{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.hawley.senate.gov/hawley-blasts-mayorkas-after-shocking-report-finds-dhs-lost-thousands-of-children/", "Hawley Blasts Mayorkas After Shocking Report Finds DHS Lost Thousands of Children", "2024-08-22", "2024", "2024-08", "Republican", "Senate", "MO", "Josh Hawley", "H001089", "www.hawley.senate.gov", "hawley", "https://www.hawley.senate.gov/press-releases/page/", "scraper", "Yesterday U.S. Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) sent a letter to U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas regarding a recent report published by DHS\u2019s Inspector General revealing catastrophic failures in the agency\u2019s ability to protect unaccompanied migrant children.\n\nAccording to the report, DHS may have lost track of more than a quarter million unaccompanied children and failed to notify other agencies in certain cases.\n\n\u201cAs the report explains, your agency\u2019s failure to issue court notices to these children limits the ability to monitor their location and status,\u201d wrote Senator Hawley. \u201cIn the Inspector General\u2019s words: without such ability, there is thus \u201cno assurance that [the children] are safe from trafficking, exploitation, or forced labor.\u201d\n\nHe continued, \u201cYou must immediately provide comprehensive public answers to questions concerning the impact of your permissive immigration policies on the safety of children who may now be prey to child labor criminals.\u201d\n\nLast October, Senator Hawley pressed Secretary Mayorkas on whistleblower claims that the Biden-Harris DHS had pulled agents from child exploitation cases to make sandwiches at the southern border. Last April, Senator Hawley demanded the FBI launch a full-scale effort to locate missing migrant children and bring child labor criminals to justice. He also slammed Mayorkas after the New York Times reported that 85,000 children had gone missing under the Biden Administration.\n\nRead the full letter here or below.\n\nAugust 21, 2024\n\nThe Hon. Alejandro Mayorkas Secretary\n\nU.S. Department of Homeland Security\n\n2707 Martin Luther King Jr. Ave SE\n\nWashington, D.C. 20528\n\nDear Secretary Mayorkas:\n\nUnaccompanied migrant children are some of the most vulnerable individuals in America. They are routinely trafficked for sex, forced into illegal labor, burned with chemicals, and subjected to countless other atrocities by cartels. In February 2023, the New York Times reported that 85,000 unaccompanied children went missing on your watch. Now, new revelations indicate that the problem may be far worse.\n\nA recent report published by DHS\u2019s Inspector General\u2014that is to say, an internal review of your own agency\u2014has revealed catastrophic failures in your agency\u2019s ability to protect unaccompanied migrant children, right up to the present day. This is despite your testimony in an October 2023 Senate committee hearing in response to my question on this exact topic. At the time you said, \u201cwe actually have prioritized the rescue of children who have been human trafficked.\u201d But according to the Inspector General, your policies are wholly exacerbating that same trafficking risk to migrant children.\n\nNormally, unaccompanied minors released from initial intake are subsequently provided with notices to appear in immigration court, so that their case can be heard. Those notices can only be provided if your agency knows where these children are. But according to the Inspector General\u2019s report, as of May of this year, DHS had failed to provide court notices to at least 291,000 unaccompanied children. That is to say: your agency may have lost track of more than a quarter million unaccompanied children\u2014a horrifyingly large number. As the report explains, your agency\u2019s failure to issue court notices to these children limits the ability to monitor their location and status. In the Inspector General\u2019s words: without such ability, there is thus \u201cno assurance that [the children] are safe from trafficking, exploitation, or forced labor.\u201d\n\nBut it gets worse. According to the report, your agency \u201cwas not able to account\u201d for the location of unaccompanied children who did receive court notices and failed to appear in immigration court. That was at least 32,000 children. Moreover, the report found that your agency did not always inform the Department of Health and Human Service\u2019s Office of Refugee Resettlement, which places unaccompanied children with sponsors, when these unaccompanied children ultimately failed to appear in court. In other words: not only did your agency lose track of these children, it didn\u2019t even bother to tell anyone. That is unconscionable.\n\nThese new records indicate that your previous testimony to the Senate was wholly inadequate. You must immediately provide comprehensive public answers to questions concerning the impact of your permissive immigration policies on the safety of children who may now be prey to child labor criminals.\n\nWhere in the United States does your agency believe the more than 291,000 unaccompanied children who did not receive court notices are now located?\n\nWhy were hundreds of thousands of children not given appropriate court notices?\n\nWhat is your agency doing to track down the location of these children and ensure their safety?\n\nWhat internal policy or personnel led to your agency\u2019s failure to communicate missing unaccompanied minor children with the Department of Health and Human Services\u2019 (HHS) Office of Refugee Resettlement?", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T18:41:32Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.hawley.senate.gov/hawley-blasts-mayorkas-after-shocking-report-finds-dhs-lost-thousands-of-children/"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 2.6690978556871414, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}