The Health and Human Services Department has refused to share with Congress case files on immigrants without documentation who are charged with crimes, forcing House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan to threaten a subpoena.
HHS is responsible for detaining immigrant juveniles who illegally jump the border without a parent — Unaccompanied Alien Children or UACs. The number of UACs under President Biden has shattered all previous records, and Mr. Jordan has been trying to get HHS to reveal how it makes decisions on releasing the migrants.
Those questions have taken on new urgency amid a rise in crimes like murder and assault laid at the feet of UACs.
But the department has shot down repeated requests by Mr. Jordan and Rep. Tom McClintock, a California Republican who chairs Judiciary’s immigration subcommittee.
“HHS’s refusal to provide basic information pursuant to the Committee’s requests is wholly unacceptable and appears to be a part of a concerted effort to obstruct congressional oversight into ORR’s deficiencies,” the GOP lawmakers wrote in their letter, which was obtained first by The Washington Times.
The lawmakers went on to warn: “Please be advised that the Committee may be forced to resort to compulsory process if these requests remain outstanding.”
That compulsory process usually means an enforceable subpoena.
As one example of the department’s recalcitrance, the committee has repeatedly prodded HHS over whether it has a policy of referring known gang member migrants to the Justice Department for further action.
Committee investigators first posed the question directly to Robin Dunn Marcos, director of HHS’ Office of Refugee Resettlement, during a June 8 interview. She was “unable to answer,” the committee said.
HHS promised in July to “provide an update” but didn’t follow through, despite prods from the committee on July 31, Aug. 11, Aug. 21 and Aug. 28. On Sept. 29, the department did provide a response, but it didn’t address the question, instead assuring the committee that it placed migrants “in a restrictive setting” if it deemed them to be a danger or to have a criminal history.
The department didn’t mention the specific gang question the committee had posed.
Republicans said HHS wouldn’t provide a list of the restrictive facilities or a list of which nongovernmental organizations work with the department. The committee said of 32 specific requests for information and data, HHS has complied with “fewer than three.”
The Washington Times has reached out to HHS for this story.
Among the cases the lawmakers want files on are: Jose Roberto Hernandez-Espinal, who arrived as a UAC in 2013 and is now charged with raping a girl and a woman on a running trail in the Maryland suburbs of Washington; and Juan Carlos Garcia-Rodriguez, who entered as a UAC earlier this year and is now charged with the slaying of an 11-year-old girl in Pasadena, Texas.
In their letter, Mr. Jordan and Mr. McClintock said the department has offered various excuses for failing to turn over the data. In one response the department challenged the validity of the request for case files, insisting there’s nothing the committee could glean from them.
The files document the care delivered to a juvenile and don’t have information that would “inform broader legislative objectives,” acting Assistant Secretary Melanie Egorin said in a September reply.
The Republicans called that a pathetic excuse, pointing out that Congress has already written the rules governing how children are to be treated, and it is pondering whether to revisit those rules to see if there are ways to keep dangerous migrants from being released into risky environments.
Ms. Egorin also complained that the committee has played loose with past information shared about the case of Kayla Hamilton, who was murdered in Maryland last year. The person charged with her slaying came to the U.S. illegally as a child, had gang ties that were ignored, and was released to a sponsor who soon lost control of him and then he fled the home, the committee said.
The juvenile’s name was supposed to be protected by a Democrat on the Judiciary Committee — Rep. Pramila Jayapal, herself an immigration lawyer — revealed the migrant’s name in a document she submitted in the committee’s records.
UACs have long been among the trickiest migrant categories.
In most cases they are deeply vulnerable and sometimes very young children sent on the traumatizing journey by family members. Children as young as a few years old are given packets with their names and contact numbers for someone in the U.S., then placed with smugglers to get them over the border.
Once captured by Homeland Security, they are supposed to be turned over to HHS for safekeeping in a shelter while social workers seek a sponsor to take the child — often the very contact identified in the child’s packet.
The Biden administration trimmed the sponsorship process, leaving critics to worry that more children are being placed in unsafe conditions and more children are being lost.
MS-13, the vicious gang that spans from Central America to the U.S., uses UACs to build its numbers. Other times, the children are forced into child labor.
Republicans have complained since the start of the Biden administration about the difficulty of prying loose information about UACs, and indeed about many aspects of the border chaos. Mr. Jordan’s subpoena threat escalates the stakes in this instance.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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