[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 144 (Tuesday, September 17, 2024)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6090-S6091]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                     Office of Refugee Resettlement

  Mr. CASSIDY. Mr. President, when President Biden and Vice President 
Harris took office, we had the lowest rate of illegal immigration in 
nearly 50 years. But instead of maintaining strong border policies 
inherited from President Trump, the Biden-Harris administration rushed 
to overturn them. They ended ``Remain in Mexico,'' reimposed so-called 
catch-and-release, and exempted unaccompanied children from title 42.
  The result was predictable. The Biden-Harris open border policies 
encouraged the worst rates of illegal immigration ever, including over 
500,000 unaccompanied migrant children. In fact, the month after 
migrant children were exempted from title 42, we saw the highest 
monthly total of unaccompanied children crossing the southern border in 
history.

[[Page S6091]]

  The influx of migrant children under the Biden-Harris administration 
overwhelmed the Office of Refugee Resettlement, also abbreviated the 
ORR. This is the Agency responsible for unaccompanied children 
apprehended at the border and responsible for releasing them to 
thoroughly vetted sponsors.
  ORR responded to this influx by sending children to hastily 
constructed emergency care facilities with untrained, unvetted staff 
and poor living conditions. The Agency also removed key sponsor-vetting 
requirements after senior Biden-Harris officials directed ORR to 
expedite the process of releasing migrant children to outside sponsors.
  It is so easy to interpret this as a means to shield the White House 
from the political embarrassment of facilities overrun with 
unaccompanied children crossing the border that they had just opened.
  In fact, as early as July 21, ORR staff warned superiors that ORR 
leadership had dismantled sponsor-vetting policies and that these 
changes weakened ORR's ability to protect children from risk such as 
trafficking and exploitation. Despite this, ORR left these policies in 
place for years while hundreds of thousands of children were released 
to poorly vetted sponsors.
  You know, sometimes, it is easy to think this is partisan. Sometimes, 
it is easy to lose track as Republicans and Democrats talk about 
issues. But now, we are talking about kids--children that could be our 
children--who are being released to people who are not being vetted. It 
is easy to forget that. This is not partisan. This is something which 
should concern us all.
  As a ranking member of the Senate HELP Committee, I am investigating 
the administration's failure to protect these migrant children from 
exploitation and abuse. I have learned that some of these children were 
forced into dangerous working conditions and exploited for illegal 
labor. At one such facility currently under investigation, a child was 
pulled into a meat processing machine.
  By the way, again, we are not making this up. We have testimony from 
witnesses who speak to all of these facts. We have the whistleblowers 
who came to a roundtable. We have got the transcripts.
  I have also learned that ORR's weakening of sponsor-vetting 
requirements directly led to children being put in harm's way. And in 
one instance, ORR neglected to verify whether the sponsor's claimed 
address was even a real home, and they sent this child to an address 
nothing more than open field. In another case, a 16-year-old was 
released to a sponsor who posted sexually explicit photos of the child 
on social media, including a photo with the sponsor touching the child 
inappropriately.
  In addition to my investigation, I joined Senators Grassley and 
Johnson earlier this summer in hosting a Senate roundtable to examine 
ORR's failures and identify steps Congress could take to reform the 
Agency. We learned that due to failure at ORR, some unaccompanied 
children have been forced into drug trafficking, sex trafficking, and 
other criminal activity to pay off the cartels who brought them. All of 
this--according to whistleblowers--without followup or meaningful 
oversight from the Biden-Harris administration.
  I repeat: This is not rhetoric, not fiction. This is what we are 
hearing from whistleblowers.
  This exploitation also seemingly occurs while migrant children are 
still in ORR custody. In July, the Department of Justice filed a 
lawsuit against Southwest Key Programs, the largest ORR contractor 
housing unaccompanied children, alleging that for nearly a decade, its 
employees have committed sexual abuse and harassment against 
unaccompanied children as young as 5 years old.
  DOJ alleges that Southwest Key not only failed to take sufficient 
action to prevent sexual abuse but actively discouraged children from 
officially reporting these incidents.
  Once more, this is not rhetoric. This is as a result of 
whistleblowers. This should not be partisan.
  In August, I called on the HELP Committee chair to hold a hearing 
with Southwest Key and ORR officials to answer how these shocking 
allegations of sexual abuse went undetected for so long. So far, HELP 
Committee Democrats have not committed to a hearing or any effort to 
investigate.
  And, by the way, Southwest Key still receives hundreds of millions of 
taxpayer dollars to operate shelters for migrant kids. If ORR will not 
take action in the wake of these allegations, Congress should. That is 
why I worked with Senator Grassley on legislation that would prohibit 
the use of Federal funds for Southwest Key or any other ORR grantee 
facing suspension and debarment procedures for allowing illegal sexual 
abuse or harassment of children in its care. I appreciate Senator 
Grassley's leadership.
  The problems with ORR and the exploitation of children have been 
well-documented for years. Yet there has been no substantive effort by 
Biden or Harris to fix their open border policies--which caused these 
problems to begin with--or reform ORR to protect unaccompanied children 
from harm.
  The exploitation of children should not be partisan. This is not a 
Republican or Democratic issue. When vulnerable children are harmed or 
die at the expense of bad policies or bad procedures or bad process, 
everyone should be outraged and everyone should be demanding change.
  Unfortunately, it is clear that Republicans are taking this problem 
more seriously than Democrats.
  It is not a messaging issue. It is an issue that challenges the 
humanity within us. It is something we should address whether or not it 
is an election year.
  I wish that my Democratic colleagues would join Republicans tonight 
to pass this commonsense bill to hold ORR contractors accountable for 
the abuse and exploitation of children under their watch. We should 
protect these vulnerable children from harm as if they were our own.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon.