where the sponsor was supposedly living, gets
off the plane, and this unaccompanied minor or unaccompanied
child has testified that the sponsor took off and literally,
the traffickers were there waiting for the kid. And the sponsor
had been sponsored by the traffickers. It was one of these just
obvious situations that with just a little bit of testing--and
then in terms of the home studies, you can find out information
about potential abuse that Senator McCaskill and others talked
about earlier with some pretty simple questions and with some
experience, as you all have, to be able to know what you are
looking for.
Ms. Justice, would you tell us just briefly, when you are
required to conduct a home study, I assume that happens when
you are going to place a child with a foster parent or probably
any non-relative. What does that entail?
Ms. Justice. Sure.
Senator Portman. What do you do?
Ms. Justice. Yes, so our foster home study process in Ohio
is very detailed and thorough. We study homes, whether it be
with relatives, non-relatives, or a licensed foster caregiver.
Certainly having a license as a foster caregiver is much more
comprehensive in nature, and there is training required. But in
all cases, we are going to visit the residence. We are going to
walk through the home. We are going to ensure that there is
proper ventilation, heat or cool, depending on, where you live.
We are going to look at where the child would sleep. We are
going to look at is there proper food in the house. We are
going to engage the family and ask them very specifically how
they intend to care for the child, what are their discipline
policies, things like that.
We are going to talk to the child as well and ensure that
they feel safe. There is a multitude of things. We are going to
look to see if that family has weapons in the home. Are they
properly stored to ensure the safety of the child?
It is a very well thought out process. We use checklists to
make sure we do not miss anything, because we want to ensure
the safety of all children that are in our custody, that cannot
stay home because they are unsafe there, and so when they are
in our custody, we need to make sure that they are as safe as
they can be.
Senator Portman. So let me ask you this question. You are
from Ohio, and you obviously picked up your paper 7 months ago,
and you saw this incredible story that was happening in Marion,
Ohio, just 50 miles from where you live, probably. I assume you
live in Columbus.
Ms. Justice. Yes.
Senator Portman. What did you think? I mean, did this seem
just unbelievable to you given your background? Or did you know
the Office of Refugee Resettlement does not perform any of
these sorts of checks?
Ms. Justice. Actually, I am unaware of ORR's policies and
procedures. Certainly, as a child welfare professional for my
entire career, anytime I see a child that has been abused or
neglected, it saddens me. It is troublesome. It is the worst
thing that a person in my position can hear about. We are
always striving to make sure that that does not happen, but
there are bad people in this world and it does happen. But,
no--and so, yes, certainly it is very disheartening, and I hope
those children are better off now than they were.
Senator Portman. Yes, and we hope that other kids are, too.
One thing we have found in our study is the investigation
revealed that HHS does not know. We do not know how many kids
are in situations like this.
And, Ms. Haynes, you talked a little about the national
database and criminal checks. One question we have asked them
at HHS, as you know perhaps, is how many kids have gone to live
with a convicted felon. And guess what their answer is? ``We
have no idea. We do not keep track of that.''
So even if they are doing fingerprinting on some of these
sponsors and asking about criminal records, which, as you know,
until this week you could be a child molester, a rapist, you
could be a murderer, and there was no automatic ban to placing
the child. But even when they did know what the record was,
they do not keep any database of it. So there is no way to
know.
So tell us, I mean, I am not sure if that is what you are
getting at when you talk about national database in your
testimony, but what do you think ought to be done there in
terms of at least understanding what the problem is?
Ms. Haynes. As you mentioned, I think there are a couple of
layers of protection that need to be put in place, and that is
a practical balance of CA/N checks across the board, no matter
who is sponsoring the child. I think the reality is also that
checks are having to be done in multiple States. We know the
population. We know that they are highly mobile. We know that
people move. And having multiple States have to run this take a
lot of time. Therefore, that also keeps kids lingering in
shelter situations rather than moving forward through
reunification.
I agree with you that it sounds like that there needs to be
stronger policies and practices in place that sort of outline
what kinds of convictions or what kinds of outcomes the CA/N
checks have that would limit the reunification of children to
potential sponsors. That is a concern, and, again, without a
home study or other post-release, that is one potential
opportunity to identify potential concerns.
Senator Portman. Thank you. And if you do not mind, if you
could flesh our your national data base idea very quickly, and
then I am going to turn to Senator McCaskill.
Ms. Haynes. Currently, CA/N checks are done by each State
and individually by each State within that State. That does not
circle or does not come and connect all 50 States into one
massive database, so there is no way to run one name in a
national data base that would allow us to look at any State
that they may have had a conviction of any kind.
Senator Portman. All right. Thank you very much. Senator
McCaskill.
Senator McCaskill. We did not even get a chance this
morning to get to all the problems we have with the portal at
HHS as it relates to trying to determine somebody who has
requested multiple sponsorships, somebody using the same
address for multiple cases in terms of getting sponsorships.
Let me ask all three of you, first, do you think there
should be a continued role of the Federal Government once these
children have been placed? And if you believe they should have
a continuing role, who do you believe in the Federal Government
from where you sit is the best equipped to take the
responsibility of trying to monitor these children's
environment after they have left to reside with a sponsor or
family member? We will start with Ms. Nelms, and then go to Ms.
Justice and then to Ms. Haynes.
Ms. Nelms. Thank you, Senator McCaskill, for that question.
I do believe that it would be helpful if ORR did extend their
responsibility for the kids after reunification and currently,
as they mentioned, the post-release services are voluntary. We
share the concerns regarding that arrangement, and there are
many situations where, by the time we receive a referral or
there is capacity within the network to serve a particular
child, they have disappeared and we are not able to locate
them.
And in some circumstances, we can make a report to Child
Protective Services about that child or to law enforcement, but
most of the time, those reports will not be accepted because
people are free to come and go, and there is really no one with
the authority to try to figure out where that child is.
Senator McCaskill. So a 15-year-old child disappears, are
not where they are supposed to be. Are you saying that if the
child is not where it is supposed to be, then law enforcement--
or a 16-year-old child, law enforcement and Child Protective
Services in some States will say, ``They can go where they
want? ''
Ms. Nelms. In many cases, that is the response we get, and
USCRI serves children--right now, I think we are serving
children in 40-something States. So we have experience in many
cities across the country, and that is the response that we get
quite often, unless we have had situations where if there was a
trafficking concern, that they did a little more research into
that case. But as Ms. Haynes mentioned, this population is
highly mobile, and they move, and they can be hard to locate.
And that is concerning. With the restrictions we have right now
on post-release services, we do not have enough funding to
serve the children that could benefit from post-release
services. So they end up on a waitlist, and they could be
released for 6 months or more.
Senator McCaskill. This is a question I did not ask the
first panel, but are the sponsors required to notify anyone if
they change address?
Ms. Nelms. They technically are supposed to, but there is
really----
Senator McCaskill. Do they notify ORR?
Ms. Nelms. I would say in most cases----
Senator McCaskill. Are they supposed to be notifying HHS?
Ms. Nelms. They are supposed to notify the court of any
changes of placement.
Senator McCaskill. Immigration court.
Ms. Nelms. Immigration court, correct. But on our end as
post-release service workers, we do our best to locate children
through a number of ways. We try to establish contact with
family in home country to see where the child is. But if 4 or 5
months have passed since they have been released from ORR care,
it is quite difficult.
Senator McCaskill. And, Ms. Justice, do you believe the
Federal Government should continue to have a role after these
children are placed?
Ms. Justice. Right, so as I stated earlier, I am somewhat
unfamiliar with ORR's current policies and procedures. But what
my experience tells me is that when we in Ohio place children
with relatives, non-relatives, or licensed foster parents, we
need to continue to see these children to ensure their safety
and stability.
Senator McCaskill. Right. And, Ms. Haynes?
Ms. Haynes. I do believe ORR is in the best position to
provide the care and custody and ongoing supervision and
support for these children after release to sponsors?
Senator McCaskill. OK. By the way, is there anybody left in
the room from HHS?
[No response.]
No one? Not even somebody's assistant to the assistant to
the assistant? No one here works for HHS?
[No response.]
Well, that is really telling.
OK. In your opinion, why have they changed the policy on
home study to make it more and more circumspect in terms of how
much time you have and how often they are done? What do you
think is behind that, Ms. Nelms?
Ms. Nelms. I think there is a number of factors. We saw the
influx in 2014, and ORR I think is working very hard to expand
their resources, and a lot of those resources have been
directed to the residential facilities. And the expansion of
these post-placement services, home study services, has not
kept up with the growth in the population, and so I think there
are ways the reunification process can be streamlined, and some
children are going to good sponsors, and they do not remain in
care for months on end.
So there are situations where there are benefits to that,
but I think that the largest part of this recent policy change
is that there is a tremendous waitlist right now for children
waiting for home study and post-release services, and the
waitlist fluctuates between 1,400 and 2,000 kids at any given
time waiting for a service that one of our organizations
provides because capacity has not been expanded. And so I think
in looking to address that, children are released more quickly
if home studies take 10 days versus 30 days.
Senator McCaskill. So resources are not helping in that
they are not able to utilize those resources quickly enough to
deal with being overwhelmed by the great increase in numbers of
children? Is that essentially what you are saying? Because,
they have money. I mean, the Chairman said they have money. We
have looked; they have money. And I know they have hired
contractors to help with some of this. Always there is a
contractor. So I am curious if from your perspective is it just
they have not got the infrastructure in place and so, for
example, changing the home study period of time from 30 days to
10 days? I mean, obviously, that is really problematic. Is that
just a matter of them not having the capacity to handle these
kids?
Ms. Nelms. USCRI serves 2,500 kids a year through our home
study and post-release service program. We are one of 11
providers that works with these children, and in conversation
with many of the other programs, we are ready and willing and
able to add additional capacity to serve these children so they
are not waiting months at a time for our social workers to get
to them. So I am not sure exactly where the disconnect----
Senator McCaskill. Well, I would like to have staff
followup, if the Chairman would agree, with the 11 different
providers that you just referenced and talk about the capacity
you have and figure out where the disconnect is between the
capacity that is out there and the fact that we are not, in
fact, utilizing, that we are going to this third category of
people that, if you cannot prove you are really related to the
child, you get the child anyway. I would like to kind of drill
down. Do you feel like there has been enough conversation
between these groups and ORR as to the problems that are
clearly present in the system as it is now operating?
Ms. Nelms. You are speaking to one of the recommendations
that we made. I think we could do a better job at
collaborating, and many of us have served these kids for many
years, and we know the challenges and the situations that they
find themselves in that are very troubling. And it would be
good if we could increase that communication to talk through
potential policy changes before they occur----
Senator McCaskill. Right.
Ms. Nelms [continuing]. And have these negative effects
on----
Senator McCaskill. Yes, you all should be heard from before
they do--I mean, they have been working on policy and programs
now for, it will be close to a decade, and we still do not have
anything. So it seems like--it is not like they are rushing
them to print. So it seems like to me there is time to talk to
the people who are on the ground dealing with these children
day to day.
Let me close. I know I am over time, and I appreciate the
Chairman's indulgence. But let me just close speaking to the
three of you. I am sure that all three of you are college-
educated, correct?
[Witnesses nod heads in agreement.]
And all three of you had choices about your careers, and
all of you decided that you were going to go into a line of
work that is full of heartbreak and sadness.
[Witnesses nod heads in agreement.]
And I just want to thank you.
Ms. Nelms. Thank you.
Senator Portman. Thank you, Senator McCaskill.
Thank you for what you do every day for the kids who we
both represent, but also thank you for being willing to help us
to improve conditions for kids going forward. I mean, this is,
I think, an extraordinary failure. We just talked a little
about the importance of home studies and post-release services.
Again, look at this email that, without this investigation, we
never would have known about. This is an email written by the
gentleman who was here earlier, Mr. Greenberg: ``I assume the
reason for under 13 is that it is a smaller number for a pilot
and that we'll have the greatest concern about young children
less able to communicate about their need for help. Right? But
this is probably less likely to pick up the debt labor group.''
Which is what this was. These were young kids. They were
minors.
``Do you think it would go too far to extend to all
children going to non-relatives?'' They did not do it. I mean,
after that question, what would the answer be? The answer is,
``Of course we would want to cover these kids who are more
likely to be subject to the kind of trafficking that we see of
kids having to work off the debt. Their paychecks were
withheld. I mean, these kids were working 12 hours a day, 6, 7
days a week, no pay, because their paychecks were taken to pay
their debt.
Finally, just to make this clear, on post-release services,
which is what this is about in addition to home visits, the
sponsor can just say no. Under current HHS policy, current
policy, the sponsor can say to you, Ms. Haynes, as you go to
knock on the door to say, ``Just checking to see how this young
man or young woman is doing, to see whether what is on this
application is still valid,'' they can say, ``Take a hike.''
And your job is then to report back to HHS, ``Case closed.''
That is what they ask you to do.
So, yes, there has been some progress made, as I said--we
appreciate that--including this pilot program, but it is not a
matter of resources. We have been able to go through the
appropriations process and look, and it is not just recent.
During the time period we are talking about, 2014, they did not
spend 20, 25 percent of their budget. It is a matter of
commitment, and it is a matter of organizing that Department in
a way to handle this big influx. I mean, it is not a mystery
that this is going to continue to be an issue.
So Senator McCaskill and I want your continued input
because we want to be sure that one of two things happen:
Either HHS makes further progress, gets its act together,
follows, again, recommendations that Senator McCaskill says
have been out there for almost a decade, puts together a plan,
working with DHS and others to ensure we know who is
responsible for these kids. This Flores Agreement that they
talked about as a way to get out from their responsibility, it
does not limit their ability to take care of these kids. In
fact, it insists that these kids are taken care of. It says to
a family member or a family friend ``who is capable and willing
to care for the minor's well-being.'' That is in it. The
legislation Senator McCaskill talked about earlier, it
specifically says ``capable of providing for the children's
physical and mental well-being.''
So we think that they have the authority to do it, but if
they are not going to take care of these kids, protect them as
the law provides, then we are going to look at additional
legislation that makes it absolutely clear, or other ways,
perhaps through the appropriations process, to deal with this.
So we want your continued input. We know this is a tough issue.
We know this is not going to be easy to address. We know from
the first quarter results that this is an issue that is likely
to increase pressure on ORR. But, boy, we have revealed so many
failures here, including lack of consequences. You talk about
the fact that they are supposed to tell HHS that they changed
addresses. I would ask you, Ms. Haynes and Ms. Nelms, do you
think there is any enforcement of that, any consequences? Not
based on our study. Zero. No accountability.
So we have an opportunity here to make a difference in the
lives of many of these children going forward, and we will look
forward to working with you to do that.
I want to thank Senator McCaskill for being a great partner
on this. It has been heartbreaking. As she says, it is a tough
issue. But it also an interesting challenge for all of us to
say, regardless of how we feel about the immigration policy,
and there are big differences of opinion on that--I expressed
earlier some of my concerns about that Executive Order (EO).
But when these kids are here, when they are in the custody of
the U.S. Government, they cannot end up in that trailer,
working 12 hours a day as minors, 6, 7 days a week, with no
pay. It cannot happen, not in this country.
So thank you, Senator McCaskill, thanks to your staff. The
staff have worked really hard on this, and I want to
particularly single out Rachael Tucker of my staff for her
remarkable work on this. And I want to thank you all for being
here today to share your testimony and your commitment to
continue to work with us on this issue.
The hearing record will remain open for 15 days for any
additional comments or questions by any of the Subcommittee
members. And with that, this hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 1:06 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
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