Since President Trump ordered his “zero tolerance” policy of separating migrant children in April, 2342 children – including babies – have been taken into custody by the Dept. of Homeland Security, then quickly handed off to the Dept. of Health and Human Services.
From there, as Americans are learning with horror, the children are farmed out to shelters run by various non-governmental groups across the country.
There is no plan to reunite them with their families.
In an interview with The Washington Post. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar offered a creative slant on what is being done with the migrant children.
“We need to get the children out of our care as expeditiously as possible,” Azar told the Post. “I said the average is about 58 days and so we want to get them with appropriate sponsors as quickly as we can.”
Note he said “sponsors” and not parents, specifically. And remember, many of their parents have already been deported.
And here’s where it gets chilling.
“These sponsors are usually parents or family members, but not always (and whether they can be released to parents who are being detained is a real question). McClatchy reported on Tuesday that HHS has lost track of 6,000 unaccompanied children who didn’t keep in touch with federal officials,” the Post notes.
Secretary Azar “challenged the idea that HHS could lose track of kids, saying that once they’re placed it’s no longer the agency’s responsibility to oversee them.”
Apparently, they become someone else’s problem. And since they are transferred out of the federal government’s oversight, a parent trying to find their child will have little help – or hope.
Azar “said the agency typically calls sponsors at the 30-day mark to check in, but can do little if the sponsor doesn’t answer the phone and doesn’t call back.”
“At that point they are subject to local and state child welfare protection procedures; we aren’t running a national child welfare system,” he said.
PIX11 reports that “there is no public database for children,” and “there’s a chance not all families separated will reunite because of the system.”
And “once the parents are deported, there is no legal way for them to get back to the United States and appear in court, which may lead to the chance their parental rights of their children to be terminated.”
Now, take all that and apply it to this.
HHS is sending hundreds of children to shelters all the way in New York City. Those shelters have “histories of child abuse allegations,” including allegations of sexual abuse.
“More than 350 migrant kids — as young as 9 months old — have been sent to a single Harlem foster care provider,” the NY Post reports. “The youngsters arrive riddled with lice, bed bugs and chicken pox from the immigration detention facilities they were held in before being bused to the Big Apple, and are also suffering trauma from the separation.”
All this is done because of President Trump’s hatred of immigrants and refusal to create actual policies and plans.