Grassley Highlights Exploitation and Abuse of Migrant Children During Senate Roundtable
Panelists blew the whistle on HHS’ failure to protect children
WASHINGTON – Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), a senior member and former chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, along with Sens. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) and Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), co-hosted a roundtable examining the abuse of unaccompanied migrant children and the failures of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)’s Unaccompanied Children (UC) program. The Biden administration’s HHS UC program has allowed thousands of migrant kids to be lost or handed over to potential traffickers and criminals. Grassley is leading a bipartisan group of more than 40 Senate colleagues on a Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution disapproving the harmful Biden Administration UC program rule.
Dr. Jarrod Sadulski, Associate Professor of Security and Global Studies at the American Military University
Shevaun Harris, Secretary of the Florida Department of Children and Families
One panelist addressed HHS’ retaliation for blowing the whistle on the placement of children to a household affiliated with the violent MS-13 gang. The whistleblowers also shone a light on HHS’ failure to equip UC program employees with training to spot signs of potential trafficking and discussed barriers to alerting law enforcement of abuse in the program.
Background
Grassley for a decade has led congressional oversight examining federal care of unaccompanied minors. Based on information he obtained from HHS whistleblowers via legally protected disclosures, Grassley in January shared with law enforcement evidence of potential child trafficking and smuggling facilitated by the Biden administration’s UC program. He also demanded HHS make immediate changes to address its unlawful policies, which seek to prevent legally protected whistleblower disclosures to Congress and the HHS Office of the Inspector General regarding misconduct at HHS and in the UC program.
Additional supporting statements for the record follow.
