Current Events > Op-Ed: Trump administration has lost 1,475 migrant children

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https://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/ej-montini/2018/05/22/immigration-children-separate-families-lost-kirstjen-nielson/631627002/

The Trump administration recently announced a new, get-tough policy that will separate parents from their children if the family is caught crossing the border illegally.

It was a big news story. So big it overshadowed the fact that the federal government has lost yes, lost 1,475 migrant children.

Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen told Congress that within 48 hours of being taken into custody the children are transferred to the Department of Health and Human Services, which finds places for them to stay.

They will be separated from their parent, said Democratic Sen Kamala Harris.

Just like we do in the United States every day, Nielsen replied.

Except that the states, unlike the federal government, have systems in place to better screen the people who become guardians of the children and much better ways to keep track of those children.

And not lose them.

That is what happened to 1,475 minors swept up at the border and taken into custody by the federal government.

Gone.

The Office of Refugee Resettlement reported at the end of 2017 that of the 7,000-plus children placed with sponsored individuals, the agency did not know where 1,475 of them were.

Republican Sen. Rob Portman said, Its just a system that has so many gaps, so many opportunities for these children to fall between the cracks, that we just dont know whats going on how much trafficking or abuse or simply immigration law violations are occurring."

A documentary from the PBS program "Frontline" said that the federal government has actually released some of the minors to human traffickers.

Imagine that.

And now we want to dramatically ramp up the number of children who are removed from their parents?

When pressed about safety concerns Secretary Nielsen said, "I just want to say, I couldn't agree with your concerns more, period. We owe more to these children to protect them. So I'm saying I agree, we've taken steps and we will continue to strengthen what our partners do to protect these children."

Trust the feds to keep kids safe?

There are 1,475 reasons not to be reassured by the secretarys promise.
If anything, it would have been better to have a policy in place, with protections, and safe places to stay, and safe people to stay with, and personnel on the government payroll to check-up on them before the administrations new policy was implemented.

Secretary Nielsen said, "My decision has been that anyone who breaks the law will be prosecuted. If you are parent, or you're a single person or if you happen to have a family, if you cross between the ports of entry we will refer you for prosecution. You have broken U.S. law."

We all get that. And we all want a secure border. But we dont want to trade in our humanity in the process.

The article links to a Frontline article about migrant children ending up with human traffickers.

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So this is a year old, but does bear reminder.
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The average ceman doesnt care about this because they dont share the same shade of skin color

The Article is also from 2018. And it's intentionally misleading, since their definition of lost is literally we called the family and they didn't pick up their phone.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/1475-immigrant-children-missing/

We note that this passage means that ORR made some effort to ascertain the status of children placed with sponsors and were unable to determine where some 1,475 of those children were, because those sponsors were unreachable by telephone or didnt respond. This doesnt mean those children are missing in the sense of being outside the home, control, or care of their guardians, but rather that the ORR couldnt verify their exact whereabouts at the moment.

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https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/hhs-official-says-agency-lost-track-of-nearly-1500-unaccompanied-minors/

A top official from the Department of Health and Human Services came under fire during congressional testimony on Thursday over how the agency tracks unaccompanied minors after they are released to family or other sponsors inside the United States.

Steven Wagner, the acting assistant secretary of the agencys Administration for Children and Families, faced a barrage of questions from senators on the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations over why HHS does not track unaccompanied minors who fail to appear at their immigration court hearings. The agency has faced increased scrutiny following a scathing 2016 report from the committee that found it failed to protect unaccompanied minors from traffickers and other abuses.

Its just a system that has so many gaps, so many opportunities for these children to fall between the cracks, that we just dont know whats going on how much trafficking or abuse or simply immigration law violations are occurring, said the committees Republican chairman, Sen. Rob Portman.

In 2014, at least 10 trafficking victims, including eight minors, were discovered during a raid by federal and local law enforcement in Portmans home state of Ohio. As FRONTLINE examined in the recent documentary Trafficked in America, HHS had released several minors to the traffickers. The committee said the case was due to policies and procedures that were inadequate to protect the children in the agencys care.

After unaccompanied minors arrive in the United States, often to reunite with family members or to flee violence or poverty in their home countries, they are typically transferred from border patrol or customs officers to the custody of HHS, which often reunites the minors with a relative or another sponsor. The department is supposed to place check-in phone calls 30 days after a minors placement, but during the hearing, Wagner acknowledged gaps in that system.

Between October and December 2017, he said, the agency was unable to locate almost 1,500 out of the 7,635 minors that it attempted to reach or about 19 percent. Over two dozen had run away, according to Wagner, who said the agency did not have the capacity to track them down.

Sponsors are meant to ensure that minors show up at their immigration hearings. Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) pressed Wagner on why more than half of unaccompanied minors in 2017 did not show up to their immigration hearings. When asked how HHS tracks the missing children, Wagner said that finding out whether children have attended their immigration hearing is not part of its protocol.

We do not know who is showing up and who isnt, he said. We dont know those kids We dont follow up to ensure they go to the hearing.

Wagner told the committee that since February 2016, HHS has gone to greater lengths to verify the identity of potential sponsors of unaccompanied minors, and worked to crack down on the ability of sponsors to use fraudulent documents during the placement process. A new agreement reached this month between HHS and the Department of Homeland Security establishes policies for the agencies to better share information to help screen potential sponsors.

Senators also expressed concern that state and local officials are not usually notified when unaccompanied minors are placed in their jurisdiction. Wagner said that it was an issue of practicality that would require contacting a substantial list of local agencies.

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If a child is being, for instance, kept at home and abused by a sponsor, and a local school doesnt even know the child is supposed to be going there, then some of the usual triggers that we have for protecting children cant be triggered, Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.) said.
Wagner agreed to look into notifying states and localities, as did James McCament, the deputy under secretary for the Office of Strategy, Policy and Plans at the Department of Homeland Security.

Throughout the session, senators grew frustrated that more than a year had passed since the two agencies had agreed to deliver a joint memo outlining their roles in protecting minors.

It has been protracted, absolutely, said McCament.

Get this done, Senator Thomas Carper (D-Del.) told officials from both agencies. Way too much time has passed.

In an interview with FRONTLINE for Trafficked in America, Portman said that HHS cannot ignore its responsibility for unaccompanied minors.

Weve got these kids, he said. Theyre here. Theyre living on our soil. And for us to just, you know, assume someone else is going to take care of them and throw them to the wolves, which is what HHS was doing, is flat-out wrong. I dont care what you think about immigration policy, its wrong.

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s0nicfan posted...

The Article is also from 2018. And it's intentionally misleading, since their definition of lost is literally we called the family and they didn't pick up their phone.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/1475-immigrant-children-missing/

That's a little better, but you would think a government agency would do a little more. If they can't get in touch with the family or the kid itself, send an officer over to review their living spaces. Hold sponsors to higher standards, and punish them for failing to check in.

Like, are there not more measures this department could be taking? Are they stopping after they lose contact via phone, are they not checking residences?

And it's concerning that 8 minors ended up being trafficked after the government lost track of them. They're the ones that the government have found, who's to say that any of these other children they've lost track of aren't at risk of the same thing?

And despite the wording being iffy, as stated, Snopes nontheless rates the information as truthful. I'll give it to you that the headline can be taken as a bit sensationalistic, but the fact that the government lost contact with nearly 1,500 children - all while they were seperating kids from their parents - isn't being disputed. And it might just amount to the guardians not picking up the phone, but do we have any evidence that the department was able to get in contact with those families in the long run, or re-establish a connection with these kids? Can anyone say with certainty that this figure dropped after it came to light?

It's old news, and the figures might have changed. That's on me. But honestly, it's still a fucking travesty.

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The cages for kids were built by the Obama Administration in 2014. He had the policy of child separation. I ended it even as I realized that more families would then come to the Border! @CNN

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1156742970105892864?s=19
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ledbowman posted...

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1156742970105892864?s=19

The worst part is that this isn't even about the caged children. It's about kids being released to sponsors, then losing contact with the Department of Homeland Security. Nowhere in the articles linked were there mentions of cages - it's not entirely disconnected from the matter at hand, but at the time of this article's release, detention centre overcrowding and unsanitary living conditions for children were not being reported in the manner that they are now.

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Details details.
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MrMallard posted...

Like, are there not more measures this department could be taking? Are they stopping after they lose contact via phone, are they not checking residences?

The question is: how much do you want the IHS tracking these kids? Once they're released into legal custody to people who have passed a screening process, how long after should the IHS be keeping tabs? Should they keep a database of where every kid is, and track when their new family moves? Should they hunt down the kids and apprehend them if a sponsor gets into contact with their real family and releases the kid to them?

I understand the outrage, but I'm not sure you really know what you're asking for here outside of just being angry the kids aren't with their parents which, by the way, may not be a separation at all. Over 60,000 unaccompanied minors have been discovered over the border in the first half of this year alone (source below). While the article you linked to tries to draw a direct line between Trump's separation policy and the number of "lost" children, the vast majority of the 1500 kids missing likely came out of a pool of 100,000+ kids who showed up at the border without family to begin with.

https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/sw-border-migration
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ledbowman posted...

The cages for kids were built by the Obama Administration in 2014. He had the policy of child separation. I ended it even as I realized that more families would then come to the Border! @CNN

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1156742970105892864?s=19

This is this fat fucks entire gaslighting gameplan. Create problems, blame them on Obama when they come out, pretend you fixed them, continue doing said problem you created.
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s0nicfan posted...

The question is: how much do you want the IHS tracking these kids? Once they're released into legal custody to people who have passed a screening process, how long after should the IHS be keeping tabs? Should they keep a database of where every kid is, and track when their new family moves? Should they hunt down the kids and apprehend them if a sponsor gets into contact with their real family and releases the kid to them?

A child being released into foster care, or being released to family, should probably be checked up on for a few months to ensure that they're being taken care of. Have a monthly check up for six months, where a welfare specialist looks over the living space and interviews the child and carer separately. Any child being released into foster or sponsor care deserves at least that much.

I understand the outrage, but I'm not sure you really know what you're asking for here outside of just being angry the kids aren't with their parents which, by the way, may not be a separation at all. Over 60,000 unaccompanied minors have been discovered over the border in the first half of this year alone (source below).

Separation is particularly bad, but the issue here isn't just about kids who were ripped from their parents before going dark. Any child could come over the border, go through the process of being assigned a sponsor, and then lose contact with the government departments that are meant to keep them safe.

There's a non-zero percent chance of these children being released to traffickers. The US foster screening process is already busted - sometime earlier this year I made a thread about Devonte Hart, the black kid who was photographed hugging a cop with the fear of death on his face, and how his foster parents adopted kids of other races to stage publicity shots like that. They drove an SUV full of adopted children into the ocean last year, and while Devonte hasn't been found, most of his siblings are confirmed dead and raids on their family home revealed inadequate living conditions for the kids.

Those parents had a history of abuse going back to 2008, which didn't stop them from adopting Devonte and his siblings - you would think that prior instances of abuse would have invalidated the foster mother's, but it didn't. This is a tangent, admittedly, but if the foster system can be that broken, then I don't doubt that the government lets a similar calibre of sponsors fall through the cracks. It's because people like that have been able to game the system and abuse, exploit and traffic foster children - sovereign US citizens - that any form of foster or sponsorship program should be held to a higher standard. It doesn't matter if the kids crossed alone or not - they should not be exposed to abuse, exploitation or trafficking.

While the article you linked to tries to draw a direct line between Trump's separation policy and the number of "lost" children, the vast majority of the 1500 kids missing likely came out of a pool of 100,000+ kids who showed up at the border without family to begin with.

https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/sw-border-migration

There's some of that, but I think the biggest travesty that the original article tries to communicate is that over a thousand children are unaccounted for. That might be a small statistic in the face of your claims here, but that's still 1,475 children who are at risk of human trafficking, of slipping through the cracks and falling into a life of abuse, neglect and crime. These are kids who made it into America - they didn't just show up, get processed and get booted out. Their claims of asylum weren't rejected, they were moved through the system and assigned guardians. The government lost track of them.

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It should be noted that the 1,475 kids that are unaccounted for come from a sample size of like 7,400. It wasn't 1,475 kids in a sea of 100,000 - this figure came from a selection of under 10,000. There's likely to be more by now, being over a year later.

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Epstein probably knows where some of them are

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@s0nicfan why are you defending this?

Here's a story from yesterday.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on Tuesday said the federal government continues to "systematically" separate migrant children from their parents, accusing the Trump administration of violating a court order prohibiting officials from separating families unless in extraordinary circumstances where the children are in danger.

In a court filing in the U.S. District of Southern California, the ACLU said the administration has forcibly separated more than 900 migrant children in U.S. custody from their parents since one of the court's judges, Dana Sabraw, ordered the government to halt its controversial "zero tolerance" policy in June 2018. Along with instructing the administration to reunite all separated families, Sabraw decreed that families should not be separated "absent a determination that the parent is unfit or presents a danger to the child."

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/family-separation-policy-900-migrant-children-have-been-separated-from-parents-despite-court-order-aclu-says/
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YokoGeri posted...

@s0nicfan why are you defending this?

I'm bringing facts into a topic about a sensationalist article. That's all.

Is it great that IHS called some families and couldn't get a hold of them and they didn't follow up? No. Is that the same as "THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION IS LOSING CHILDREN"? No.

Do you have a problem with my adding factual context backed by real sources?
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I can't think of a better way to increase gang membership. For the kids that are "lucky" enough to survive.
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s0nicfan posted...

YokoGeri posted...

@s0nicfan why are you defending this?

I'm bringing facts into a topic about a sensationalist article. That's all.

Is it great that IHS called some families and couldn't get a hold of them and they didn't follow up? No. Is that the same as "THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION IS LOSING CHILDREN"? No.

Do you have a problem with my adding factual context backed by real sources?

again, why are you defending this?

What you're doing is no different than when people point out that somebody called the Charlottesville racists very fine people and somebody goes like AAACKSHHUALLLYYYYYY he didn't mean that.

Youd think keeping incarcerated children in one place wouldnt be so difficult.
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divot1338 posted...

Youd think keeping incarcerated children in one place wouldnt be so difficult.

Especially since Donnie is good oaks with someone like Epstein.
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