Biden Administration Lost — Yes, Lost — Nearly 20,000 Migrant Children
The alien minors released since the inauguration would be the 18th largest U.S. school district, costing local taxpayers more than $4.6 billion per year
By Andrew R. Arthur on March 2, 2022
In September, Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) asked the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) for information on unaccompanied alien children (UACs) — alien minors who entered illegally and who have been released to sponsors in this country. Biggs tweeted out the response this week. The big takeaways: The Biden administration has lost track of nearly 20,000 kids, and the more than 146,000 children in total it has released would be the 18th largest school district in the United States — at an added cost to local taxpayers of $4.6 billion annually.
HHS Role in the Placement of Unaccompanied Alien Children. By way of background, prior to the creation of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the former Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) had jurisdiction over the detention and release of unaccompanied alien children.
Immigrants’ rights advocates long complained about INS’s detention of children, and so when DHS was created in the Homeland Security Act of 2002 (HSA), that bill was amended by House Democrats to give the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) within HHS jurisdiction over the unaccompanied children that DHS apprehended.
That role was expanded in the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008 (TVPRA). As I have explained in the past, the TVPRA divided UACs based on nationality, with Mexican and Canadian children treated differently than all other alien children.
https://cis.org/Arthur/Biden-Administration-Lost-Yes-Lost-Nearly-20000-Migrant-Children
