[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 144 (Tuesday, September 17, 2024)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6086-S6090]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                       Unanimous Consent Requests

  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, in the Biden-Harris America, children 
disappear every day. You won't see their faces on any milk cartons. 
Search parties aren't sent for them, and the AMBER alert almost never 
sounds.
  According to the Justice Department's filings, some of these children 
reappear years later in emergency departments with injuries from 
physical or sexual abuse. Others resurface as underaged laborers 
working jobs that most adults won't even take, and many are never heard 
from again.
  These forgotten children are overlooked because they are 
unaccompanied migrant children. These are the children who crossed into 
the United States without their families--without their moms or dads.
  By February 2023, the New York Times reported the Biden-Harris 
administration could not reach 85,000 of the unaccompanied migrant 
children that had entered the United States since 2021.
  Then, in August of 2024, the Department of Homeland Security Office 
of Inspector General found the government failed to enroll 291,000 of 
these children in immigration proceedings over the last 5 years. Of 
those that were enrolled, 32,000 never showed up to the court. Many of 
them are missing.
  Government employees working directly with these kids began to sound 
the alarm. The Biden-Harris administration responded by quietly, very 
quietly, suppressing attempts to save these missing children in order 
to avoid a politically inconvenient narrative. And the very same 
Democrats and members of the media who had actually decried Trump-era 
immigration policies stayed silent. The media didn't do their job of 
properly pointing out wrongs, except when you have a Republican 
President.
  At least one whistleblower was actually walked offsite at a shelter 
for

[[Page S6087]]

these children for reporting that children were in danger to law 
enforcement. Other whistleblowers told my office they were denied 
access to records that might have raised concerns about children being 
trafficked.
  The most consistent whistleblower complaint that I received was that 
law enforcement was not given the information needed to save missing 
children.
  Desperate to find these kids, at least one Homeland Security agent 
asked a whistleblower to establish information-sharing channels on 
imperiled children because there was no formal channel in place for 
this information to be shared.
  Now, we all know that denying law enforcement access to this 
lifesaving information was part of the Biden-Harris immigration plan. 
Three months into their term, the Biden-Harris administration tore up 
information sharing, an agreement between Homeland Security 
Investigations and the officials responsible for running the 
Unaccompanied Children Program.
  They replaced that agreement with a watered-down agreement that 
deleted provisions requiring sponsors to be vetted and run through 
certain law enforcement checks before receiving custody of a child.
  Today, law enforcement has significantly less involvement in vetting 
sponsors, even if the sponsor is a complete stranger to the child. Now, 
this is not family reunification, as the Biden administration wants the 
entire country to believe.
  According to government statistics, between October 2021 and 
September 2022, over 18,000 children were given to distant relatives or 
unrelated adults.
  Now, turning over custody of a child is one of the most consequential 
actions a caseworker can ever take. From there on out, every decision 
made for the child belongs to the sponsor--financial, housing, medical, 
you name it, the sponsor is in control of their decisions.
  I can't imagine having every decision critical to my survival turned 
over to a complete stranger who the government hasn't even fully 
vetted, but child safety wasn't this administration's priority.
  Now, thanks to whistleblowers, we have been provided records and 
disclosures that were so bad I had to refer the information to law 
enforcement way back in January to try and rescue kids. But given the 
poor vetting, it is much harder to find those same kids.
  As illegal border crossings surged, pressure mounted from the top of 
the bureaucracy to process kids faster, to avoid accusations of ``kids 
in cages.'' During a conference call, Secretary Becerra of HHS 
admonished his employees that they weren't moving kids out to sponsors 
fast enough.
  That is the environment that I am talking about--getting things done 
quickly so you can't be politically criticized like Trump was 
criticized.
  Secretary Becerra said:

       This is not the way you do an assembly line.

  Program operators knew this politically motivated rush could have 
dangerous consequences, but they proceeded anyway. One official said 
the quiet part out loud to a whistleblower trying to intervene to 
protect endangered kids. She was told:

       We only get sued if we keep kids in care [of the 
     government] too long. We don't get sued by traffickers.

  Now, can you believe that approach to protecting kids? The Biden 
administration has published wave after wave of field guidance meant to 
push kids to sponsors faster and cover up the consequences of this 
haste.
  They removed fingerprint requirements for sponsors claiming to be 
parents or legal guardians, even without sufficient verification; 
simply this, just ``I am who I say I am.''
  They released kids to sponsors before background checks had been 
completed. They denied law enforcement access to photographs of 
children.
  Now, during a Senate Finance hearing, Senator Cornyn asked Secretary 
Becerra who the Biden-Harris administration believes is responsible for 
making sure that these children aren't being trafficked. Secretary 
Becerra said it is ``the communities where they enter,'' so just some 
community, anyplace in the United States, to be responsible, to make 
sure that these children are treated and not being trafficked.
  I am not sure if the Biden-Harris administration ever stopped to 
wonder how local law enforcement looks after a child when this 
administration won't even give them a photograph of an endangered 
child.
  I am told that law enforcement can't.
  What resulted from this administration's disastrous policies almost 
inevitably was the systematic abuse and disappearance of migrant 
children. Whistleblowers fought in vain to prevent children from going 
to men who sexualized them, MS-13 gang-affiliated sponsors, and also 
sponsors who were mass applying for kids. We had an example where one 
address someplace, some city in this country, was used to get massive 
numbers of kids under that address. Just hearing that ought to scare 
anyone.
  One whistleblower told my office they called a sponsor, only to hear 
a child's agonizing screams before the line then was quickly 
disconnected. Whistleblowers testified on all this in heartbreaking 
detail at an oversight roundtable that I led on this topic just this 
year in July.
  I have lost count of the number of reports and letters sent by 
Congress to the unaccompanied migrant children's program actually 
sounding alarms that have gone unheeded, even ignored. Each highlighted 
program vulnerabilities, and there are plenty of those vulnerabilities. 
Each made recommendations that could have saved lives.
  Now, I have been involved in this in a bipartisan way for a long 
period of time. My decade of bipartisan oversight has revealed an 
unaccompanied migrant children program in which abuse and misconduct 
have become routine and tolerated.
  For example, in 2021, Oregon Democratic Senator Wyden and I warned of 
the rampant sexual abuse of unaccompanied migrant children in the care 
of contractors, especially Southwest Key. Now, remember that 
contractor's name is Southwest Key--not a very good place to put kids. 
The Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General also 
identified issues with Southwest Key's self-dealing and compensation.
  Now, as part of my ongoing investigation, for months I have requested 
from Southwest Key and other contractors and grantees basic information 
on their care of unaccompanied children, including whether these 
contractors performed background checks of their employees before they 
had access to these kids. Southwest Key has failed to fully respond to 
this inquiry, actually thumbing their nose at the U.S. Congress. Still 
the government kept giving Southwest Key contracts to care for these 
unaccompanied minor kids.
  What followed all these contracts? Do we know that the kids are safe 
or not safe? Well, a recent Justice Department lawsuit alleges ``a 
pattern or practice of severe or pervasive sexual harassment of 
children in Southwest Key's care.'' So just think, this Justice 
Department has said that with this contractor, there is pervasive 
sexual harassment of children in their care. So we have to ask 
ourselves, if we are humanitarians, how many more children have to 
endure abuse before Congress finally says enough is enough? I say it 
shouldn't be even one more.
  I am offering a bill, then--that is why I am here--that denies future 
contracts to bad actors who have been identified by the Justice 
Department as abusing unaccompanied migrant children. After applying 
due process, those government contracts would cease until the Justice 
Department certifies that the conditions leading to the abuse--that 
those conditions are taken care of, they are over.
  I think this is a very commonsense solution that no politician, no 
Member of the Senate, Republican or Democrat, should stand against.
  So I now make a request, Mr. President. As if in legislative session, 
I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate 
consideration of S. 5073, which is at the desk; further, that the bill 
be considered read a third time and passed and that the motion to 
reconsider be considered made and laid on the table.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Kelly). Is there objection?
  The Senator from Oregon.
  Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I reserve the right to object. I will 
share a few of my thoughts on this, but first I wanted to note that my 
colleague from Iowa is celebrating his birthday today. So a very happy 
birthday to you.

[[Page S6088]]

  

  Mr. GRASSLEY. Thank you.
  Mr. MERKLEY. And I understand it is his 91st; is that correct?
  We should all want to be able to engage in public policy and public 
debate and dialogue when we have reached the start of our 10th decade, 
so congratulations to you.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. It is kind of you to say that. Thank you.
  Mr. MERKLEY. This topic that you have brought up today is one that I 
have had deep engagement in because I share your concerns about these 
congregate care facilities.
  Back in 2018, I was the first Member of the House or Senate to go 
down to the border and to witness the separation of children from their 
parents and then to go up the road to knock on the door of Casa de 
Padre, which was run by Southwest Key, where I had heard a rumor that 
perhaps a thousand boys were being warehoused. When I knocked on the 
door, they didn't want to let me in to see what was going on, so we did 
a live stream feed of the conversation. I was trying to get the manager 
to come out and brief me, and the manager said, yes, he would be out, 
but actually what he did was he called the police to have me arrested.
  The police didn't arrest me, but they did tell me that Casa de Padre, 
run by this organization, Southwest Key, had no interest in letting a 
Member of Congress come inside, a Member of the Senate come inside; 
move on. But because this was live-streamed, it became national news. 
As a result of that, the press got in the following weekend, and I was 
able to go back with a group of legislators 2 weeks later.
  So I very much understand the challenge in the congregate care system 
and undertook a deep dive with experts across the country on, how do we 
address this problem? The long and short of it is, those experts all 
came together, and they helped draft a bill called the Children's Safe 
Welcome Act, because the issues that exist at Southwest Key are not 
unique to Southwest Key. In fact, we have had really deep challenges in 
one congregate care facility after another. Putting children into 
large, mass settings just does not at all provide a foundation for them 
to thrive.
  I will just note that this policy brief--and I ask unanimous consent 
that the policy brief by the Women's Refugee Commission be printed in 
the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                [Women's Refugee Commission, Aug. 2023]

 Decreasing ORR's Dependence on Congregate Care: Four Recommendations 
                              for Progress


                              POLICY BRIEF

       Since its inception, the Unaccompanied Children Program 
     under the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) has relied on 
     congregate care for its custody of unaccompanied children. 
     Congregate care is a catch-all term for group homes and 
     larger institutions that care for many children away from 
     families (see below for more details). Over the past decade, 
     while the domestic child-welfare system has drastically 
     reduced the use of mass congregate settings and emphasized 
     kinship settings and family-like placements that are better 
     for children's well-being, ORR has increased its reliance on 
     large settings. For example, as of 2019 more than 90 percent 
     of unaccompanied migrant children have been held in 
     facilities with more than 50 beds, despite evidence that 
     congregate care risks harming children's long-term mental 
     health. Experts concur that ``any amount of time that a young 
     person spends in an institutional placement is too long.'' 
     Children averaged 30 days in ORR care in fiscal year 2022, 
     while the length of stay was considerably longer for children 
     placed in more restrictive settings.
       It is critical that ORR engage in a long-term effort to 
     move away from congregate care and toward more appropriate 
     practices of community-based programs or family-like foster 
     care placements. Until this happens, a critical step to 
     limiting congregate care includes safe reductions of length 
     of stay. Any guiding vision should include community-based 
     programs that offer a high quality of care, minimal time away 
     from family, and reunifications to safe, stable homes.
       Based upon ongoing research that the Women's Refugee 
     Commission conducted with current and former staff at 
     congregate care facilities, post-release service providers, 
     attorneys, and child advocates across the United States, this 
     policy brief details concrete steps toward minimizing the use 
     of congregate care for unaccompanied children. The brief also 
     identifies four ways to enlist culturally sensitive, 
     evidence-based, and trauma-informed approaches in working 
     with young people within and beyond current ORR facilities. 
     They are: (1) adopting geolocation in children's initial 
     placements (i.e., placing children in a facility close to 
     their family or sponsor); (2) building a pipeline of 
     community-based care providers; (3) improving language access 
     for non-Spanish-speaking children in custody; and (4) 
     enhancing post-release services. Taken together, these 
     efforts are critical to reducing ORR's reliance on congregate 
     care, limiting children's length of stay in federal custody, 
     and ensuring their safety following release.
     What is congregate care?
       Although congregate care is defined by the Department of 
     Health and Human Services to include group homes with custody 
     of as few as 7-12 children, in the ORR context, congregate 
     care typically refers to ``a licensed or approved child care 
     facility operated by a public or private agency and providing 
     24-hour care and/or treatment typically for 12 or more 
     children who require separation from their own homes or a 
     group living experience.''
       ORR continues to rely predominantly on a network of very 
     large facilities--50 beds or more--despite a precipitous 
     shift away from institutional-based care for children 
     nationally. ORR has a greater percentage of congregate care 
     facilities in its provider network than states generally 
     permit for domestic child-welfare placements. Similarly, 
     ORR's congregate care facilities are larger than their 
     counterparts in the domestic child-welfare systems. In 2021 
     and 2022, tens of thousands of unaccompanied children were 
     held in emergency intake sites (EISs) and influx care 
     facilities (ICFs) in converted convention centers, stadiums, 
     and military bases. Ranging from 1,000 to 5,000 beds, EISs 
     and ICFs are unlicensed by state child welfare authorities 
     and not bound by conditions stipulated by the Flores 
     Settlement Agreement.
       Interviews with ORR stakeholders, including child 
     psychologists, social workers, and family reunification 
     specialists in ORR facilities, underscore the potential and 
     actual harm that congregate care facilities can cause for 
     children. Interviewees reported limited outdoor activity, 
     restricted contact with parents and caregivers, and 
     discriminatory treatment of LGBTQI+, Indigenous, and West 
     African youth. Stakeholders described children simultaneously 
     struggling to cope with the uncertainty of family 
     reunification, procedural opacity, ongoing legal proceedings, 
     and the possibility of deportation. Taken together, our 
     research concludes that children should be reunified with 
     family or sponsors as quickly as possible, while ensuring 
     their safety and adequate support following release.


   RECOMMENDATIONS FOR LIMITING CONGREGATE CARE AND BOLSTERING POST-
                            RELEASE SERVICES

     1. In initial placement decisions, geolocation is a best 
         practice.
       Stakeholders agreed unanimously that geolocation is a best 
     practice and should be adopted as ORR policy. That is, when a 
     child is transferred from U.S. Customs and Border Protection 
     (CBP) to ORR custody, efforts should be made to place them in 
     an ORR facility in the geographical area where the child's 
     family (specifically, a Category 1 or Category 2 sponsor) is 
     located. For children who may not know where family members 
     live, the potential sponsor's area code can serve as a proxy, 
     given that most children arrive with a family member's phone 
     number.
       Interviewees contended that geolocation is advantageous for 
     several reasons. First, placement close to family facilitates 
     communication with and support of the sponsor in completing 
     the requisite paperwork, which can be cumbersome. 
     Interviewees working with children in ORR custody believed 
     that, in general, children are released sooner when placed 
     near their parent or family member. Second, visitation with 
     potential sponsors can reduce the stress of children who 
     spend protracted time in ORR custody. This is especially 
     applicable for children who are reunifying with parents or 
     family members after prolonged separations. Third, family 
     reunification specialists reported that observing the child 
     with the potential sponsor can identify or alleviate safety 
     concerns; if needed, specialists can more quickly turn to a 
     more appropriate sponsor or placement. Fourth, geolocation 
     allows legal service providers who have already prescreened 
     children while in ORR custody to continue to provide legal 
     representation following release. This additionally 
     alleviates the considerable financial and logistical burden 
     on children to find legal representation in a new location. 
     Fifth, geolocation can aid with warm handoffs to area social 
     service providers who provide key resources, such as 
     information about state laws for securing health insurance 
     and assistance with school enrollment. Lastly, geolocating 
     children close to family members relieves travel costs for 
     ORR and logistical burdens of transportation arrangements for 
     facility staff.
     2. ORR must build a pipeline of community-based care 
         providers.
       The ultimate goal of ending congregate care, including 
     large-scale facilities, for unaccompanied children will not 
     happen overnight. Despite repeated directives from Congress, 
     ORR has failed to take adequate meaningful steps necessary to 
     limit its reliance on congregate care. ORR must proactively 
     invest in long-term, community-based programs for 
     unaccompanied children. This includes launching a series of 
     pilot programs that are culturally sensitive, evidence

[[Page S6089]]

     based, and trauma informed. Over the long run, these 
     community-based placements will prove cost-affective when 
     compared to the daily cost of $775 per bed in influx 
     facilities and $290 per bed in shelters and the nearly 
     $4.79 billion spent on emergency influx and intake 
     facilities.
       Networks of community-based care exist in the domestic 
     child welfare system. including community-based placements, 
     small group homes, and foster care. These programs provide 
     trauma-focused, intensive care for children and youth in 
     home-like environments that facilitate their healthy 
     development. Children attend local schools and are integrated 
     into the community. To establish a pipeline of providers, the 
     Administration for Children and Families (ACF) and ORR 
     should:
       provide technical training assistance to community-based 
     organizations to navigate federal funding applications, 
     operational requirements, and reporting;
       engage outside child welfare experts, subject matter 
     experts, and impacted community members to conduct site 
     visits and provide consultation and recommendations to 
     community-based organizations;
       create a public plan to transition to 100 percent small-
     scale facilities with attention to the known challenges 
     across contracting and grant-making, staffing limitations, 
     availability, outreach, recruitment of potential providers, 
     program officer oversight, and organizational reporting;
       improve handoffs to community service providers in areas 
     where unaccompanied children reunite with family; and
       prescreen sites and secure contracts of a variety of models 
     of care in advance, rather than identifying out-of-network 
     placements on a case- by-case basis.
     3. Rectify problems of children's language access in care.
       ORR and its subcontractors are required by law ``to take 
     reasonable steps to provide meaningful access'' to 
     interpretation. According to interviewees, however, 
     children's rights to use their primary language and their 
     access to interpreters are regularly sidestepped within ORR 
     facilities. The primarily affected children are Indigenous 
     children from Central America who are presumed to speak 
     Spanish, but whose primary languages are often Indigenous 
     languages. When asked why language lines are not used, 
     facility staff described the inconvenience of scheduling 
     telephonic interpreters when they can ``get by'' in Spanish, 
     that interpretation prolongs meetings with children amid high 
     caseloads, and a lack of awareness of children's language 
     rights due to high staff turnover within facilities. Further, 
     several respondents reported that children are dissuaded from 
     using their native language with other children, and are even 
     separated to different pods or during activities to ensure 
     that staff can understand the conversations. According to 
     researchers, the deliberate separation of children from the 
     same linguistic communities is a form of linguistic racism. 
     Legal advocates said that children are misidentified as 
     potentially trafficked and, conversely, not flagged as 
     trafficked or vulnerable to trafficking because of mistakes 
     in the intake and family reunification processes when an 
     interpreter is not used.
       Language-proficiency problems negatively impact the quality 
     of children's care in ORR custody and likely lengthen the 
     time that children spend apart from their families. ORR 
     should expressly prohibit practices that prevent children 
     from using their chosen language; incorporate training 
     guidance for facility staff; provide translated signage in 
     all facilities of many of the dominant languages of children 
     in their custody; and provide regular monitoring that 
     facilities are complying with children's consistent and 
     meaningful access to interpretation. In addition, at time of 
     intake, ORR should direct facility staff to ask children 
     their first language and to use language access lines when 
     completing all required intakes. For children, the use of 
     their own language relieves stress, provides cultural 
     familiarity, and enhances communication. While more time and 
     cost intensive, the use of interpretation ensures greater 
     accuracy of information and safety of the child's eventual 
     placement.
     4. Provide localized, wrap-around services for unaccompanied 
         children released to a non-relative sponsor.
       Post-release services (PRS) are contracted, social-service 
     support provided to children following their release from ORR 
     custody. PRS currently operate via bridging and referral 
     programming in which a PRS worker connects the child and 
     sponsor to critical mental health, medical, legal, and 
     educational resources in their local community via a series 
     of phone calls, mailings. or emails. Depending on the need, 
     in-person visits are conducted. Stakeholders interviewed for 
     this study, including PRS providers, affirmed the importance 
     of localized services for children following release from ORR 
     custody and called for expanded, in-person services for all 
     children.
       One stakeholder explained how teenagers are commonly 
     prohibited from enrolling in public schools despite their 
     legal right to attend school: ``They need someone 
     knowledgeable about the US to accompany and advocate for them 
     when school administrators are unlawfully turning them 
     away.'' Others emphasized that PRS should be provided by 
     local service providers who are knowledgeable of the nuances 
     of state law and educational practices that may obstruct 
     school enrollment, and who have up-to-date information 
     regarding service availability. One stakeholder explained, 
     ``The flyers provided are out of date or organizations on the 
     forms are maxed out; kids really need people who have 
     relationships with a community of providers.'' As one PRS 
     provider stated, ``They need accompaniment, not more 
     flyers.''
       One challenge is that current PRS schemes are insufficient 
     to meet the diverse needs of unaccompanied children. An ideal 
     approach is to align PRS to a localized, wrap-around service 
     model. Interviewees emphasized, however, that PRS should 
     never be used to delay the reunification of a child and 
     sponsor and that families should continue to be allowed to 
     decline the services.
       Given renewed concerns about the labor exploitation of 
     unaccompanied children, ORR should:
       offer PRS to all children released to a non-relative 
     sponsor (``category 3'' sponsors);
       offer PRS if requested by the child, family, or sponsor;
       include an immediate, individualized needs assessment for 
     child, sponsor, and family (as relevant) following release in 
     all levels of PRS;
       ensure that PRS needs assessments result in local. in-
     person social-service brokerage rather than remote referrals; 
     and
       eliminate the PRS backlog--which, at the time of writing, 
     stands at well over 10,000 cases--with a goal that PRS 
     appointments be in place when reunification occurs.
       In contrast to traditional PRS services, which are service 
     driven and problem based, wrap-around services enlist a 
     strengths-based, needs-driven approach that builds on 
     individual and family strengths. Wrap-around services are 
     evidence-based, culturally responsive accompaniment practices 
     that promote child and family involvement in setting goals to 
     ensure children's well-being. These services are also more 
     effective in ensuring children are safe given the close and 
     trusting relationship children have with their care team. 
     Engaging in local, community-based partnerships to provide 
     wrap-around services simultaneously will strengthen ORR's 
     network for placing children in the least restrictive 
     environment and move the US toward ending congregate care for 
     all children.
       This policy brief was written by Lauren Heidbrink, PhD, 
     associate professor of human development at California State 
     University, Long Beach, and consultant for the Women's 
     Refugee Commission. It was reviewed and edited by Katharina 
     Obser, Mario Bruzzone, Dale Buscher, Joanna Kuebler, and 
     Diana Quick of the Women's Refugee Commission.
       For more information. contact Mario Bruzzone.
     Women's Refugee Commission
       The Women's Refugee Commission (WRC) improves the lives and 
     protects the rights of women, children, and youth who have 
     been displaced by conflict and crisis. We research their 
     needs, identify solutions, and advocate for programs and 
     policies to strengthen their resilience and drive change in 
     humanitarian practice. Since our founding in 1989, we have 
     been a leading expert on the needs of refugee women, 
     children, and youth and the policies that can protect and 
     empower them. womensrefugeecommission.org.

  Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, it is called ``Decreasing OOR's 
Dependence on Congregate Care: Four Recommendations of Progress,'' 
written by the Women's Refugee Commission. But I assure you, this 
document is not alone. There is commission after commission, expert 
after expert who has weighed in to say that we have to eliminate these 
congregate care facilities, which is exactly what the Children's Safe 
Welcome Act does.
  You know, these are children who are going through the process of 
claiming refugee status, and they are going to go through an 
adjudication of that status, and they are either going to be able to 
stay in the United States--and that is eventually adjudicated--or they 
are going to be sent back home.
  If they are going to stay in the United States, we want a strong 
foundation for them to thrive as residents of our Nation. If they go 
back home, we want a strong foundation for them to thrive back home in 
the country they left.
  In either case, we have a moral responsibility to these children. 
That moral responsibility compels us to eliminate these congregate care 
facilities that are not the right setting. Children should be quickly 
sent to small settings, to homes. They should be in school. They should 
be with host families. When there isn't a host family that is related, 
they should be with a host family that is providing a foundation for 
them. They shouldn't be in a mass congregate care facility--the name 
sounds much nicer than the reality.
  So I am not going to take the time tonight to go through all of these 
various reports on how bad congregate care is for the children because 
I think

[[Page S6090]]

you have already touched on how bad it is with one provider. But 
shutting down one provider and sending them to other congregate care 
facilities now means the system is maxed out, which means the children 
coming in not only go to the remaining beds in a system that is maxed 
out, it also means that now we have to create temporary influx 
facilities, which are far worse than congregate care.
  So this plan I know is so well-intentioned, and I certainly share the 
criticisms of the particular company you are addressing, but this is 
not the right answer. The right answer isn't to max out congregate care 
and create temporary influx facilities that are even worse; the answer 
is to get rid of these congregate care facilities and do what report 
after report, recommendation after recommendation has said will provide 
a foundation for these children to do well.
  The National Center for Youth Law said that these influx facilities 
that would have to be created ``placed children's safety and welfare at 
risk.''
  The Customs and Border Patrol facilities, which are the other option 
if we don't create the influx facilities, are described as so dangerous 
that children have died.
  It goes on and on and on.
  So given your deep interest in this topic and, really, desire for the 
children to be well-treated, I wanted to invite you to join me in this 
structure, this bill, the Children's Safe Welcome Act. Experts have 
said this is the right thing to do for the children.
  For that reason, I will do the formal request, but the informal is, I 
know your heart is in the right place. I know you are pointing out 
flaws that are very, very real and that I have been personally 
witnessing since 2018. But the answer isn't more congregate care for 
these kids or influx facilities or Customs and Border Protection; it is 
eliminating these congregate facilities and doing what expert after 
expert, panel after panel has suggested.
  So I am following up here. I ask that you, Senator Grassley, modify 
your request and that the Merkley amendment at the desk be considered 
and agreed to; that the bill, as amended, be considered read a third 
time and passed; and that the motion to reconsider be considered made 
and laid upon the table.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I would 
like to speak to this issue a little bit and point out some of the 
shortcomings of what Senator Merkley is trying to accomplish by 
amending my motion.
  I see this amendment merely cementing into place the Biden-Harris 
policy that lost more than 85,000 migrant children. Can you believe 
that? If there was any question whether Democrats prioritize speed over 
safety when it comes to pushing migrant kids out the door, this 
partisan amendment lays that question to rest.
  I think I made very clear, in giving reasons for my legislation, how 
this is really a big problem. Now, the text of what Senator Merkley is 
asking me to do mandates that the government make a placement 
determination for a child not later than 7 days after the government 
receives a sponsored application. Fingerprint-based background checks 
aren't required. And even the criminal record of a sponsor isn't 
necessarily disqualified.
  Now, a question: What if a sponsor has no preexisting relationship to 
the child? Think of that. Well, that is not a problem for this 
proposal. The fact that a sponsor has no preexisting relationship to a 
child cannot be the sole basis for denying sponsorship under this 
Democrat-led solution.
  This amendment just willy-nilly turns over children to sponsors who 
foot-drag on providing the documents needed to verify sponsor identity 
and safety. I can't imagine a loving parent or guardian slow rolling 
the paperwork needed to reunite with their child.
  To most folks, that would be a very clear red flag, but not to 
Democrats. For them, it is just an administrative inconvenience.
  So just understand, this Democratic solution allows the government to 
release children to sponsors even if there is a risk of harm to that 
child. According to this text, that is fine, so long as post-release 
services are in place. In fact, those are the only conditions under 
which post-release services are required according to this modification 
presented to me.
  After directing the government to make what could be life-or-death 
decisions for a child on virtually no information, the bill restricts 
the ability to share lifesaving information with law enforcement.
  Let's go back to what I laid down. I came to the floor tonight to 
offer a commonsense solution to deny bad actors access to kids. My bill 
would put contractors on notice that they can't willfully blind 
themselves to child abuse in order to get rich off taxpayers' dollars. 
Democrats couldn't even take that blindness seriously.
  I encourage my colleagues to read the Justice Department's recent 
complaint against Southwest Key. I referred to the same Justice 
Department action in my opening remarks. This is what Justice found 
out, among other horrors: That complaint describes the repeated sexual 
abuse of a 5-year-old girl, the prostitution of a 15-year-old boy, and 
acts of a contractor desperate to even cover up all those wrongdoings.
  So thanks to this Democrat-led effort, Congress won't prevent 
contractors like them from getting access to more kids and more 
taxpayers' dollars.
  So, Senator Merkley, I am sorry to say that your modification doesn't 
do what I am trying to accomplish and leaves in place too much the 
status quo; so I have to object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  Is there an objection to the original request?
  Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I would 
just like to note that this bill, put together by the best child 
welfare experts across the country, has in it a requirement under 
section 223 requiring background checks to be conducted for each 
resident of a foster care placement for a noncitizen child. It 
prohibits children from being placed in a home if a resident has a 
conviction for child abuse or trafficking or convicted of any offense 
that has a direct and immediate impact on the safety of a child.
  I know that these sorts of dialogues--our staff worked quickly to try 
to prepare responses. But your actual criticisms are inaccurate. And, 
indeed, what these experts say is that a child should be put in the 
least restrictive setting that approximates a family in which the 
child's needs can best be met consistent with the best interests and 
special needs of that child.
  The experts know congregate care is not the place to do that. The 
problems that exist in one mass setting are bad, but they exist in the 
other mass settings. So I do invite you--because I know you want to do 
the best for the children--to meet with the same experts who live this, 
night and day, seeking to have a system that creates a safe welcome for 
children and allows them to thrive so that when they get to that point 
of that asylum hearing, whether they head back to their home country or 
whether they become residents of the United States, they will be in a 
great place, not the sort of terrible place that congregate facilities 
put them. And, unfortunately, your approach continues to rely upon 
those very congregate facilities experts say need to be eliminated.
  So for that reason, I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Louisiana.