Republicans in the House pressed Xavier Becerra, Health and Human Services Secretary, Wednesday to provide an answer for losing track of thousands of unaccounted-for migrant children and bungling the vetting process that allegedly has allowed some minors to be sent to gang members and even a strip club.
Becerra testified his agency uses “extensive” background checks and follows “child welfare best practices” that wouldn’t allow a child to be placed with someone “engaged in criminal activity.”
GOP Representative Andy Biggs of Arizona asked Becerra about the possibility of children ending up with MS-13 gang members as their sponsors.
“But if you don’t do the vetting right, you don’t know if they’re engaged in criminal activity. That’s how you end up with an MS-13 gang member as the sponsor,” said the Arizona Republican in the hearing. “That’s how you end up with pedophiles getting 20 children in the same home…The vetting has been crappy. That’s the bottom line.”
The secretary of the HHS denied any knowledge of this circumstance. However, in July, the Washington Examiner reported documents from HHS showed two unaccompanied migrant children were sent to live with a sponsor who had ties to a convicted criminal MS-13 gang member, according to the investigation by the Senate.
HHS whistleblowers have revealed in recent months that there is a lack of screening and vetting of adult sponsors for these children.
GOP Representative Chip Roy of Texas grilled the HHS secretary on Wednesday over the criminal checks of the sponsors.
“Do you do the full criminal history checks for the potential sponsors of these children?” asked the Texas congressman Wednesday.
“Well, yes, we follow child best practices,” responded Becerra.
“Right, the answer’s no?” asked the Texas representative again.
“It’s a yes; we follow child welfare best practices,” repeated the secretary.
“That’s not my question,” said Roy.
Representative Roy pushed back on the HHS secretary
Roy pushed back on Becerra and noted that HHS does not carry out FBI criminal history checks on all potential sponsors. The Texas GOP member also estimated that the unaccompanied missing migrant children are likely over 400,000.
Secretary Becerra admitted they “lose custody” of the children when they hand them over to a sponsor.
Republican Representative Tom Tiffany of Wisconsin questioned the HHS secretary about why unaccompanied minor children were settled into a strip club in Florida. Then she was pimped out by an “aunt” who has no relation to them at all.
Secretary Becerra denied any knowledge of the story shared by the congressman of the unaccompanied migrant children.
