[House Hearing, 118 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]





 
 THE BIDEN BORDER CRISIS: EXPLOITATION OF UNACCOMPANIED ALIEN CHILDREN

=======================================================================

                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

    SUBCOMMITTEE ON IMMIGRATION INTEGRITY, SECURITY, AND ENFORCEMENT

                       COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY

                     U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                    ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS

                             FIRST SESSION

                               __________

                       WEDNESDAY, APRIL 26, 2023

                               __________

                           Serial No. 118-16

                               __________

         Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary
         
         
         
         
        [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
 
         


               Available via: http://judiciary.house.gov
               
               
                            ______

             U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE 
 51-996           WASHINGTON : 2023
         
               
               
               
                       COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
                       
                       

                        JIM JORDAN, Ohio, Chair

DARRELL ISSA, California             JERROLD NADLER, New York, Ranking 
KEN BUCK, Colorado                       Member
MATT GAETZ, Florida                  ZOE LOFGREN, California
MIKE JOHNSON, Louisiana              SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas
ANDY BIGGS, Arizona                  STEVE COHEN, Tennessee
TOM McCLINTOCK, California           HENRY C. ``HANK'' JOHNSON, Jr., 
TOM TIFFANY, Wisconsin                   Georgia
THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky              ADAM SCHIFF, California
CHIP ROY, Texas                      DAVID N. CICILLINE, Rhode Island
DAN BISHOP, North Carolina           ERIC SWALWELL, California
VICTORIA SPARTZ, Indiana             TED LIEU, California
SCOTT FITZGERALD, Wisconsin          PRAMILA JAYAPAL, Washington
CLIFF BENTZ, Oregon                  J. LUIS CORREA, California
BEN CLINE, Virginia                  MARY GAY SCANLON, Pennsylvania
LANCE GOODEN, Texas                  JOE NEGUSE, Colorado
JEFF VAN DREW, New Jersey            LUCY McBATH, Georgia
TROY NEHLS, Texas                    MADELEINE DEAN, Pennsylvania
BARRY MOORE, Alabama                 VERONICA ESCOBAR, Texas
KEVIN KILEY, California              DEBORAH ROSS, North Carolina
HARRIET HAGEMAN, Wyoming             CORI BUSH, Missouri
NATHANIEL MORAN, Texas               GLENN IVEY, Maryland
LAUREL LEE, Florida
WESLEY HUNT, Texas
RUSSELL FRY, South Carolina
                                 ------                                

            SUBCOMMITTEE ON IMMIGRATION INTEGRITY, SECURITY,
                            AND ENFORCEMENT

                   TOM McCLINTOCK, California, Chair

KEN BUCK, Colorado                   PRAMILA JAYAPAL, Washington, 
ANDY BIGGS, Arizona                      Ranking Member
TOM TIFFANY, Wisconsin               ZOE LOFGREN, California
CHIP ROY, Texas                      J. LUIS CORREA, California
VICTORIA SPARTZ, Indiana             VERONICA ESCOBAR, Texas
JEFF VAN DREW, New Jersey            SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas
TROY NEHLS, Texas                    DEBORAH ROSS, North Carolina
BARRY MOORE, Alabama                 DAVID N. CICILLINE, Rhode Island
WESLEY HUNT, Texas                   ERIC SWALWELL, California

               CHRISTOPHER HIXON, Majority Staff Director
          AMY RUTKIN, Minority Staff Director & Chief of Staff
          
                            C O N T E N T S
                            

                              ----------                              

                       Wednesday, April 26, 2023

                                                                   Page

                           OPENING STATEMENTS

The Honorable Tom McClintock, Chair of the Subcommittee on 
  Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement from the State 
  of California..................................................     1
The Honorable Pramila Jayapal, Ranking Member of the Subcommittee 
  on Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement from the 
  State of Washington............................................     3
The Honorable Jerrold Nadler, Ranking Member of the Committee on 
  the Judiciary from the State of New York.......................     5

                               WITNESSES

Robert Carey, Principle, Migration Works LLC
  Oral Testimony.................................................     7
  Prepared Testimony.............................................    10
Jessica Vaughan, Director of Policy Studies, Center for 
  Immigration Studies (CIS)
  Oral Testimony.................................................    15
  Prepared Testimony.............................................    17
Sheena Rodriguez, Founder and President, Alliance for a Safe 
  Texas
  Oral Testimony.................................................    27
  Prepared Testimony.............................................    29
Tara Lee Rodas, HHS Whistleblower, Federal Inspector General 
  Employee
  Oral Testimony.................................................    32
  Prepared Testimony.............................................    34

          LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC. SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING

All materials submitted for the record by the Subcommittee on 
  Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement are listed 
  below..........................................................    61

Materials submitted by the Honorable Andy Biggs, a Member of the 
  Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and 
  Enforcement from the State of Arizona, for the record
    A letter to Assistant Secretary Contreras, Assistant 
        Secretary of the Administration for Children and Families 
        (ACF), Oct. 24, 2022
    A letter from the Administration for Children and Families' 
        (ACF), Office of Refugee Resettlement, Jan. 10, 2023
Statement from Robin Dunn Marcos, Director of the Office of 
  Refugee Resettlement, submitted by submitted the Honorable 
  Jerrold Nadler, Ranking Member of the Committee on the 
  Judiciary from the State of New York, for the record
Materials submitted by the Honorable Pramila Jayapal, Ranking 
  Member of the Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, 
  and Enforcement from the State of Washington, for the record
    An article entitled, ``Meet Latin America's First Millennial 
        Dictator,'' Aug. 26, 2021, Slate
    An article entitled, ``Why El Salvador's president Nayib 
        Bukele wants everyone to know about his new prison,'' 
        Mar. 7, 2023, CNN
A press release entitled, ``FACT SHEET: Unaccompanied Children 
  (UC) Program,'' Apr. 17, 2023, Administration for Children and 
  Families, Press Office, submitted by the Honorable Veronica 
  Escobar, a Member of the Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, 
  Security, and Enforcement from the State of Texas, for the 
  record

                                APPENDIX

Materials submitted by the Honorable Pramila Jayapal, Ranking 
  Member of the Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, 
  and Enforcement from the State of Washington, for the record
    A statement from Kids in Need of Defense (KIND)
    A collaborative statement from the Church World Service, 
        First Focus on Children, Women's Refugee Commission, 
        Legal Aid Justice Center, National Immigrant Justice 
        Center, the Young Center, Michigan Immigrant Rights 
        Center, and Save the Children
    A statement from the Young Center for Immigrant Children's 
        Rights
    An article entitled, ``Meet Latin America's First Millennial 
        Dictator,'' Aug. 26, 2021, The Slate Group
A statement from the Honorable Jackson Lee, a Member of the 
  Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and 
  Enforcement from the State of Texas, for the record


 THE BIDEN BORDER CRISIS: EXPLOITATION OF UNACCOMPANIED ALIEN CHILDREN

                              ----------                              


                       Wednesday, April 26, 2023

                        House of Representatives

            Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security,

                            and Enforcement

                       Committee on the Judiciary

                             Washington, DC

    The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 3 p.m., in 
Room 2141, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Tom McClintock 
[Chair of the Subcommittee] presiding.
    Members present: Representatives McClintock, Biggs, Roy, 
Spartz, Van Drew, Nehls, Moore, Jayapal, Nadler, Escobar, 
Jackson Lee, Ross, Cicilline, and Swalwell.
    Mr. McClintock. The hour of 3:00 has arrived, and a quorum 
being present, the Subcommittee will come to order.
    Without objection, the Chair is authorized to declare a 
recess at any time.
    I want to welcome everyone to today's hearing on the Biden 
border crisis and the unaccompanied alien children crisis that 
has accompanied it.
    I will now recognize myself for an opening statement.
    On Inauguration Day our border was secure. The Remain in 
Mexico policy had slowed illegal immigration to a trickle, 
court-ordered deportations were being enforced, and the border 
wall was nearing completion. By the afternoon of that day, Joe 
Biden had reversed these policies, producing the largest 
illegal mass migration in history.
    In the last 27 months, they deliberately admitted two 
million illegal aliens into our country, a population larger 
than the State of Nebraska. While the Border Patrol was 
overwhelmed, another 1.5 million known got-aways have entered 
as well. That is an additional illegal population larger than 
the entire State of Hawaii.
    The Trump policy slowed encounters of unaccompanied 
children to 33,000, the lowest level in eight years. In the 
last fiscal year, a record 152,000 came across. That is almost 
a fivefold increase.
    Biden had exactly the same tools available to him as Trump, 
so it should be obvious that this is a deliberate policy that 
ignores not only the welfare of Americans but that of the 
migrant children as well.
    On a border trip last year, I asked a CBP officer how to 
stop the trafficking of children into this country. His answer 
was immediate: get them safely home.
    He said the cartels charge thousands of dollars to traffic 
these children, and they don't give refunds. The moment 
children are returned home, their business will dry up.
    On another border trip I was shocked to learn that no 
effort is made to get these children back to their homes, and 
very little effort is made vetting the so-called sponsors of 
these children, and very little is shown in following up on 
their welfare once they are abandoned to these so-called 
sponsors.
    So, what happens to them? The administration's response is 
basically don't know, don't care. A recent The New York Times 
investigation shed some light on this question.
    After they get to the U.S., many are forced by their so-
called sponsors into dangerous jobs with fake identity 
documents. Earlier this year a sanitation company, employing 
over 100 illegal alien children in jobs in slaughterhouses and 
meatpacking plants in the Midwest, paid $1.5 million of civil 
penalties after a Federal court found that these children were 
using caustic chemicals to clean razor-sharp saws, and working 
overnight shifts.
    In one of the great ironies of bill titles, the Trafficking 
Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008 makes this 
possible. While children from Mexico and Canada are immediately 
sent safely home, all others are admitted. That is a tremendous 
incentive to send unaccompanied children to the border.
    In 2014, even the Obama Administration recognized the 
danger and asked Congress to provide it with,

         . . . additional authority to exercise discretion in 
        processing the return and removal of unaccompanied minor 
        children from non-contiguous countries like Guatemala, 
        Honduras, and El Salvador.

The House passed a bill to do just that, but Senate Democrats 
blocked it.
    The Trump Administration was able to staunch the flow with 
new and strict requirements to ensure the safety of these 
children once placed with a sponsor, as well as Title 42 
expulsion authority. In 2021, the Biden Administration 
dismantled Trump era requirements to vet sponsors and perform 
background checks for individuals in the sponsor household, 
many of whom are involved in smuggling the children in the 
first place. The Biden Administration stopped subjecting them 
to Title 42.
    We now know that the administration simply lost track of 
over 85,000 of these children. In September 2022, Axios 
reported that,

         . . . roughly one in three follow-up calls made to released 
        migrant kids or their sponsors between January and May went 
        unanswered.

Don't know, don't care.
    According to The New York Times, the cabinet secretary 
responsible for these children, Xavier Becerra, likened the 
sponsor placement process to an assembly line that wasn't 
moving fast enough. He complained,

        If Henry Ford had seen this in his plant, he would never have 
        become rich and famous. This is not the way you do an assembly 
        line.

    Last week this Committee approved a bill that would help 
stop this tragedy by returning these children safely home, as 
we already do for children coming from Mexico or Canada. No 
Democrat supported our bill. I am hopeful that after hearing 
the testimony of our witnesses our colleagues will rethink 
their opposition to this long-overdue reform.
    Although we are focusing today on young and vulnerable 
children, we should note that a large majority of so-called 
unaccompanied children are late teenagers or young men claiming 
to be minors. That is a subject for another day.
    I am now pleased to recognize the Ranking Member for five 
minutes.
    Ms. Jayapal. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    Since this is the first Immigration Subcommittee hearing of 
the 118th Congress, I just want to start by congratulating you 
on becoming Chair, and also saying how honored I am to serve as 
Ranking Member.
    As the first South Asian American woman elected to the 
House, I came to this country by myself at the age of 16. It 
took me 17 years on an alphabet soup of visas to actually 
become a U.S. citizen.
    Prior to coming to Congress, I devoted a decade-and-a-half 
to working on the issue of fair and humane immigration policy. 
So, this is an issue that is both personal and collective for 
me. I am very proud to be the first immigrant to serve as 
either Ranking or Chair of this Subcommittee.
    Looking forward to working with you and being in a position 
to help shape the debate of reforming our immigration system 
around the values of dignity, humanity, and respect.
    I also want to sincerely thank Representative Zoe Lofgren 
who has for the last 15 years either Chaired or been the 
Ranking Member of the Immigration Subcommittee. She is a 
stellar champion for a working and humane immigration system. I 
know she is going to continue to be an invaluable resource for 
this Committee and for our whole Congress.
    Now, to the work of the hearing.
    Unfortunately, between the hearings that we have held and 
the cruel, extreme, and unworkable immigration legislation that 
was marked up last week, this majority is once again showing 
that they are not serious about finding real solutions to fix 
our complex immigration system.
    This hearing is ostensibly about showing that the majority 
cares about the exploitation of children. Just last week, the 
same majority passed legislation out of this Committee that 
would actually gut protections for unaccompanied children. That 
bill passed out of Committee with not a single Democratic vote, 
and even Republican colleagues decrying the bill as extreme, 
un-American, and not ready for prime time.
    Specifically, that bill would allow unaccompanied children 
to languish in Border Patrol facilities for up to a month; it 
would force children to appear within two weeks before an 
immigration judge, with no access to an attorney; and it would 
send children back to their home countries where they are at 
high risk for exploitation and abuse.
    The bill would decimate the bipartisan Trafficking Victims 
Protection Reauthorization Act, which Congress passed on a 
sweeping bipartisan basis, and establish the U.S. Government's 
central framework for keeping unaccompanied children out of the 
hands of trafficking.
    Democrats want to protect children, not make it even more 
difficult for them to be safe. We have got more work to do, 
real serious work to make that happen.
    I was heartbroken reading The New York Times articles about 
young children who are being taken advantage of by unscrupulous 
sponsors and employers, and the potential warning signs that 
were missed. This increase in child labor is actually a trend 
that has been steadily on the rise, especially since 2018 under 
the former President. It is completely unacceptable.
    That is why I was very pleased to see that the Office of 
Refugee Resettlement has announced an audit of their sponsor 
vetting process. I look forward to seeing the results of that 
audit.
    I was also encouraged by the Department of Labor, and 
Health and Human Services' recent announcement of a variety of 
new efforts to combat exploitative child labor, including a new 
interagency task force to improve coordination and information 
sharing among agencies.
    At the same time, we know that the Office of Refugee 
Resettlement and the administration overall need more resources 
to do more to ensure the safety of kids. We in Congress have a 
responsibility to provide sufficient funding to those agencies 
to do this critical work.
    That includes funding to increase post-release services for 
children after they are placed with a sponsor, as well as 
increased appointment of counsel. Improvement in both of these 
areas will help protect children from mistreatment, 
exploitation, and trafficking.
    The Department of Labor also needs to be more aggressive in 
going after these unscrupulous employers to the fullest extent 
of the law. Many of these employers, by the way, were using E-
Verify, which just goes to show how ineffective that system is, 
which was in the majority's bill last week. They should be held 
accountable for hiring kids and subjecting them and all workers 
to harsh conditions.
    Every policy is about real human beings. So, I just want to 
close with a success story of an unaccompanied child who came 
to the United States a few years ago.
    Fifteen-year-old Alejandra fled the gangs of El Salvador 
with her 10-year-old brother and sought safety here in the 
United States. Here, they reunited with their mother after 
being separated for 10 years.
    When she arrived in the United States, Alejandra did not 
speak English. She had problems understanding her teachers and 
she debated dropping out of school. She drew inspiration from 
her mother and from the support network around her, including 
the legal representation that she was fortunate to obtain. She 
persevered.
    She ended up graduating high school as the salutatorian of 
her class, and going to George Washington University on a full 
ride, where she majored in biology.
    There are so many Alejandras out there waiting for Congress 
to help keep them safe and help them succeed by passing humane 
immigration laws. That is what we should be focused on today.
    I look forward to hearing from our witnesses today. The 
protection of children from exploitation, abuse, and 
trafficking should be a bipartisan issue. I hope my colleagues 
approach it that way today.
    I yield back.
    Mr. McClintock. Thank you.
    We have with us the Ranking Member of the House Judiciary 
Committee. Mr. Nadler is recognized for five minutes for an 
opening statement.
    Mr. Nadler. I thank the gentleman.
    Mr. Chair, today's hearing would have been more appropriate 
to conduct last week, before the Republican majority marked up 
its extreme, enforcement-only immigration legislation. The 
majority's supposed concern for the exploited children that are 
the subject of today's hearing is hard to reconcile with a bill 
that would render unaccompanied children more vulnerable to 
exploitation and abuse.
    That legislation would eliminate the right of many 
unaccompanied children at the border to seek protection in 
Immigration Court from human trafficking and other dangers, and 
to receive robust screenings by child welfare experts for 
evidence of mistreatment.
    That legislation would leave these unaccompanied children 
with the right merely to cursory screenings by law enforcement 
personnel lacking child welfare expertise, screenings that 
would largely fail to identify signs of trafficking and 
exploitation.
    This would lead to the summary return of too many children 
with valid protection claims, the same dangers they fled.
    Even more alarmingly, the Republicans' bill would subject 
unaccompanied children to detention in jail-like Customs and 
Border Protection facilities for up to 30 days, 10 times longer 
than what is permitted under current law.
    Unaccompanied children would undergo their first 
Immigration Court hearing within 14 days of their border 
screening. This would leave them with almost no time to obtain 
counsel, to understand their legal options, or, in many cases, 
to comprehend what a court hearing even is, much less to 
demonstrate their eligibility for legal protection from 
trafficking and other mistreatment.
    As if that is not bad enough, the bill would prohibit 
Health and Human Services from funding counsel for 
unaccompanied children, stripping thousands of children of the 
lawyers they depend on to protect them from exploitation and 
other harm.
    As we pointed out last week, many of the components of the 
bill were not discussed in a hearing this Congress. That makes 
sense, given that we are four months in, and this is the first 
hearing the Immigration Subcommittee has held.
    It is too bad, because if this Subcommittee had met 
earlier, we could have also discussed the flaws of the E-Verify 
system. Some of the companies that employed and exploited the 
children who were the subject of recent reporting, used the E-
Verify system to ensure that their employees are eligible to 
work. It clearly did not work correctly, or it was abused.
    It would have been helpful, before we marked up legislation 
that mandated nationwide E-Verify, to learn about these issues.
    We could have discussed how H.R. 2640 contains modest 
protections for authorized workers, but it assigns no penalties 
to employers who violate these protections under E-Verify, 
rendering these provisions practically meaningless.
    Yes, I think the Committee would have learned a lot if it 
had actually held a hearing on this issue before marking up 
that cruel and extreme piece of legislation.
    At last week's markup we heard a lot from our Republican 
colleagues about the so-called missing 85,000 kids, as reported 
by The New York Times. Let's be clear, that headline was 
misleading when such allegations were made against the Office 
of Refugee Resettlement under the previous administration, and 
it is misleading today. We will discuss that issue in greater 
detail during the hearing.
    However, The New York Times reporting of children 
unlawfully working in factories, slaughterhouses, and other 
dangerous jobs is very concerning. ORR and the Department of 
Labor have taken some positive steps forward to address these 
issues.
    Make no mistake, more must be done. That will take 
significant resources devoted to both agencies, agencies that 
would likely see draconian cuts if the Republicans were 
successful in their efforts to hold our economy hostage to 
their extreme debt reduction demands or they threaten a 
catastrophic default on our Nation's credit.
    As we consider Federal efforts to address the exploitation 
of children, it is not helpful that in multiple Republican 
legislatures across the country States are loosening their 
child labor laws to allow children to lawfully work in some of 
these dangerous occupations.
    The fact that Republicans are actively making it easier for 
young teenagers to work in assembly line plants, 
slaughterhouses, and night shifts in States like Iowa and 
Arkansas, is appalling. It only encourages the exploitation of 
these vulnerable children.
    It is hard to take seriously the party that boasts of its 
concerns for exploited children, while simultaneously stripping 
vital protections from unaccompanied children, promoting 
policies that would create the conditions for these children to 
be exploited, and then starving agencies of the resources 
necessary to protect them from exploitation.
    If Republicans want to engage in a serious effort to 
protect children, Democrats stand ready to work with you.
    I look forward to hearing from the witnesses today. I yield 
back the balance of my time.
    Mr. McClintock. Thank you.
    Now we are very honored to have four witnesses with us 
today.
    Ms. Tara Lee Rodas is a Federal employee with the Council 
of the Inspectors General for Integrity and Efficiency. She is 
speaking to us today in her personal capacity as a 
whistleblower who witnessed and reported the harm and danger to 
unaccompanied alien children while working as a volunteer with 
the Office of Refugee Resettlement in the Department of Health 
and Human Services.
    She worked at the Pomona Emergency Intake Site in 
California that housed and processed thousands of unaccompanied 
alien children arriving at the southwest border in 2021.
    Ms. Sheena Rodriguez is the founder and President of the 
Alliance for a Safe Texas. She is a mother and former teacher 
who founded the Alliance for a Safe Texas during the current 
border crisis. As part of her work, she has interviewed many 
women and children who have crossed our southwest border and 
has testified before the Texas State Legislature regarding the 
impacts of the border crisis.
    Ms. Jessica Vaughan is the Director of Policy Studies for 
the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington, DC, based 
research institute that examines the impact of immigration on 
American society. Her area of expertise is immigration policy 
and operations, covering topics such as unaccompanied alien 
children, visa programs, immigration benefits, and immigration 
enforcement.
    Finally, Mr. Robert Carey served as the Director of the 
Office of Refugee Resettlement within the U.S. Department of 
Health and Human Services under the Obama Administration. Prior 
to his service at ORR, he served as Vice President of 
Resettlement and Migration Policy at the International Rescue 
Committee.
    Mr. Carey has served as Chair of the Refugee Council of the 
United States of America.
    I want to welcome all our witnesses and thank you for 
appearing. We will begin by swearing you in.
    Would you please rise and raise your right hand.
    Do you swear or affirm under penalty of perjury that the 
testimony you are about to give is true and correct to the best 
of your knowledge, information, and belief, so help you God?
    [Witnesses sworn.]
    Mr. McClintock. Great. Thank you very much.
    Let the record reflect that the witnesses have answered in 
the affirmative.
    Please know that your written testimony will be entered in 
the record in its entirety. Accordingly, we would ask that you 
summarize your testimony in five minutes.
    Mr. Carey, why don't we begin with you?

                   STATEMENT OF ROBERT CAREY

    Mr. Carey. Thank you, Mr. Chair, Ranking Member, and 
Members of the Subcommittee for the opportunity to appear 
before you today.
    I am Bob Carey. I was the Director of the Office of Refugee 
Resettlement, ORR, in the Department of Health and Human 
Services, from March 2015-January 2017.
    ORR, in addition to its work on behalf of refugees, 
asylees, and other vulnerable populations, is responsible for 
the care and maintenance of unaccompanied children while they 
are in U.S. Government custody, and their placement with U.S.-
based sponsors while they go through their immigration 
proceedings. The placement process includes vetting of sponsors 
to verify their relationship to the child and the suitability 
of the placement.
    The overwhelming majority of sponsors are immediate or 
close family members.
    The vetting process is rigorous and is derived from a range 
of sources, including records obtained from the countries of 
origin through their U.S. consulates, and documentation 
provided by U.S.-based sponsors. There are, however, 
limitations on ORR's capacity to review information obtained 
both prior to and after the release of children.
    The office, and the agency in which it is housed, are not 
investigative or law enforcement bodies. Many of the children 
profiled in recent coverage were taken into custody at our 
southern border. They faced physical and sexual violence, human 
trafficking, forced gang recruitment, and the very real 
possibility of death in their home countries and in flight. 
Rather than fall prey to these forces, they fled, often to join 
family in the U.S.
    They remain vulnerable even after arriving. It has been 
alleged that approximately 85,000 children have been ``lost by 
ORR.'' In fact, most of these children were released to the 
care of a parent or close relative. I believe that failure to 
respond to follow-up phone call from an unknown phone number 
does not constitute being lost.
    Recent investigations have documented the use of child 
labor in workplaces in the U.S., including, among others, 
unaccompanied children admitted to the U.S. pending 
adjudication of their asylum claims. There are multiple 
explanations for this: Inadequate funding and enforcement of 
existing child protection and labor laws, outdated statutes 
that allow large corporations to skirt workplace responsibility 
by using intermediaries, partisan politics designed to divide 
and demonize foreign-born people, and insufficient coordination 
among government agencies, among others.
    Since I left ORR, Congress has repeatedly directed ORR to 
enhance protections for children. In response, ORR has 
dramatically increased the number of children who received 
post-release services. Properly implemented, post-release 
social services, often referred to as PRS, are essential to 
ensuring the safety, stability, and transition to permanency of 
unaccompanied children released from Government custody to 
sponsors in the United States.
    I am pleased to see ORR's progress, as I believe these 
vital services are vital tools to ensure a child's safety while 
they go through Immigration Court processes. Further, ORR has 
stated that it plans to provide legal representation to 100 
percent of unaccompanied children by the end of Fiscal Year 
2027, which is an essential objective.
    No less crucial for protecting children is access to an 
attorney. Currently many, if not most, unaccompanied children 
lack an attorney. The TVPRA requires that, ``to the maximum 
extent practicable,'' HHS ensure legal counsel for 
unaccompanied children ``to represent them in legal proceedings 
or matters and protect them from mistreatment, exploitation, 
and trafficking.'' This includes mistreatment and exploitation 
in the workplace.
    Providing unaccompanied children with attorneys for the 
duration of their case is one of the best ways to intervene 
early when children are working in illegal and dangerous 
conditions and, thus, to protect them from abuse.
    Attorneys also help evaluate children's eligibility for 
legal protections and supportive services specifically designed 
for survivors of trafficking, severe crimes, and abuse. This 
includes work authorization, where eligible, which helps older 
teenagers access safe, lawful, and appropriate employment; and 
serves as a bulwark against dangerous working conditions, wage 
theft, and other labor abuses in the unregulated workforce.
    Let me conclude by reiterating that unaccompanied children 
are by and large children in need. When the exploitation of 
underage, unaccompanied children occur, it required multiple 
failures.
    The solutions require addressing all five of these factors:

    (1)  Accountability for those who exploited children;
    (2)  Accountability for those that profit from child-labor 
exploitation;
    (3)  Expanded and enhanced access to post-release services, 
legal services, and child advocates;
    (4)  Expanded legal authority and resources to act 
affirmatively to investigate possible child-labor exploitation 
and to provide protection to affected children;
    (5)  Better communication across Federal agencies.

Also, ORR can do a better job of protecting children.
    Mr. McClintock. Mr. Carey, I am sorry to interrupt, but 
your time expired about a minute ago.
    Mr. Carey. Right. Thank you for your time.
    Mr. McClintock. We will be getting to you with questions.
    Mr. Carey. Thank you.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Carey follows:]
   [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT] 
    
    Mr. McClintock. The Chair is next pleased to recognize Ms. 
Vaughan.

                  STATEMENT OF JESSICA VAUGHAN

    Ms. Vaughan. Thank you, Mr. Chair and Ranking Member for 
having a hearing on this topic, which has been ignored for too 
long. It is disturbing and sad to hear the stories of what 
these younger migrants go through. They are no less deserving 
of personal safety and protection just because of the 
circumstances under which they arrived.
    It is also infuriating, though, because the dysfunction in 
the ORR placement program has been known for a long time, for 
about 10 years since States and local communities that have 
been dealing with the influx starting raising the alarm.
    What is most infuriating is that even with all the well-
documented risk and problems associated with the Federal 
government taking custody of minors, and adults claiming to be 
minors, who are smuggled in, and then releasing them to 
unvetted sponsors, and the washing its hands of responsibility 
for them, even knowing the risk, still, the Biden 
Administration chose to throw gasoline on that dumpster fire by 
actually expanding opportunities for the illegal smuggling of 
minors into the country, and expanding opportunities for these 
minors to be trafficked for cheap labor, commercial sex, gangs, 
and more.
    It was done by dismantling the relatively effective 
policies enacted by prior administrations that had tried not 
only to improve the UAC placement system and mitigate the risk 
of trafficking, but to decrease the flow of child migrants.
    Under the Biden policies, the annual number of UACs 
referred to HHS custody after crossing illegally has tripled 
from an average of 40,000 a year to more than 120,000 in each 
of the last two years. Half of the 600,000 unaccompanied minors 
who have been released in the country since 2012 have arrived 
on Biden's watch.
    Not only did he relax border controls and suppress 
immigration enforcement inside the country, when the numbers 
predictably exploded his officials responded by gutting what 
few meager protections for child migrants still existed. As HHS 
Secretary Becerra revealed in his now notorious video 
statement, the goal was to release these kids faster, with few 
questioned asked, to make it a more efficient assembly line. 
This assembly line is staffed by crony contractors spending 
billions of taxpayer dollars on what is now a pipeline for 
child labor trafficking.
    It is truly an urgent task for Congress to address this 
problem. There is no question that the placement process for 
UACs can be improved. These improvements should be informed by 
experts like those here today who know the system, by child 
welfare agencies within the States and communities where the 
migrants are placed, and by the Federal immigration and other 
law enforcement agencies who understand the smuggling and 
trafficking business. We need these improvements, and we need 
more oversight on HHS and its contractors.
    Just last night I got a message from an insider voicing 
their concern about how HHS lets its contractors operate the 
youth migrant shelters with unlicensed and untrained staff who, 
apparently, are utterly unqualified to be in charge of these 
kids. We would never allow this to happen in a school or any 
other juvenile setting involving American kids.
    Fixing the shelter and placement system is not going to 
solve the problem really. Based on my experience, I see no 
change that the Federal government can construct a system for 
processing unaccompanied illegal alien minors that is up to the 
task of handling the huge number of kids, more than 120,000 
last year, who will continue to come, who will continue to be 
put in the hands of criminal smugglers, traffickers, 
unscrupulous employers, abusive sponsors, as long as they know 
that they are going to be released into the country once they 
get here.
    The fundamental problem which Congress can solve is with 
the law.
    First, the loopholes in the TVPRA must be closed, allowing 
the Government to swiftly repatriate the minors to their homes 
if they are not at risk, which most are not.
    Congress must direct and fund ICE to boost its anti-
trafficking and its worksite enforcement activities to go after 
the illegal and exploitative employment of the young migrants.
    It is also imperative to restore ICE's authority to arrest 
sponsors who it finds have been involved in smuggling, or 
trafficking, or illegal employment of these minors, which was 
taken away from them by the Harris Amendment that passed a 
couple of years ago, which I noted in my written statement.
    Congress should use its appropriations authority to force 
HHS and DHS to have meaningful coordination with State, local 
governments, and their child welfare agencies.
    Finally, Congress should reform other provisions in the law 
that entice minors to come illegally, such as the Special 
Immigrant Juvenile Program, which should be limited to 
accommodate only those youths who have no responsible parent or 
guardian to care for them.
    Thank you.
    [The prepared statement of Ms. Vaughan follows:]
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    Mr. McClintock. Great. Thank you very much for your 
testimony.
    Next, we will hear from Ms. Rodriguez for five minutes.

                 STATEMENT OF SHEENA RODRIGUEZ

    Ms. Rodriguez. Good afternoon, and thank you, Chair and 
Members of the Committee, for giving me this opportunity to 
present my eyewitness testimony and express my concerns 
regarding what is happening to the children at the southern 
border because of the current administration's policies. I am 
Sheena Rodriguez, Founder and President of Alliance for a Safe 
Texas. As a U.S. citizen, mother, and former educator who 
deeply cares about our country and the welfare of all children, 
I was compelled to see for myself what was occurring at our 
southern border.
    I have been to various parts of the border in Texas and 
Arizona nearly three dozen times and under two years. What I 
have witnessed would and should disgust and terrify every 
American. In April 2021, when Texas Governor Greg Abbott 
learned of allegations of abuse of unaccompanied minors in a 
Federal facility in San Antonio, he stated, quote, ``the Biden 
Administration is presiding over the abuse of children.''
    He also called on the administration to shut these 
facilities down. Instead, the administration has only expanded 
them without communicating with State and local authorities. 
Local communities are not told how long the minors will be 
there or where they will go when they are released and with no 
concern to the local--of impact to the local cities.
    I am requesting that Congress launch a full investigation 
into the Federal agencies responsible for approving these 
contracts. These are just a handful of many examples I have 
encountered. During one border trip to the Del Rio area in 
December 2021, the group I was with encountered six men who had 
illegally entered the U.S. and were hiding in the brush.
    They surrounded our vehicle believing that we were their 
transport to smuggle them further into the U.S. When we spoke 
to them, they said that they had witnessed cartel operatives 
murder children who were traveling alone and could not pay the 
smuggling fees. One man claimed he witnessed children being 
used and traded as currency. Another encounter in La Joya, I 
met and spoke with a 10-year-old Honduran girl who arrived by 
herself carrying only a small piece of paper with handwritten 
phone numbers on it.
    She stated the numbers were given to her by a woman and an 
NGO along the route who told the young girl the numbers were to 
her father who she said that she would be staying with, a man, 
the young girl claimed, she had never met or spoken to. Also, 
in La Joya, I met a 14-year-old girl reportedly abused by her 
father and claimed that she was held for 11 days in a bodega 
and abused further. Similarly, she was told by a stranger that 
she would be going to stay with her mother who the teen claimed 
again she did not know.
    I also met teenage boys between the ages of 14-17 who 
claimed cartel operatives often transported children through 
Mexico and held them at the bodegas where armed cartel members 
stood guard. Many were told they were going to stay with 
sponsors in America with several claims, again, that the teens 
had never met or personally communicated with their supposed 
sponsors. Since January 2021, there have been over 356,000 UACs 
encountered at the southern border, a majority of which have 
been released into the U.S., more than 10,000 of which that 
have been released in my respective area of North Texas.
    The current administration has admitted they do not keep 
track of the whereabouts when they're released into the U.S. 
With the use of taxpayer dollars, tens of thousands of children 
are simply missing. How many of the missing children are in my 
city or in yours? This has forced the State of Texas to take 
actions we never should've had to take as a direct result of 
the failed Federal policies.
    Currently, we have bipartisan support for my State level 
legislative sponsored letter calling for a State investigation 
into the trafficking of unaccompanied minors in Texas. I'm 
calling on Congress to investigate the Federal agencies 
responsible for these minors to locate these children and to 
act with urgency to end the policy of releasing UACs in the 
U.S. with sponsors and nonfamily members they do not know. I am 
also calling on Congress to require that all alleged family 
members undergo a DNA test.
    The abuse of children is not a political or partisan issue. 
It is a humanitarian and legal issue. I am calling on Congress 
to investigate the actions of DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, 
HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra, border czar, and Vice President 
Kamala Harris and to identify their role in facilitating the 
abuse of children through Federal agencies and demand that they 
be held accountable.
    I agree with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis who describes 
what is happening as, quote, ``effectively the largest human 
smuggling operation in American history.'' We can no longer 
turn a blind eye and pretend that this isn't happening. 
Congress has the power to stop this which is why I am calling 
on you to do what is right. Americans and these children 
deserve no less. Thank you.
    [The prepared statement of Ms. Rodriguez follows:]
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    Mr. McClintock. Thank you for your testimony. Our final 
witness is Ms. Rodas who's recognized for five minutes.

                  STATEMENT OF TARA LEE RODAS

    Ms. Rodas. Good afternoon, Chair McClintock, Ranking Member 
Jayapal, and distinguished Members of the Committee. It is an 
honor to be here. I thank you for the invitation to share my 
testimony.
    My goal is to inspire action to safeguard the lives of 
migrant children, including the staggering 85,000 that are 
missing. Today, children will work overnight shifts at 
slaughterhouses, factories, restaurants to pay their debts to 
smugglers and traffickers. Today, children will be sold for 
sex.
    Today, children will call a hotline to report they are 
being abused, neglected, and trafficked. We don't know if 
they're going to get the help they need. For nearly a decade, 
unaccompanied children have been suffering in the shadows.
    I have to confess I knew nothing about their suffering 
until 2021 when I volunteered to help the Biden Administration 
with the crisis at the southern border. As part of Operation 
Artemis, I was deployed to the Pomona Fairplex emergency intake 
site in California to help HHS Office of Refugee Resettlement 
reunite children with sponsors in the United States. I thought 
I was going to help place children in loving homes.
    Instead, I discovered that children are being trafficked 
through a sophisticated network that begins with recruiting in 
home country, smuggling to the U.S. border, and ends when ORR 
delivers a child to a sponsor. Some sponsors are criminals and 
traffickers and members of transnational criminal 
organizations. Some sponsors view children as commodities and 
assets to be used for earning income.
    This is why we are witnessing an explosion of labor 
trafficking. Now, whether it's intentional or not, it could be 
argued that the U.S. Government has become the middle man in a 
large-scale, multibillion dollar child trafficking operation 
that is run by bad actors seeking to profit off of the lives of 
children. As for me, my interest is the safety of the children.
    I do not view this as a political issue. I view this as a 
humanitarian issue. I assure you my motives are the highest and 
best. I want the children protected.
    So, I want to tell you some of what I witnessed personally 
at the Pomona Fairplex. I saw vulnerable indigenous children 
from Guatemala who speak Mayan dialects and cannot speak 
Spanish. That means they cannot ask for help in English. They 
cannot ask for help in Spanish.
    They become captives of their sponsors. I have sat with 
case managers as they've cried to tell me the horror of what 
has happened to children as they made the journey to this 
country. I saw apartment buildings where 20, 30, and 40 
unaccompanied minors had been released.
    I saw sponsors trying to simultaneously sponsor children 
from multiple ORR sites at one time. I saw sponsors using 
multiple addresses to obtain sponsorships of children. I saw 
numerous cases of children in debt bondage and the child knew 
they had to stay with the sponsor until the debt was paid.
    Realizing that we were not offering the children the 
American dream but instead putting them in modern day slavery 
with wicked overlords was a terrible revelation, a terrible 
revelation. These children are a captive victim population with 
no access to law enforcement or knowledge of their rights. They 
are extorted, abused, neglected, and that is why I blew the 
whistle in 2021.
    I witnessed firsthand the horrors of child trafficking and 
exploitation. My life will never be the same after what I saw. 
I have hope because I'm counting on you.
    It's my hope that you'll take action to end this crisis to 
safeguard the lives of these vulnerable children. People have 
asked me what can be done? What would you suggest?
    Well, first, I think HHS' No. 1 priority is oversight. They 
must commit to oversight, transparency, and accountability. If 
I could wave a magic wand, this, I believe, could be quickly 
solved by experts in the IG community.
    There is a Pandemic Analytic Center of Excellence or the 
PACE as we call it. I believe if data analysts at the PACE 
could look at the data, children could be rescued. Criminals 
could be prosecuted if the PACE had access to this data. It 
shows where the children are and who has them.
    I think also we need to change the culture of speed over 
safety. Speed is the wrong performance measure when dealing 
with children. We need to revamp the vetting process of 
sponsors and have case managers who have investigative 
backgrounds, data analytics backgrounds, and some certified 
fraud examiners.
    I think we need to reimagine a system where the sponsor is 
the accountable party. Sponsors should be required to report to 
ORR. Last, stop retaliating against whistleblowers.
    Stop retaliating against the people who are trying to tell 
the truth to save the children. As it is written, a wise man 
listens to advice while a fool continues in his folly. HHS 
needs to be wise to care for these children.
    [The prepared statement of Ms. Rodas follows:]
    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    Mr. McClintock. Thank you very much. Your time has expired.
    Ms. Rodas. OK. Thank you for the opportunity.
    Mr. McClintock. You're very welcome, and we'll get to 
questions now. Under the five-minute rule will be given Mr. Van 
Drew of New Jersey.
    Mr. Van Drew. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. First, I want 
to thank you for whistleblowing. It's people like you and all 
of you that when you come forward and tell the truth. Those are 
big words, tell the truth.
    You want to know--and I'm going to be a little different 
and I'm going to be a little bit political because we have the 
other side of the aisle saying that we're hurtful, we're cruel, 
we're harsh, and we're inhumane. Our bill is bad. They were in 
the majority when this was all done.
    This is their plan. I've spoken to Mr. Mayorkas numerous 
times, more than once, more than twice, more than three times. 
He has told me that there's nothing wrong, everything is fine, 
everything is good. Our system is working, and it's better than 
ever.
    The bottom line is we changed the system a number of years 
ago where we opened our gates. We opened our doors. We don't 
have all the ability to take care of everybody all the time and 
that's the truth.
    We have enough problems in America that we can only help 
legal immigrants and do things at a certain pace. We just can't 
let the gates be open. That is exactly what was happening under 
this administration.
    It's exactly what they've done. I don't want to be 
partisan. Believe it or not, I don't like being partisan. I 
have to be in this case because when Mr. Mayorkas tells me 
nothing is wrong, when you see that adults are pretending to be 
children in some cases as well and taking advantage, when you 
see little babies that are just tossed aside, when you see 
children that are bought and sold, used for sex slavery and 
worse multiple times, the stories are horrific.
    I know how you were sick. You know what? I don't want 
anybody from the other--if we want to find solutions, we have 
solutions. People have to stay home or go back home.
    We need legal immigration. We need a border, a border that 
really works, a border that is solid, a border that doesn't 
allow this to happen to children. You know what? The real goal 
here is to bring in as many undocumented people.
    You talked about speed, and that's the way they're doing 
it, as they possibly can, as fast as they can to just bring 
them in. So, the numbers go up double, triple. We see just 
millions upon millions of undocumented illegal immigrants.
    It doesn't do them good. It certainly doesn't do these 
children good. That's what's cruel. That's what's harsh. That's 
what's inhumane. That's what's wrong and what's going on, and 
it has to be stopped.
    We do need a system and we do have to look at HHS. That 
should've been done in the beginning two years ago when this 
all started. We weren't in control.
    We didn't have the ability to do it. We talked about it. We 
asked about it. We pushed for a change. We didn't have the 
ability to do it.
    So, I don't want anybody--and if they can do it. You come 
to me and say that it's my fault in the minority at the time or 
that it was the Republicans fault or that we're mean, bad 
people that want to hurt, no. This is the system that you set 
up on the other side of the aisle.
    This is your system. This is what you did. This is what you 
made. Of course, it's not going to work. Of course, it's worse. 
It is so much better if children--they're trying to bring 
children that are undocumented over.
    Let them go back to their home. Let them go through a legal 
process. I know it takes time, but it's the only way that's 
going to work.
    We are destroying our country. We're hurting little babies. 
We're destroying other countries in the way that we're doing 
this.
    What we're also doing is making a place for the cartels in 
America. I read somewhere recently. They said our latest 
challenge is going to have to be like the military to go after 
the cartels.
    The cartels shouldn't even be in America. They shouldn't 
have the ability to do this to these children. These children 
and their families, whatever, are given false hope and false 
aspirations and I'm tired of it.
    I'm tired of being blamed for something that somebody else 
made, that somebody else created that we didn't do. Mr. Chair, 
I yield back. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm going to actually yield--yes.
    Mr. Biggs. Many thanks, and I thank the gentleman for 
yielding. Mr. Carey, during your tenure of about two years, 
there were roughly 93,000 unaccompanied minors that came to 
HHR--or excuse me, ORR during your time. Is that a fair 
statement? You need to put the microphone on.
    Mr. Carey. I would have to check on those numbers.
    Mr. Biggs. That's what the official website indicates. Are 
familiar that since January 2021, there's been 356,000--just 
under 357,000 unaccompanied children that have come across?
    Mr. Carey. Yes, I'm aware of that.
    Mr. Biggs. Thank you. I yield.
    Mr. McClintock. The gentleman yields back. Ms. Jayapal for 
five minutes.
    Ms. Jayapal. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to discuss the 
85,000 so-called lost children that we've heard so much about 
in this Committee. Mr. Carey, as you testified, The New York 
Times wrote a detailed article with some very concerning 
stories related to unaccompanied children unlawfully working in 
some very dangerous conditions.
    I've said before that these incidents are extremely 
upsetting. They need to be addressed. The article also 
discussed how the Office of Refugee Resettlement did not know 
the whereabouts of those 85,000 unaccompanied children who have 
been released to sponsors since the Biden Administration began.
    Many outlets and some of my colleagues have latched onto 
this headline to claim that the Biden Administration has, 
quote, ``lost 85,000 children.'' So, I want to start with the 
most important question because you ran the Office of Refugee 
Resettlement. Are those children actually lost by the Federal 
government?
    Mr. Carey. No, they are not. Approximately 85 percent, and 
during my tenure, 90 percent of those children were going to 
parents or very close relatives. Upwards of 70 percent, I 
believe, were going to their parents.
    So, it was the reunification of families that was taking 
place. Now, it is true that some of those calls are not 
answered. However, not answering a phone call I do not believe 
constitutes losing a child.
    There are some very legitimate reasons why those calls 
might not be answered. They're unknown numbers from the U.S. 
Government. They're not recognized.
    I think that understandably people do not answer calls from 
unknown numbers. They may be fearful of traffickers, other 
forces. So, in short, I do not believe that constitutes being 
lost.
    Ms. Jayapal. So, when somebody says lost, what they're 
talking about is that a phone call to verify and speak to the 
child was not answered. Then that gets constituted as, quote, 
``lost.'' So, if I remember correctly, in 2018, the previous 
administration was accused of the same issue when headlines 
appeared stating that the Trump Administration lost 1,500 
children in a three-month period. Is that correct?
    Mr. Carey. Yes.
    Ms. Jayapal. Those claims were untrue as well?
    Mr. Carey. I believe those claims were, in fact, true 
because the families were separated. Some children went at the 
time of entry. They were separated. There were data bases did 
not track where the parents went and where the children went. 
So, the situation was substantially different.
    Ms. Jayapal. You're talking about a time when the Trump 
Administration actually separated thousands of children from 
their families. In fact, I remember going and visiting some of 
those parents in a Federal detention center. They had no idea 
where their parents were.
    In fact, the government had no idea where those kids were. 
Can you discuss why the Office of Refugee Resettlement does not 
do more in its follow-up? I mean, that is one of the things 
that has been raised that I think we all want to understand. In 
your opinion, what more could the Office of Refugee 
Resettlement be doing?
    Mr. Carey. Well, I think it's important to understand what 
the parameters are on the ORR office operations. The statutory 
authority granted to ORR extends only up to the time of 
release. So, ORR has no authority to track or to investigate.
    It's not an investigatory body. So, it's--or a law 
enforcement body. So, substantial resources are directed in 
that area. It lacks the expertise, tools, staff, and resources 
to conduct investigatory processes.
    Ms. Jayapal. So, you mentioned in your testimony that ORR 
has no authority over children working, for example, illegal 
child labor. Is that correct? ORR--
    Mr. Carey. That's correct.
    Ms. Jayapal. Who has responsibility for that?
    Mr. Carey. That would be the Department of Labor, I 
believe.
    Ms. Jayapal. So, that is really not a function of ORR. I 
want to thank you, Mr. Carey, because I think this question of 
additional post-release services and in fact even some of the 
Republican witnesses have talked about this. I think that's an 
area that we believe is important to ensure that there are in-
person follow-ups, to ensure that there is appointment of 
counsel.
    That's something we didn't cover. That's only going to help 
ensure that these kids stay stafe and that their claims are 
heard. So, I appreciate your testimony.
    It's important that we get the facts out there, that we 
don't use the word, lost, in way that's not factual because 
really what we're talking about is a phone call was made. That 
was not responded to. That phone call was not responded to for 
all the reasons that you mentioned. I thank you, and I yield 
back, Mr. Chair.
    Mr. Carey. Thank you.
    Mr. McClintock. Mr. Biggs of Arizona.
    Mr. Biggs. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I do think it's 
interesting that the Ranking Member of the Subcommittee earlier 
today and in the previous hearing referred to the crisis of the 
border as the so-called crisis, just like she referred to 
85,000 lost children as so-called lost children. I think that 
gives you the mindset that you need to see.
    When I was down at La Joya one time, I remember a CBP 
agent, and we went down there. If you remember how it is in La 
Joya, you go and you can watch people coming across the river. 
They're coming up the road, and there's a sign that tells them 
where to go, which way to go because that's where CBP is. It's 
just myself and an agent. It's nighttime, and we saw a group.
    They saw us. We're 200 yards away. There's 150 or so of 
them. They don't want to come because they're not quite sure 
who we are.
    So, we yell at them. We're Border Patrol. Come on up. So, 
they come on up. There was nobody over the age of 18, no one. 
We had kids who were three years old coming across.
    Who are they coming with? A coyote had brought them across 
the river and said, ``go your own way. Go with this group of 
people.'' Is that humane, Ms. Rodas?
    Ms. Rodas. No.
    Mr. Biggs. Ms. Rodriguez, is that humane?
    Ms. Rodriguez. No, absolutely not.
    Mr. Biggs. Ms. Vaughan.
    Ms. Vaughan. No, not at all. There are policies that entice 
people to come like that. Frankly if we're talking about 
relying on phone calls as so-called monitoring of kids post-
placement, that's not--
    Mr. Biggs. I'm going to get into that. Don't go there yet. 
I'm going to get into that. I've been in Yuma, and I have seen 
the evidence of kids being reused to create a family unit.
    Same kid, same kid, over and over again, rent-a-kid, not 
humane. We're told that calling 85,000 children lost that have 
been placed--and by the way, it's not 90 percent going to 
parents anymore. It's a third or less going to parents in 
today's statistics and numbers.
    The Ranking Member wants to get the facts out. Those are 
the facts. Ms. Rodas, you have said the U.S. Government is the 
middleman in a multibillion dollar migrant child trafficking 
operation. What did you mean when you use the term, middleman? 
Microphone, please.
    Ms. Rodas. So, the U.S. Government is receiving the 
children from the smugglers at the border. HHS is a 2.7 
trillion-dollar agency. Over the last two years has spent 
approximately 10 billion dollars. So, they are using that money 
to receive those children and then transport those children to 
the end user.
    Mr. Biggs. When you say end user, we're not talking 
necessarily even a blood relative. So, I heard the Democrat 
witness talk about vetting. Can any of you talk about vetting? 
I can talk about vetting, but I want to hear from the 
witnesses. Tell us about the vetting that you've observed.
    Ms. Rodas. Well, in my personal capacity as the deputy of 
the Federal case management team, vetting I would like to say 
with Mr. Carey what he said is they are not an investigative 
organization, nor are they law enforcement. There was no one. I 
was shocked and I am stunned that was no one with law 
enforcement experience overseeing where children are going.
    You have people applying for children who we know are 
members of transnational criminal organizations, yet there's no 
one with any data analytics background or anything like that 
overseeing this operation. It doesn't really pass the 
commonsense test when we're pumping billions of dollars into a 
program that's overseen by people who simply are not qualified 
to do the job. When one individual can sponsor 20, 30, or 40 
people and no one is asking a question about it, there's 
something seriously wrong and flawed with that program.
    Mr. Biggs. That's ultimately how they found that one child 
in Yuma, because everybody was going to the same place in 
Charleston, South Carolina. Ms. Vaughan, you were going to 
expand on the phone calls which I agree with you. I only have 
time to ask the question. What goes on in that phone call? Then 
I want to submit some stuff for the record, Mr. Chair, after 
she's done.
    Mr. McClintock. Briefly.
    Ms. Vaughan. Yes, a phone call is not sufficient to detect 
whether the child is in a safe environment. A phone call is not 
enough to know if a child is being abused, or if a child is in 
a forced labor trafficking situation. That is not acceptable 
monitoring and shouldn't be considered monitoring at all.
    That is just a contractor going through the motions of 
trying to see if a child is there. Frankly, I think almost all 
these kids are actually lost because the Federal government is 
taking no responsibility.
    Mr. McClintock. Thank you. The gentleman's time has 
expired, but you have some unanimous consent requests?
    Mr. Biggs. Yes, Mr. Chair. I have a letter that I wrote to 
ORR, the Director of ORR in October, and her response in 
January of this year admitting that they had lost contact with 
more than 42,000 children.
    Mr. McClintock. OK. Without objection. We now recognize Mr. 
Nadler.
    Mr. Nadler. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Carey, I want to 
discuss the vetting process the Office of Refugee Resettlement 
undertakes before it releases any unaccompanied child to a 
sponsor. Here's some of the news organizations talk about this 
process. Do you think the children are just given to anyone? 
It's really much more extensive than that. Can you discuss the 
assessment that ORR does of each sponsor, what kind of 
application interview and background checks does each potential 
sponsor undergo?
    Mr. Carey. Certainly. I'd like to point that at the time 
that the children are turned over to ORR from CBP, there is 
documentation that they have determined is valid or worth 
passing on. So, before a child enters ORR custody, there has 
been a vetting process. That continues for the--that is why 
children tend to be in our care for on average one month where 
the ongoing vetting process takes place.
    It is a rigorous one. It involves relationships with the 
countries of origin where primary information is available. Any 
documentation is available from the sponsors including 
fingerprinting, licensing, license information, whatever checks 
out against multiple data bases, including those for criminal 
records or anything of that sort. So, it is a rigorous process, 
and it goes on for at least a month. So, establishing family 
relations that are done in concert with the countries of origin 
and original documents are obtained.
    Mr. Nadler. Despite the fact that there have been some 
pretty heartbreaking stories of sponsors being traffickers or 
using the children to work, it's my understanding this past 
Fiscal Year over 85 percent of sponsors are close family 
members. Is that correct?
    Mr. Carey. Yes, it is.
    Mr. Nadler. Would you say that percentage is about on par 
with what you saw when you were the Director of ORR under the 
Obama Administration?
    Mr. Carey. It was very close. It may have changed. It 
varies over time, so a percentage or two different but roughly 
the same.
    Mr. Nadler. Can you share any experiences you had as 
Director of ORR of reuniting an unaccompanied minor with their 
family in the United States?
    Mr. Carey. Yes, in many instances, it is known that 
families have been separated for extended periods of time. 
Children have been traumatized in their home countries. The 
rule of law is limited.
    They've often been targeted gangs or violent elements often 
as they reach adolescence. So, children are being put in the 
care of their families which is, I believe, where children 
should be if at all possible. It has been established that 
congregant care facilities are not an idea location and are, in 
fact, harmful for children.
    So, I do think that ORR is reuniting families, and that's 
the authority that was given to it by Congress. So, the 
research is rigorous. It's exhaustive, and it's based on 
whatever information is available. As I said before, ORR is not 
an investigatory body.
    So, there are limits as to what it can do. There are data 
bases, there's fingerprinting, there's the background checks, 
and there are interviews.
    Mr. Nadler. Thank you. Based on what we're hearing today, 
the reality is that the issues Ms. Rodas and The New York Times 
have flagged should not be happening under current law and 
policy. I'm very glad that ORR has announced that it's 
conducted an audit of its vetting process. Mr. Carey, can you 
discuss the inherent tension that exists between trying to 
ensure the safety of all these children, while also ensuring 
the children are not held in ORR custody for a long period of 
time?
    Mr. Carey. Yes, it is a delicate process because children 
could, in theory, be kept in care indefinitely. The goal is 
ultimately to reunite children with a caregiver, with a parent, 
with a family member, or an individual who is designated by 
their parent as the ideal sponsor. So, it's important that 
children be closely--their placement be closely vetted which it 
is to the extent possible, but also paramount that children can 
be reunited with a family member and placed in a home 
environment.
    Mr. Nadler. Thank you. I'd like to submit--Mr. Chair, I'd 
like to submit for the record the testimony of the Director of 
ORR in front of the House Oversight Committee that more than 85 
percent of unaccompanied kids are reunited with their families.
    Mr. McClintock. Without objection.
    Mr. Nadler. Thank you. I yield back.
    Mr. McClintock. The Chair now recognized Mr. Roy of Texas.
    Mr. Roy. Thank you, Chair. I would note that were my child 
one of the 15 percent, even if I take the Chair or the Ranking 
Member I should say at their word, I would be pretty frustrated 
about your child being lost. If you're saying your kid is at 
school and they say, well, we kept up with 85 percent of them. 
Boy, would you feel good about the education system?
    Because what about those other 15 percent of kids, even if 
you take the Ranking Member at his word? I've got a FOIA 
request here from Judicial Watch from--this is now six years 
dated. It is a laundry list of incidents put out by ORR, the 
FOIA request detailing laundry list of abuses of children.
    This one, a young girl reported she was inappropriately 
touched by an unknown male immigrant in the group after 
entering the U.S. Another one, several people reported to staff 
they were inappropriately touched, another where somebody paid 
money to have sex with her, another--go down the list of 
hundreds of these examples. Somehow in the greatest country in 
the history of the world, the most powerful country in the 
history of the world, we think this is a system that we should 
defend.
    It blows my mind that my colleagues on the other side of 
the aisle want to defend a system of laws that allows this to 
occur to children, and then brush away that MAGA extremist The 
New York Times for daring to point out that 85,000 kids aren't 
being found from the first contact my colleagues on the other 
side of the aisle say. Oh, OK. We just didn't get them on that 
first call.
    I would ask each of the witnesses very quickly, do you 
think that the data that's showing that since President Biden 
took office that 356,665 unaccompanied alien children have 
crossed the southern border that we know of and been placed in 
HHS custody is a system that attracts that number of children 
unaccompanied to come across our border to be exploited by 
cartels, to be put into the sex trafficking trade, to be put 
into the slave labor trade, to be sexually abused, to die on 
ranches in South Texas, or to drown in the Rio Grande? Yes or 
no, is that a system that you're proud of as an American and 
that you think is good?
    Ms. Rodas. No, Congressman.
    Mr. Roy. Thank you, ma'am. Ms. Rodriguez?
    Ms. Rodriguez. No, sir. I'm appalled.
    Mr. Roy. Ms. Vaughan.
    Ms. Vaughan. No indeed.
    Mr. Roy. Mr. Carey.
    Mr. Carey. I'd like to point out--
    Mr. Roy. It's a yes or no question. Are you proud of a 
system in this country that has 356,000 unaccompanied alien 
children that allow that to occur to children that we know? By 
your own acknowledgment and testimony, by our own 
understanding, children are being abused and raped. They get 
killed in this process. The system that we created to allow and 
attract that flood across sour border, do you think that is a 
good system and are you proud of it as an American?
    Mr. Carey. These children are fleeing violence and threats 
of death in their country of origin.
    Mr. Roy. The numbers have been spiking under this 
administration because of the policies of this administration 
and it is well documented. I just want to make clear. You're 
standing behind the policies of this administration that you're 
proud of these policies and that is allowing to occur to these 
children?
    Mr. Carey. I do not currently work for the administration. 
I was--
    Mr. Roy. Doesn't matter to me. Are you proud of the 
administration's policies and what currently is occurring to 
these children because of the policies attracting 356,000 
unaccompanied alien children when we know the data, 85,000 
lost, reams of scores--you worked there. You know of the rapes, 
of the people getting killed, and of the slave labor. Do you 
think this is a system that we should say we're proud of?
    Mr. Carey. I believe we should provide protection to 
children who are fleeing death and persecution.
    Mr. Roy. Let me ask you a different question.
    Mr. Carey. They should be allowed an opportunity--
    Mr. Roy. Do you believe that the TVPRA policies adopted 
that unchecked and unfixed by this current Democratic 
Administration and my colleagues on the other side of the 
aisle, did that have anything to do with attracting all those 
children across the border?
    Mr. Carey. Well, I do believe that the Trafficking Victims 
Protection Act is an important component of U.S. child 
protection--
    [Simultaneous speaking.]
    Mr. Roy. Is it a magnet right now, the way it's currently 
constructed? While children were riding on the top of train 
cars, President Obama was appalled. Jeh Johnson was appalled. 
This administration doesn't seem to care. Yes or no, is our 
current system a magnet to kids?
    Mr. Carey. I do not believe it is.
    Mr. Roy. You don't believe it's a magnet?
    Mr. Carey. No.
    Mr. Roy. Well, that's the problem. I yield back.
    Mr. McClintock. The gentleman yields back. Next is Mr. 
Swalwell.
    Mr. Swalwell. Thank you. Ms. Rodriguez, welcome and thank 
you for coming today to testify. Ms. Rodriguez, were you at the 
Capitol on January 6th?
    Ms. Rodriguez. Was I at the Capitol?
    Mr. Swalwell. Yes.
    Ms. Rodriguez. No, sir. I was on the premises outside of a 
reflection pond waving a flag.
    Mr. Swalwell. So, you were on the Capitol grounds?
    Ms. Rodriguez. I'm not sure if that's technically Capitol 
grounds. I was near the street.
    Mr. Swalwell. Is this your tweet right behind me at 3:05 on 
January 6, 2021?
    Ms. Rodriguez. I really do not know. I can--
    Mr. Swalwell. Are you @SecureBorderTX?
    Ms. Rodriguez. Yes, sir.
    Mr. Swalwell. OK. Can you see that picture?
    Ms. Rodriguez. I can.
    Mr. Swalwell. Did you go any farther than you were in that 
picture?
    Ms. Rodriguez. No, sir.
    Mr. Swalwell. Did you ever cross any police barricades on 
January 6th?
    Ms. Rodriguez. Not that I'm aware of.
    Mr. Swalwell. Did you ever see any violence on January 6th?
    Ms. Rodriguez. No, I did not. I did see a red flare go up. 
I don't remember the time. That was about it. I did not 
encounter any violence. As a matter of fact, it was quite 
peaceful. I was involved in some prayers the day before.
    Mr. Swalwell. So, January 6th, over 150 officers were 
injured. One lost an eye. One lost a finger. One lost a life. 
You didn't see any violence?
    Ms. Rodriguez. No, sir. I did not. That was not my 
experience.
    Mr. Swalwell. You agree, though, that violence against 
police officers took place that day?
    Ms. Rodriguez. Sir, I'm not quite sure that this has to do 
with the exploitation of children like the young girl who wore 
this band.
    Mr. Swalwell. I guess you recall--you publicly tweeted 
this. The majority knew that you were on the Capitol grounds on 
January 6th. So, your credibility is just as every witness 
including the Democratic witness is fair grounds for 
questioning. So, I guess my question is you are aware that 
violence took place at the Capitol on January 6th?
    Ms. Rodriguez. That's what the media says.
    Mr. Swalwell. OK. Do you believe the media?
    Ms. Rodriguez. Inherently, I do not.
    Mr. Swalwell. No, about January 6th.
    Ms. Rodriguez. About January 6th? I can only go by my 
personal experience. Absolutely, if waving a flag and praying 
outside of the Supreme Court and standing outside waving a flag 
on public property is a crime, I'm not--again, I'm really not 
sure what relevance. We have children that are being raped 
using our taxpayer dollars.
    Mr. Swalwell. Others--
    [Simultaneous speaking.]
    Ms. Rodriguez. I'm not quite sure what this has to do with 
me waving a flag has to do with that.
    Mr. Swalwell. So, you were among a crowd that did commit 
violence. My question for you is--I accept you at your word. 
You did not commit any violence that day. You didn't see any 
violence that day. Certainly, it's not a lie. It's not made up 
that 150 officers were injured.
    [Simultaneous speaking.]
    Mr. Swalwell. My question is to your credibility. Will you 
condemn the violence that took place against the officers that 
day?
    Ms. Rodriguez. Absolutely. I absolutely condemn any 
violence, including the violence that is occurring at our 
southern border using our taxpayer dollars. Absolutely.
    Mr. Swalwell. OK. Did you tell the majority before they 
invited you here that you had participated on Capitol grounds 
on Janu-
ary 6th?
    Ms. Rodriguez. Did I tell the majority that I waved a flag 
on--
    [Simultaneous speaking.]
    Mr. Swalwell. Did they know that you had been at the 
Capitol on January 6th--
    Ms. Rodriguez. It was not a question that I was asked. No, 
sir.
    Mr. Swalwell. As it relates to January 6th, you also posted 
a tweet that encouraged people to attend that day and, quote, 
``fight for Trump.'' Do you remember writing on January 1, 
2021, imagine over a million patriots screaming fight for 
Trump. Think Congress and the Supreme Court will hear us. When 
you say, fight for Trump, and then there was actually fighting, 
physical fighting on behalf of Trump--
    Ms. Rodriguez. Sir--
    Mr. Swalwell. What did you mean?
    Ms. Rodriguez. --are stating that I tweeted that?
    Mr. Swalwell. You don't remember tweeting?
    Ms. Rodriguez. No, sir. I honestly do not.
    Mr. Swalwell. OK. So, on January 1, 2021, you sent a tweet 
that said, imagine over a million patriots screaming, quote, 
``fight for Trump'' on the 6th. Think Congress and SC which I 
believe is Supreme Court will hear us then, #fight for Trump. 
Your testimony is that you did not say that?
    Ms. Rodriguez. I'm saying I do not--I honestly do not 
remember tweeting that. I was not very active on Twitter.
    Mr. Swalwell. Well, you also tweeted at 4:00, I just got 
home--you said I just got hole safely, I think you meant home--
at BWI airport as the gate filled up with those of us with 
Trump gear on and several Army soldiers near time to boarding. 
Our gate was surrounded by airport security.
    Mr. McClintock. Will the gentleman yield for a moment?
    Mr. Swalwell. No, I will not yield. So, you tweeted 
regularly throughout the days leading up to January 6th. You 
ask people to fight for Trump, and then you took a picture of 
yourself near the Capitol. So, I just want to know when you say 
fight for Trump and people ultimately fought for Trump, do you 
regret those words?
    Ms. Rodriguez. Sir, I do--the second one that you just 
read, yes, because that was a very traumatic experience. I 
couldn't understand why my gate surrounding--and BWI was 
surrounded by Guardsman and how I was--we as a whole, everyone 
that was on that plane, were threatened to be removed. I could 
not understand because again I did not experience any type of 
violence. As far as the first one that you--I would have to go 
back and look at that. I really do not honestly remember 
tweeting that first one.
    Mr. Swalwell. I'll make sure to get it to you.
    Mr. McClintock. The gentleman's time has expired.
    Mr. Swalwell. I just want to correct. I said January 6th 
for the BWI airport. It was January 7th. I just want to--
January 7th was when you tweeted--
    [Simultaneous speaking.]
    Mr. McClintock. Mr. Nehls.
    Mr. Nehls. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Ms. Rodriguez, I apologize 
that you had to--you're here for a hearing on the border. They 
don't want to talk about a border. Mr. Swalwell is down there. 
Obviously, everybody knows he's made some comments. He's got a 
checkered past.
    [Simultaneous speaking.]
    Mr. Swalwell. I'm sorry? A checkered past? I would ask--
    Mr. Nehls. It's my time. Alleged affairs and relationships 
with Yum Yum.
    [Simultaneous speaking.]
    Mr. Swalwell. No, no, no, no, no. You don't get to say that 
shit. That's not true.
    Mr. Nehls. He's had alleged relationships with Yum Yum.
    [Simultaneous speaking.]
    Mr. Nadler. I ask the gentleman's words to be taken down.
    Mr. Swalwell. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. You don't get to 
say that, pal.
    [Simultaneous speaking.]
    Mr. Nadler. We ask the gentleman's words to be taken down. 
He's casting a slur on another Member.
    Mr. Nehls. I am here--
    Mr. Nadler. I ask the words of the gentleman be taken down. 
He's casting a slur on another Member.
    Mr. McClintock. Let us have some order and civility here, 
and we will take up the issues one by one.
    Mr. Nadler. Mr. Chair, I ask that the words of the 
gentleman be taken down as expressing a slur on another Member.
    Mr. Cicilline. I join in that request.
    Mr. McClintock. The specific words were--
    Ms. Jayapal. He mentioned that Mr. Swalwell had a checkered 
past. I don't have the rest of the exact words. It was a direct 
slur on a Member of this Committee. That is not acceptable.
    Mr. McClintock. We are going to consult the precedents and 
take a temporary recess.
    Ms. Jayapal. Thank you.
    [Recess.]
    Mr. McClintock. Would the gentleman wish to withdraw his 
words?
    Mr. Nehls. Yes, and I would like to rephrase. This is the 
same Member that was removed from the Intelligence Committee 
that he previously served on. So, now let's get right down to 
the serious business as it relates to our southern border.
    My question is more related to those who claim to be minors 
but pose as the adults. I've got several articles in here, 
Border Patrol nabs hundreds of illegal immigrant adults posing 
as children. Border Patrol nabs illegal immigrants who pose as 
unaccompanied minors to avoid deportation.
    This is an article here with our school districts across 
the country that are dealing with this. This is from city 
officials in Lynn, Massachusetts that talked about adults now--
adults that are in this country. They posed as minors.
    They're in this country. Now, we've got 23-, 24-, 25-, and 
30-year-old people in our high schools. Think about that. 
They're in our high schools. They're across the entire country.
    City superintendent of schools, Catherine Latham in Lynn, 
Massachusetts says this is out of control. These individuals 
are in their schools. There's very little documentation.
    It says, Federal policy prohibits city officials from 
inquiring into a child's immigration and citizenship status and 
background. We've got problems here, folks. We've got problems, 
and the left is just continuing to ignore it. They're ignoring 
it. Mr. Carey, what proof--since we've got individuals coming 
in here, what proof is required to determine a minor's age?
    Mr. Carey. Well, you talked about screening at the border. 
So, Customs and Border Protection, I believe, is the law 
enforcement entity that determine that these--
    Mr. Nehls. DNA, my friend, do they do--
    Mr. Carey. No, I think these children were determined not 
to be eligible as minors before they would have been turned 
over to ORR.
    Mr. Nehls. OK.
    Mr. Carey. So, a law enforcement body determined that they 
were not minors and they did not go into ORR.
    Mr. Nehls. Yes, so DNA, birth certificates, passports, 
medical records, what does somebody need to produce?
    Mr. Carey. Well, in fact, birth records and a host of other 
materials are collected, both from country of origin and--
    Mr. Nehls. What happens if they don't have any of these 
documents, sir?
    Mr. Carey. Well, I believe there are individual 
circumstances. Those are, in fact--
    Mr. Nehls. What is the protocol then?
    Mr. Carey. Well, I think it would vary greatly. I do not 
know what it is currently, because I'm not in the office.
    Mr. Nehls. This guy here behind me, I'd like to spend a 
moment with this guy. This guy here, 24 years old, he posed as 
a minor. He comes into this country, shares a fake name.
    It's not him. He wasn't a minor. He said he was 16-17. He 
comes in. He's 24 years old. ORR releases him. They send him to 
Florida. He's over there hanging out with a fellow, his 
sponsor, not a father, not a mother, just a sponsor.
    What does he do a few short months later? He kills him. He 
kills him. Now, I don't know what the protocol is down there. 
When I look at this guy, he's got more chin whiskers than most 
40-year-olds have.
    Look at that guy. Now, how does a guy like that get into 
this country as a minor? He comes in. He says, my name is such-
and-such. No such name. He gets released into this country, and 
he took a life.
    There's just more than this guy. There are hundreds if not 
thousands of them in this country posing as minors. I could sit 
here and talk about the MS-13 gangs that are coming in here and 
harming our American people and our citizens. What are we doing 
about it?
    Ms. Vaughan, I wish I had more time. I do. Ms. Rodriguez, 
ma'am, thank you for what you do. Thank you for exposing what 
this administration has done to this country, putting the 
American people last each and every time. We're in control now, 
and I can damn well tell you, help is on its way. Thank you, 
sir. I yield back.
    Mr. McClintock. Ms. Ross.
    Ms. Ross. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Earlier this year, I joined 
several of my colleagues on this Committee to visit McAllen and 
Brownsville, two Texas border towns. While there, we visited an 
Office of Refugee Resettlement facility that houses 
unaccompanied children.
    All these children had families or sponsors in the United 
States who were waiting to take them. We learned that to ensure 
these kids are treated humanely when they leave ORR custody, 
ORR conducts an assessment of the sponsors to determine that 
the child is placed in an appropriate environment. What struck 
me most about our visit to the border was how much our 
immigration and asylum system relies on nonprofits and 
community services in areas like McAllen and Brownsville.
    The Biden Administration is working to scale up post-
release services through which children and their sponsors are 
connected to community-based services with the goal of being 
able to provide these services to every child soon. 
Unfortunately, this Committee has already seen too many 
proposals this year to strip unaccompanied children of basic 
protections. The Border Security Enforcement Act would leave 
kids with a mere cursory screening by law enforcement 
personnel, lacking child welfare expertise who would be less 
likely to pick up on signs of trafficking and exploitation 
which I take extremely seriously.
    As a State legislator, I moved through trafficking bills in 
North Carolina. It would also result in a summary return of 
many kids who fled legitimate dangers in their home countries. 
Children who arrive at our southern border have often escaped 
violence, human traffickers, and gangs in their own countries. 
Mr. Carey, in your opinion, is it better to allow children to 
remain in the United States if we can properly vet the sponsors 
or to summarily deport them with limited due process back to a 
dangerous situation?
    Mr. Carey. Thank you for the question. It is well 
documented that these children are coming from three of the 
most violent countries in the world where there are 
extrajudicial killings where children are recruited or targeted 
by gangs or violent elements at the time they reach 
adolescence. So, no, I do not think without a proper hearing a 
determination of their legal access to asylum is determined 
with ideally legal representation as recommended by the TVPRA 
and Flores.
    I also think a society is defined by the way we treat our 
most vulnerable. Returning--and children are among the most 
vulnerable. So, returning children to a situation in a country 
where their lives are at risk, and some have been killed on 
return does not reflect well on us. I do believe they should 
have access to a legal hearing determining the nature--that 
their claim is either valid or invalid.
    Ms. Ross. Thank you very much. We did hear from some of 
those children adolescence who had left very dangerous 
situations. Mr. Chair, just for a brief period of time before I 
reclaim my time, I'd like to yield about 15 seconds to Mr. 
Nadler.
    Mr. Nadler. I thank the gentlelady. Mr. Carey, I just 
wanted to ask if I'm correct in that what you were saying 
before is that conditions in their home countries are pushing 
these people, kids and adults, out. It does not matter who the 
President of the United States is or what their policies are. 
These kids would be coming because of conditions in their home 
countries.
    Mr. Carey. Absolutely. That's very well documented.
    Mr. Nadler. Thank you very much. I yield back. I thank the 
gentlelady for yielding.
    Ms. Ross. Thank you. Just I completely agree with all the 
witnesses that we need to do more. When we went to the border, 
we saw just sad, sad situations with children. I want you to 
know, all of you to know, that I am committed to helping and 
hopefully in a bipartisan way, helping these children and 
making sure that they are safe. Mr. Carey, just in the 10-
seconds that we have, have we seen any improvements in the 
situation that you think Congress should invest in further?
    Mr. Carey. Absolutely. I think post-release services which 
would provide legal representation and social workers on an 
expanded level which I know ORR is increasing and would like to 
have fully in place within the next two years provides another 
eye on these children, provides a degree of protection that 
might not otherwise be present. Also, where present, over 90 
percent of the children show up at their hearings.
    If there is a problem, there are entities and individuals 
who can determine that it exists and refer to social service 
providers or law enforcement as appropriate. So, I think that 
is what I do think that there should be. There is unfortunately 
an audit process going at ORR to determine what the flaws are 
and how those can be improved upon. I do think that clearer 
lines of authority and communication between those entities, 
such as, ORR which are in essence social service providers and 
law enforcement and other bodies would be an improvement on the 
current program.
    Mr. McClintock. The gentlelady's time has--
    Ms. Ross. Thank you, Mr. Chair, for your indulgence.
    Mr. McClintock. Mr. Moore.
    Mr. Moore. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just a week ago, The New 
York Times reported that the Biden Administration has down-
played repeated signs that migrant children are being widely 
exploited. I will go on the record and say it doesn't sound 
like just the Biden Administration based on what I'm hearing in 
here.
    Ms. Rodas, you mentioned something. It kind of--it 
triggered a response a while ago. You said these kids are being 
recruited in their home country. What do you mean by that?
    Ms. Rodas. So, I'd be happy to submit for the record. We 
have children saying that there are radio advertisements in 
their hometown. So, in Huehuetenango, for example, in 
Guatemala, they're actually advertising on the radio, come with 
us. We'll give you passage. We'll give you passage to the 
United States.
    There's an example of a sponsor who currently is in Austin, 
Texas at this moment. He attempted to sponsor four children, 
one from the Pomona Fairplex emergency intake site and three 
from the Pecos emergency intake site promising work to these 
children who are making $2.50 a day on the coffee farm he owns 
in Guatemala. So, he lured them here.
    Now, fortunately they were put into long-term care. They 
are being lured here, Facebook ads and other things. Children 
are being lured here and then put to work here.
    Mr. Moore. So, it doesn't sound like they're fleeing as 
much as they're being moved to come here in a lot of ways from 
what I'm hearing.
    Ms. Rodas. In many ways, they're not fleeing, in many ways. 
Let's take El Salvador, for example. No one is fleeing from 
Nayib Bukele. He has a very safe society right now.
    Yes, maybe in times past, people were fleeing El Salvador 
from the gangs. Sadly, the gangs have now set up operation 
here. We have evidence that there are many of them who are 
running the networks here who have the children.
    It's indisputable evidence. The Department of Homeland 
Security has transnational criminal organizations on the top 
watch list. Some of whom got their fingerprints here in 
Washington, DC, and neighboring areas are sponsoring the 
children. It's indisputable.
    Mr. Moore. You mentioned debt bondage. What do you mean 
when you say debt bondage? Who does the money go to?
    Ms. Rodas. So, the money goes to the trafficker who 
ultimately brings them here. The New York Times actually 
showed, Hannah Dreier did an amazing expose where she actually 
showed the debt page of the child, how much the child had to 
pay for food, how much the child had to pay for rent, all of 
those things.
    Mr. Moore. So, the administration is really--we're engaged 
in creating slavery. We are trafficking slaves to this country.
    Ms. Rodas. Absolutely. There is no doubt. We have created a 
pull. Because this criminal element tragically views children 
as a commodity and they see us as the middleman because we're 
paying the flight directly to the end user, the trafficker.
    [Simultaneous speaking.]
    Mr. Moore. I remember. I was at Fort Bliss, the emergency 
intake center. I mentioned this last week in a hearing. I was 
there as they were shipping kids on buses all over the country.
    I actually asked the admiral running the place. I said, 
we're doing background checks. We're sending these kids to 
Google addresses. He's, like, no, we're just building the bus 
as we drive it. So, they were just shipping. American 
taxpayers, basically we're trafficking children.
    Ms. Rodas. Yes.
    Mr. Moore. Making the cartel wealthy in the process and 
creating a bunch of minors in bad, bad situations.
    Ms. Rodas. Yes, yes. Going back to 2014 which was 
astounding to me because I did not know when I deployed for 
this mission that one child had ever been trafficked through 
the program. So, the horror when someone sent me the 2016 
Senate report, I'm sitting there on the Pomona site seeing all 
these strange things and all these multiple sponsors at 
multiple addresses trying to collect these kids from multiple 
sites. I read the report. I thought, which side am I on?
    Mr. Moore. Right, which side are you on.
    Ms. Rodas. Which side because we know about trafficking all 
the way back then how teens were lured from Guatemala, put in 
slave labor conditions where they were held sometimes at 
gunpoint. Their families were threatened to be killed.
    Mr. Moore. So, I've got about 45 seconds. Thank you for 
being a whistleblower. I guess they didn't treat you very 
nicely when you blew the whistle I understand.
    Ms. Rodas. No, they did not. They threatened me with 
investigation. They walked me off the emergency intake site. 
They took my badge. My agency--thankfully I work for the 
Council of the Inspectors General.
    I'm not here in that capacity. They actually offered to 
send agents to retrieve me to escort me home because they were 
concerned for my safety. It's a terrible thing when you blow 
the whistle and to try to save children and then you are 
retaliated against for trying to help. HHS did everything they 
could to keep all this silent.
    Mr. Moore. Let me ask one more question. You said these 
kids--they talk about, oh, we're sending them to their moms and 
their dads. You're saying they hand them a piece of paper and 
tell them this is your mom, and this is your dad? Is that what 
I gathered from the testimony?
    Ms. Rodas. Well, as they're making their journey, that 
happens. Then also the case managers who are not law 
enforcement, right, they're not investigative, they are 
receiving documents, photographs of documents on their WhatsApp 
phone. There's a perfect example.
    A 20-plus-year-old man sponsored what we believed was his 
sister who was only 16 years old. He submitted a birth 
certificate for himself and her as brother and sister. Then 
about 10 days after she's released, we see she's for sale on 
his WhatsApp page. Her shirt is buttoned down to her navel. 
She's all made up. The documents, there is no one at HHS 
vetting the children--
    Mr. Moore. That's where we need law enforcement. I'm out a 
time. Mr. Chair, I yield back. Thank you.
    Ms. Jayapal. Mr. Chair, I have a unanimous consent request.
    Mr. McClintock. State the request.
    Ms. Jayapal. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would like to seek 
unanimous consent to enter into the record two articles, one 
from Slate Magazine, Nayib Bukele is Latin America's first 
millennial dictator, and another one from CNN, why El 
Salvador's President Nayib Bukele wants everyone to know about 
his new prison. This one actually talks about how he went and 
conducted secret talks with the MS-13 leaders in prison and 
wanted--essentially it was looking to release those gang 
members.
    Mr. McClintock. Without objection.
    Ms. Jayapal. Just wanted to make it clear that we're not 
talking about a country that has a benevolent government. Thank 
you, Mr. Chair.
    Mr. McClintock. The gentlelady is recognized to make a 
unanimous consent request, not a speech. Mr. Cicilline.
    Mr. Cicilline. Thank you.
    In just the first four months of 2023, U.S. officials have 
encountered more than 70,000 unaccompanied children. These 
children, some of them too young to even fully understand where 
they are, are some of the most vulnerable people to go through 
our immigration system. They desperately need to be shown care 
and compassion, the same that we should want for any of the 
children in our own lives.
    Instead, as we know, they are increasingly being put to 
work in illegal and unsafe jobs, or even worse, sent back into 
unsafe conditions or human traffickers. We cannot allow this to 
happen.
    What do our Republican colleagues propose we do about this? 
Just recently, my colleagues across the aisle passed out of 
this Committee a bill which guts existing protections for 
unaccompanied children and blocked efforts to allow government-
provided lawyers to represent these children at hearings. 
Simply put, they are making an already complex problem worse.
    I know every single Democrat on this side of the dais is 
ready to do all that we can to improve this effort and ensure 
that we have the Federal resources devoted to ensuring that no 
children are forced to work illegally or in the hands of anyone 
they shouldn't be.
    So, I want to ask you, Mr. Carey, first, we all recognize 
that more has to be done to protect these vulnerable children. 
What authorities do you suggest Congress give to help these 
children? Would government-provided counsel, for example, be 
helpful to protecting children released to sponsors? What sort 
of role could an attorney play? Do you think legislation that 
our colleagues just passed that bans the government from 
providing counsel to unaccompanied children would result in 
more exploitation of children or less?
    Mr. Carey. I certainly think it would provide more 
exploitation. When children are in touch with an attorney, they 
are in regular touch. It ensures they show up at their hearings 
determining whether they have a claim and whether their lives 
were in danger in their country of origin. It also is an extra 
party who is seeing the child, who can assess whether they are 
in physical danger, whether they are going to school, and 
whether they are still living with their parents or their other 
sponsors.
    So, yes, I do believe that post-release services, which 
would also include access to social services, and a host of 
other physical health services, ensuring that physical needs 
are being taken care of, educational services and linkages with 
other community-based services for which children are legally 
entitled to access. So, yes, I believe these would be extremely 
beneficial.
    Mr. Cicilline. Mr. Carey, in your testimony, you also 
indicated that HHS does not have the authority to investigate 
what happens to children after they leave HHS custody. What 
agencies do have the authority to investigate those who might 
put children in exploitative or dangerous working conditions, 
or other--
    Mr. Carey. Well, certainly, the Department of Labor has the 
authority to investigate and enforce labor law, and that would 
certainly extend to the exploitation of children in unsafe 
working conditions or underage children working in conditions 
of that sort.
    So, other law enforcement bodies, I believe, as well, 
though I'm not expert in that area.
    Mr. Cicilline. So, what can Congress do to ensure that the 
Department of Labor, as an example, has what it needs in terms 
of resources to go after employers who put children in any kind 
of danger?
    Mr. Carey. Well, I coauthored a piece in Slate with a 
colleague who is a labor law expert about a month ago. She 
determined, the research that she did show, the Department of 
Labor is very much underfunded. So, the ability to inspect and 
enforce labor law is, I gather, quite limited. So, certainly, 
funding to that body to enable it to investigate and prosecute 
would, I believe, be a critical factor in reducing the 
potential for exploitation of children.
    Mr. Cicilline. Finally, in light of that statement you just 
made, our colleagues are about to pass a proposal to deal with 
the default of the United States, where they are proposing 
massive cuts--a 22 percent cut, in fact--on HHS, the Department 
of Labor, and the Office of Refugee Resettlement. So, rather 
than increases, there are going to be very serious cuts.
    How would those cuts, which they are going to vote for this 
afternoon or tomorrow, how would those impact the catastrophe 
that we've heard about with respect to unaccompanied minors?
    Mr. Carey. Well, I believe that the expansion of post-
release services which is underway--and hopefully, will be 
funded--would be a critical element in expanding the protection 
of children beyond the point at which ORR has the authority to 
do so. So, that is moving forward, and that has expanded in 
recent years since my departure. Those include mental health 
services, social work support, physical health services, 
educational, and other community-based services. I think all 
these enhance the protection of children beyond the extent that 
ORR is able to do so. So, I think cutting back those services, 
inherently, increases the threat to children and society writ 
large.
    Mr. Cicilline. Thank you. I yield back, Mr. Chair.
    Mr. McClintock. I'll now recognize myself for five minutes.
    First, Ms. Rodriguez, on behalf of the Committee, I 
apologize for the personal attack that was hurled your way in 
the vile insinuations. That has no place in this Committee.
    Ms. Vaughan, I want to nail down this question of 85,000 
children being simply lost by the administration. We're told 
that's OK; they're just not answering their phones. What does 
it actually mean to lose track of these children?
    Ms. Vaughan. Well, HHS has consistently denied that it has 
any authority or responsibility to--
    Mr. McClintock. The point is, they're supposed to be doing 
follow-up phone calls, correct?
    Ms. Vaughan. Right. Well, that's what they--
    Mr. McClintock. Those follow-up phone calls for those 
85,000 children now are simply going unanswered. We don't know 
where they are. How do we know what has happened to them?
    Ms. Vaughan. We don't, and that's the problem. I don't 
think we really know what happens to those who do answer the 
phone.
    Mr. McClintock. Ms. Rodas, what kind of vetting is actually 
done to assure somebody claiming to be a relative actually is?
    Ms. Rodas. Well, again--
    Mr. McClintock. Not a DNA test, for example?
    Ms. Rodas. --as Mr. Carey mentioned, there are no 
investigative or law enforcement people involved in the vetting 
process. In my experience, with what I witnessed at the Pomona 
Fairplex emergency intake site, case managers were receiving 
photographs of documents. There is no way--there was a very 
small percentage that we were actually able to put through the 
consulate to verify. People are just going off the word of who 
is ever sending in the documentation.
    The vetting process is, practically, nonexistent. They like 
to talk about a vetting process, but there's no law enforcement 
involved in the vetting. So, how can there be a vetting 
process?
    There's lots of talk about the post-release services. Post-
release services, 25 percent of the children who we released 
got it.
    Mr. McClintock. Do we visit--
    Ms. Rodas. It's not enforceable.
    Mr. McClintock. Do we send somebody to visit these homes 
before these children are deposited in them?
    Ms. Rodas. No, absolutely not. The history is about--six 
percent of homes are ever seen. So, we're talking about taking 
a child--
    Mr. McClintock. We've got pet shelters that offer more 
vetting than that.
    Ms. Rodas. Yes, exactly.
    Mr. McClintock. What kind of follow-up is done to assure 
the welfare of the child?
    Ms. Rodas. Well, a phone call--that we don't know who's 
answering the call? We cannot verify that--
    Mr. McClintock. So, first, when we do make contact, we 
don't know if we're actually talking to the so-called sponsor?
    Ms. Rodas. Exactly.
    Mr. McClintock. For 85,000 of them, they're not even 
answering? They've just completely fallen off the radar?
    Ms. Rodas. Yes, Chair, yes.
    Mr. McClintock. Ms. Rodas, it's been reported that the 
cartels charge thousands of dollars to traffic these children. 
How are these debts repaid?
    Ms. Rodas. How many debts actually get repaid?
    Mr. McClintock. No, no, how are the debts repaid?
    Ms. Rodas. By working and sometimes enslaved labor. There 
was an example, when Project Veritas went and knocked on doors 
in some of the hot spots that I gave them, a 16-year-old girl 
said she's being pimped by her sponsor, who claims to be her 
aunt, but the little girl says, ``I don't know. I've never met 
her.''
    Mr. McClintock. Ms. Rodriguez, you heard similar stories in 
Texas, is that correct?
    Ms. Rodas. Yes.
    Ms. Rodriguez. Yes, sir, that is correct, with a lot of 
the, especially the younger children that I personally met 
along the border, again, they come with these small, little 
pieces of paper with handwritten numbers on them. They're told, 
from what they tell me, of who their sponsors are going to be, 
that this is a lot of them, it's their tio, like their uncle, 
their mother, or their father that they've never met, and they 
don't know who they are until--they've never met them.
    Mr. McClintock. The Florida grand jury did a five-month 
study of this issue in their State and discovered exactly the 
same thing. So, we're seeing that in California. We're seeing 
it in Texas. We're seeing it in Florida.
    When we're told these placements are carefully vetted, are 
we being gaslighted?
    Ms. Rodas. Yes, Chair.
    Mr. McClintock. Ms. Vaughan?
    Ms. Vaughan. Yes, and that's why the State of Florida, for 
example, the grand jury there is recommending that the State 
pass a law requiring these sponsors to come forward, so that 
the State can do the vetting, because they know that the 
Federal government is not doing it. It's simply not happening.
    Mr. McClintock. Now, if these children were safely returned 
to their homes, what would that do to the cartels' business 
model?
    Ms. Vaughan. It would dry up. This would be--
    Mr. McClintock. That's what Border Patrol Officers have 
told me when I'm down there--is, if you get them safely home, 
they said they don't offer refunds. Word will spread very fast 
that's a bad investment, and the perilous journey won't be 
attempted. Indeed, give us just a little bit of insight into 
that journey.
    Ms. Vaughan. Well, we know from reports of NGO's that a 
very large percentage of the kids who come are abused. 
Something like at least 60 percent of the female migrants are 
abused physically, often sexually.
    It's a difficult journey. The cartels and the smugglers 
treat them like commodities. They don't care about whether they 
get enough food, shelter. It's terribly traumatic, and it has 
to be dealt with by the places where they end up.
    Mr. McClintock. Thank you.
    Ms. Jackson Lee?
    Ms. Jackson Lee. I thank the Chair and I thank the Ranking 
Member, and, of course, acknowledge all the witnesses.
    There are many of us who have lived through this in real 
time. I have been in the Congress since a number of legislative 
changes and, as well, the lawsuits that resulted in the 
settlement, the Flores settlement agreement from 1997, and the 
Homeland Security Act of 2002, and the William Wilberforce 
Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008. So, 
we've seen the effort to be responsible to the children.
    I do want to set the record straight. It's that, during the 
entire four years of the Trump Administration, when they 
abusively took children and separated them from families. It 
has taken the Biden Administration until this time, and 
continuing, trying to reunite those families. There was no 
effort by the past administration to reunite the children.
    So, though it is not attributable to the witnesses, this is 
a misstatement of this hearing. I would prefer that we had 
appropriately named hearings, because I don't think anyone can 
document the ``Biden Border Crisis: Exploitation of 
Unaccompanied Alien Children.'' I'm not sure if they're trying 
to suggest the President is exploiting them or innocent workers 
are trying to exploit them. I'm not sure what that phraseology 
means, but I think we need to be precise in what we are 
speaking of about the abuse of children.
    I abhor the abuse of children. I have been at the border, 
and I have held unaccompanied children--desperately sent, 
because they come from desperate circumstances. The whole 
question of reuniting, or if they'll safely, if they can just 
safely return--some of these children leave places that no 
longer exist. Family members are dead. They've been taken over 
by violence, gangs, and there's nothing there. So, I do think 
it is important that we stand up a system that respects, 
coddles, nurtures, and protects these children.
    So, I'm going to start off, Mr. Carey, discussing the 
85,000 lost children. I know that you're not in government now, 
but you served before. You know that The New York Times wrote a 
detailed article with some very concerning allegations related 
to unaccompanied children unlawfully working in some very 
dangerous conditions. The article also talked about how the 
Office of Refugee Resettlement did not know the whereabouts of 
about 85,000 unaccompanied children who have been released to 
sponsors since the Biden Administration began.
    Many outlets'--and some of my colleagues have latched onto 
this--headlines say that the Biden Administration has lost 
85,000 children. Let's start with the most important question. 
I do want to say this: You were in the Obama Administration. We 
have been--children have been unaccompanied. We saw processes 
being utilized--not perfect, because in trying to settle 
children, I know for sure, being at sites where you wanted to 
make sure that children were going to loving relatives to 
someone that was going to care for them.
    In the course of securing sponsors, the sponsors showing 
up, and some of these sponsors were the ones that were on the 
little notes that the children had with a phone number. So, 
those who were dealing with these children were only trying to 
get them where they needed to be.
    Again, I reiterate the fact that the children under Trump 
were snatched away from their families, purposely, to 
discourage them from coming.
    Can you explain why they're not, in fact, lost? My time is 
short, so I'm just going to--and did this same issue, also, 
occur during the previous administration? Would you answer 
that, please?
    Mr. Carey. Yes. Thank you.
    I would contend that every child receives a call, a follow-
up call. Many do not answer. So, not answering a phone call, 
particularly if you're with your parents, I do not believe 
constitutes being lost.
    In many cases, they are known to other bodies, to the legal 
system which they're going through to hear their claim; to 
determine if they have a--go through, if they are, as they're 
going through that legal process, whether they have an asylum 
claim. So--
    Ms. Jackson Lee. They could be in school? They could be 
under teenagers, children?
    Mr. Carey. Right, yes. Many other entities may well be 
aware of their location, but, especially, their parents to whom 
they've been released.
    Mr. McClintock. The gentlelady's time has expired.
    Ms. Spartz?
    Ms. Spartz. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    I, actually, went to the border many times in the last 
Congress, and recently did. It's unfortunate that it's not a 
bipartisan issue. Because, I'm a mother of two teenaged girls, 
and if I would do what is done to some of these children, I 
would be in jail for child neglect. These kids deserve the same 
level of protection as everyone else, and we're creating 
perverse incentives.
    Unfortunately, I think the pendulum has swung too far with 
this administration, because they really wanted to quickly push 
kids out of care; that they don't have overwhelmed shelter 
versus worrying about safety.
    Because when I went several years ago to Texas to some of 
the shelters, I think people who worked there was very 
disturbed that proper background checks were not used, and 
COVID was used as a pretense to do that.
    I don't know, Ms. Rodriguez, if you are aware or not--or 
any of you--that they did stop because we don't have a COVID 
pandemic now. Is it still the background check--it was 
inexcusable to use COVID, not really to worry about the safety 
of these children. Do you know if this guidance, and this field 
guidance, is still in place? Or now, they're doing better 
checks? Are you aware, any of you?
    Ms. Rodas. Thank you, Congresswoman.
    To my knowledge, all the field guidance that was put in 
place is still in place, which means that background checks for 
household members are no longer required. So, in instances 
where a person is sponsoring, and there's five other adult 
males in the room, or in the dwelling, none of them need to go 
through any type of background check at all.
    So, it is a system that is easily abused. Because there are 
situations where, when reporters go knocking on the doors, 
they're finding a child, unrelated female, and male as well, 
living with five or six adults to whom they are not related.
    Ms. Spartz. Yes, and it's unfortunate because now we have 
traumatized kids with massive debts to a cartel. I guess 
cartels don't sue them, but some very creative attorneys do. 
So, no one is really dealing with that issue.
    We have a situation in Indiana, actually, the judges are 
shocked to see what's happened in some meat packing plants with 
child labor. I think no one even realized until these kids had 
some violations that they had to go into a court system. It has 
become a huge, a huge problem.
    I think that shouldn't be a partisan issue. We created 
child slavery here in this country. We're talking about China 
having slaves. What are we doing in the United States of 
America with government money? That's inexcusable and is a 
humanitarian crisis, in addition to a security crisis.
    I also wanted to see, as I understand, they have these 
post-release services. I hear from some people on the ground 
that, actually, a sponsor can deny these services. Is that 
correct? Have you heard that?
    Ms. Rodas. Yes. Yes, Congressman, that's absolutely 
correct. That, actually, is what contributed to the Marion, 
Ohio situation, is that a call was made, and then, the case was 
just simply closed.
    So, today, post-release services are absolutely not 
enforceable. It would also mean that you have a case manager 
who's trained enough to know to even activate the post-release 
services.
    So, just because there's post-release services, it's not 
required. It is not mandatory, and the sponsor can say, ``Thank 
you very much. Do not call me again. Bye.'' Because there is no 
authority that HHS has, or Office of Refugee Resettlement has, 
to hold the sponsor accountable.
    This is what's most baffling. It is a simple fix. The 
sponsor needs to be held accountable. Why is this a difficult 
thing? I do not understand. It's the simple, simple fix. 
Sponsors are accountable. Sponsors are accountable to put the 
children in school. The sponsor should be accountable to take 
the child to the immigration hearing. That is what the sponsor 
signs up for, but that is not what the sponsor is held 
accountable for. There's no legal mechanism to make them 
accountable. If that changed, then children would not be 
trafficked.
    Ms. Spartz. Well, I appreciate for doing the hearing. Mr. 
Chair, hopefully, we will actually be able to have the 
discussions. The discretions from the administration went awry, 
and HHS has to respond to us.
    Because this is inhumane. This is irresponsible, and it 
only benefits cartels with making a lot of money on desperate 
people that come from very poor conditions, and the American 
government shouldn't be subsidizing. Otherwise, we're 
hypocrites when we criticize other countries for doing things 
like that. I think this shouldn't be a partisan issue.
    I appreciate you being here today, and I hope we can, 
actually, find solutions to stand with these children and stop 
this incentivizing, this insanity on the border for national 
security.
    So, thank you. I yield back.
    Mr. McClintock. Thank you.
    Ms. Escobar?
    Ms. Escobar. Well, I would like to thank the witnesses for 
being here today.
    I would like to express my frustration. I wish this were a 
real hearing that would result in real solutions and real 
improvements that would benefit children. Unfortunately, this 
is not a serious hearing. This is a hearing that is intended to 
completely distort the record, and really, it's strictly for 
political purposes.
    I do agree with my colleague, the gentlelady from Indiana. 
We do need bipartisan solutions, and we do need a bipartisan 
effort, if we are going to truly address this. So, what would 
that look like?
    First, I would like to preface my comments by sharing with 
you all. I represent El Paso, Texas. Fort Bliss, which is in El 
Paso, is home to one of the largest emergency intake 
facilities.
    I have spent a lot of time at the emergency intake 
facilities. I have spent a lot of time talking to children. I 
am bilingual. So, I speak to the kids in their native language. 
I have spoken to enumerable staff--former/current staff. I, 
myself, have pushed on the administration at times when I've 
had to.
    What I have found is, unfortunately, here in the House of 
Representatives, there is an absolute unwillingness by my 
Republican colleagues to participate in real solutions.
    So, what would some of those solutions look like?
    First, legal pathways: True legal pathways for children to 
reunify them with their family members would absolutely 
circumvent the horrific journey that many of them take. We 
can't get them to work with us on more legal pathways.
    Another solution: Investing in programs to make sure that 
there is robust support. We can't get that, either. In fact, 
the President's budget, the amount of funding that he requested 
was actually ratcheted down by Republican colleagues. Then, 
when we had the omnibus vote, the vote for the budget that 
would fund HHS and the Department of Homeland Security, and a 
number of other agencies, the chairman voted against it last 
December.
    So, when you starve a system, and you do everything 
possible to create legal pathways, you're not serious about 
solving these issues. In fact, when you call for the 
reinstatement of horrific policies by the previous 
administration, including deliberate family separation, you're 
not interested in solutions that help kids.
    Last week, when we were here trying to create protections 
for children, so that they could have access to legal counsel--
or, so that they would not be deported, even infants by 
themselves--my Republican colleagues all voted against those 
protections.
    So, let's not pretend this is a serious hearing wanting to 
truly help children. There is nothing further from that fact.
    Mr. Chair, I would like to enter into the record a fact 
sheet by HHS, the Administration for Children and Families. One 
of the witnesses claimed that there is no home study. The fact 
sheet disputes that, and the facts are that ORR requires a home 
study for children who are 12 years and under before 
unification with a nonrelative sponsor. May I have unanimous 
consent to enter this into the record?
    Mr. McClintock. Without objection.
    Ms. Escobar. Every time I visited the emergency intake 
facility at Fort Bliss, and I spoke to kids, their complaint 
was that the background system was taking too long, and that 
they were not being reunited quickly enough with their families 
because it was so stringent.
    Mr. Carey, in the remaining 40 seconds, is there any other 
misinformation that you would like to clarify?
    Mr. Carey. Yes. I think it's important to recognize that 
the ORR vetting system is rigorous. Any system is imperfect, 
but it is balancing the need of children to be reunited with 
their families--with their mothers, with their fathers--versus 
staying in care.
    The resources to do so, I believe should be increased. I 
believe there should be more interagency cooperation and clear 
lines of authority and leadership, such that the lines of 
communication between ORR and other entities that are coming in 
touch with these children are perhaps improved.
    Ms. Escobar. Thank you for those real solutions. That is 
what we should focus on, and it should be bipartisan.
    I yield back.
    Mr. McClintock. All right. Thank you.
    Seeing no other Members seeking recognition, that concludes 
today's hearing.
    I want to thank our witnesses for appearing before the 
Subcommittee today.
    Without objection, all Members will have five legislative 
days to submit additional written questions for the witnesses 
or additional materials for the record.
    Without objection, the hearing is adjourned.
    [Whereupon, at 5 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]

    All materials submitted for the record by Members of the 
Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and 
Enforcement can be found at the following links:
https://docs.house.gov/docs.house.gov/Committee/Calendar/ByEvent.aspx?EventID=115798.

docs.house.gov/
Committee/Calendar/ByEvent.aspx?EventID=115798.