[House Hearing, 116 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
PROTECTING UNACCOMPANIED CHILDREN: THE ONGOING IMPACTS OF THE TRUMP
ADMINISTRATION'S CRUEL POLICIES
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
SEPTEMBER 19, 2019
__________
Serial No. 116-62
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Printed for the use of the Committee on Energy and Commerce
govinfo.gov/committee/house-energy
energycommerce.house.gov
______
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
41-182PDF WASHINGTON : 2020
COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE
FRANK PALLONE, Jr., New Jersey
Chairman
BOBBY L. RUSH, Illinois GREG WALDEN, Oregon
ANNA G. ESHOO, California Ranking Member
ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York FRED UPTON, Michigan
DIANA DeGETTE, Colorado JOHN SHIMKUS, Illinois
MIKE DOYLE, Pennsylvania MICHAEL C. BURGESS, Texas
JAN SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois STEVE SCALISE, Louisiana
G. K. BUTTERFIELD, North Carolina ROBERT E. LATTA, Ohio
DORIS O. MATSUI, California CATHY McMORRIS RODGERS, Washington
KATHY CASTOR, Florida BRETT GUTHRIE, Kentucky
JOHN P. SARBANES, Maryland PETE OLSON, Texas
JERRY McNERNEY, California DAVID B. McKINLEY, West Virginia
PETER WELCH, Vermont ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois
BEN RAY LUJAN, New Mexico H. MORGAN GRIFFITH, Virginia
PAUL TONKO, New York GUS M. BILIRAKIS, Florida
YVETTE D. CLARKE, New York, Vice BILL JOHNSON, Ohio
Chair BILLY LONG, Missouri
DAVID LOEBSACK, Iowa LARRY BUCSHON, Indiana
KURT SCHRADER, Oregon BILL FLORES, Texas
JOSEPH P. KENNEDY III, SUSAN W. BROOKS, Indiana
Massachusetts MARKWAYNE MULLIN, Oklahoma
TONY CARDENAS, California RICHARD HUDSON, North Carolina
RAUL RUIZ, California TIM WALBERG, Michigan
SCOTT H. PETERS, California EARL L. ``BUDDY'' CARTER, Georgia
DEBBIE DINGELL, Michigan JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina
MARC A. VEASEY, Texas GREG GIANFORTE, Montana
ANN M. KUSTER, New Hampshire
ROBIN L. KELLY, Illinois
NANETTE DIAZ BARRAGAN, California
A. DONALD McEACHIN, Virginia
LISA BLUNT ROCHESTER, Delaware
DARREN SOTO, Florida
TOM O'HALLERAN, Arizona
------
Professional Staff
JEFFREY C. CARROLL, Staff Director
TIFFANY GUARASCIO, Deputy Staff Director
MIKE BLOOMQUIST, Minority Staff Director
Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations
DIANA DeGETTE, Colorado
Chair
JAN SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois BRETT GUTHRIE, Kentucky
JOSEPH P. KENNEDY III, Ranking Member
Massachusetts, Vice Chair MICHAEL C. BURGESS, Texas
RAUL RUIZ, California DAVID B. McKINLEY, West Virginia
ANN M. KUSTER, New Hampshire H. MORGAN GRIFFITH, Virginia
KATHY CASTOR, Florida SUSAN W. BROOKS, Indiana
JOHN P. SARBANES, Maryland MARKWAYNE MULLIN, Oklahoma
PAUL TONKO, New York JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina
YVETTE D. CLARKE, New York GREG WALDEN, Oregon (ex officio)
SCOTT H. PETERS, California
FRANK PALLONE, Jr., New Jersey (ex
officio)
CONTENTS
----------
Page
Hon. Diana DeGette, a Representative in Congress from the State
of Colorado, opening statement................................. 2
Prepared statement........................................... 3
Hon. Brett Guthrie, a Representative in Congress from the
Commonwealth of Kentucky, opening statement.................... 4
Prepared statement........................................... 6
Hon. Frank Pallone, Jr., a Representative in Congress from the
State of New Jersey, opening statement......................... 7
Prepared statement........................................... 8
Hon. Joseph P. Kennedy III, a Representative in Congress from the
Commonwealth of Massachusetts, prepared statement.............. 10
Hon. Greg Walden, a Representative in Congress from the State of
Oregon, opening statement...................................... 10
Prepared statement........................................... 12
Witnesses
Ann Maxwell, Assistant Inspector General for Evaluation and
Inspections, Office of Inspector General, Department of Health
and Human Services............................................. 14
Prepared statement........................................... 16
Jonathan H. Hayes, Director, Office of Refugee Resettlement,
Administration for Children and Families, Department of Health
and Human Services............................................. 27
Prepared statement........................................... 29
Answers to submitted questions............................... 101
Jonathan White, Commander, Public Health Service Commissioned
Corps, Department of Health and Human Services................. 42
Prepared statement........................................... 44
Answers to submitted questions............................... 113
John R. Modlin, Acting Deputy Chief of Law Enforcement
Operational Programs, Law Enforcement Operations Directorate,
Customs and Border Protection, Border Patrol, Department of
Homeland Security.............................................. 51
Prepared statement........................................... 53
Answers to submitted questions............................... 117
Submitted Material
Subcommittee exhibit binder \1\
----------
\1\ The information has been retained in committee files and also is
available at https://docs.house.gov/Committee/Calendar/
ByEvent.aspx?EventID=109953.
PROTECTING UNACCOMPANIED CHILDREN: THE ONGOING IMPACTS OF THE TRUMP
ADMINISTRATION'S CRUEL POLICIES
----------
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 2019
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations,
Committee on Energy and Commerce,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:01 a.m., in
the John D. Dingell Room 2123, Rayburn House Office Building,
Hon. Diana DeGette (chairwoman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Members present: Representatives DeGette, Schakowsky,
Kennedy, Ruiz, Kuster, Castor, Clarke, Peters, Pallone (ex
officio), Guthrie (subcommittee ranking member), Burgess,
McKinley, Griffith, Brooks, Mullin, Duncan, and Walden (ex
officio).
Also present: Representatives Cardenas, Barragan, and Soto.
Staff present: Kevin Barstow, Chief Oversight Counsel;
Billy Benjamin, Systems Administrator; Jeffrey C. Carroll,
Staff Director; Manmeet Dhindsa, Counsel; Waverly Gordon,
Deputy Chief Counsel; Tiffany Guarascio, Deputy Staff Director;
Zach Kahan, Outreach and Member Service Coordinator; Chris
Knauer, Oversight Staff Director; Jourdan Lewis, Policy
Analyst; Kevin McAloon, Professional Staff Member; Meghan
Mullon, Staff Assistant; Alivia Roberts, Press Assistant; Tim
Robinson, Chief Counsel; Benjamin Tabor, Staff Assistant;
Rebecca Tomilchik, Staff Assistant; C. J. Young, Press
Secretary; Jen Barblan, Minority Chief Counsel, Oversight and
Investigations; Mike Bloomquist, Minority Staff Director; Adam
Buckalew, Minority Director of Coalitions and Deputy Chief
Counsel, Health; Margaret Tucker Fogarty, Minority Staff
Assistant; Brittany Havens, Minority Professional Staff Member,
Oversight and Investigations; Peter Kielty, Minority General
Counsel; and J. P. Paluskiewicz, Minority Chief Counsel,
Health.
Ms. DeGette. The Subcommittee on Oversight and
Investigations hearing will now come to order. Today, the
committee is holding a hearing entitled ``Protecting
Unaccompanied Children: The Ongoing Impact of the Trump
Administration's Cruel Policies.''
The purpose of today's hearing is to examine the Trump
administration's care for unaccompanied children in Government
custody and the impact of administration policies on the health
and well-being of children. The Chair now recognizes herself
for an opening statement.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. DIANA DeGETTE, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF COLORADO
Today, this committee is continuing its oversight of the
Trump administration's care for unaccompanied children. Last
year, thousands of children were forcibly separated from their
parents by the Trump administration. We heard the horror
stories of how children were torn away from their families. No
one will forget the images of crying children and helpless
parents. Frankly, we all agree it is a shameful chapter in this
country's history.
In February, this subcommittee held a hearing about the
callous family separation policy. Commander Jonathan White, who
again joins us today--and I want to thank you, Commander
White--testified that he tried to raise the alarm within the
administration about the damage that would be done by
separations. Unfortunately, those warnings went unheeded.
We also heard from experts about how separating their
children from their parents can cause a host of mental and
physical health problems. We feared about the long-term
traumatic consequences these children would endure for the rest
of their lives. It appears now that we have proof that these
fears have come true. A new report from the HHS Office of
Inspector General is the first Government accounting that
details the emotional, psychological toll of separation of
children from their parents. And we just got this report this
week.
Last year, investigators from the OIG went to 45 ORR
facilities and spoke to approximately 100 mental health
clinicians who provide care for unaccompanied children,
including those who were separated, and what they heard is
frankly heartbreaking. Mental health clinicians described how
children cried inconsolably, and they believed their parents
had abandoned them. One ORR program director told OIG, ``Every
single separated kid has been terrified. We are seen as the
enemy.''
OIG tells the story of one child who believed his father
had been killed and that he would be killed also. Another
medical director told OIG that the children described the
emotional pain they were enduring, with one child saying, ``I
can't feel my heart.'' We should not be surprised by these
findings, but we should also not be complacent. We should take
this report as a clarion call to ensure an injustice like this
never happens again in this country.
Moreover, there have been new developments since that
crisis that again call into question this administration's
ability to adequately care for unaccompanied children. This
past summer, we were shocked again to see reports of children
in unacceptable conditions at a CBP facility in Clint, Texas.
Press accounts reported of toddlers at that facility without
diapers, young children caring for infants they just met, and
children unable to wash or to shower. I had to call Mr. Hayes
during that ordeal to ensure that the agencies were working
together to address these issues.
To help alleviate that crisis, ORR eventually stood up an
emergency influx facility in Carrizo Springs, Texas, but just
as quickly as it got stood up, it got shut down. As the
operator of the facility said, ``It was much too late.'' This
episode raises important questions about how ORR and CBP are
coordinating as they see trends shifting on the ground so that
these kids are properly cared for. That is the most important
thing.
We are only beginning to appreciate the carnage that was
unleashed by the administration last year, and it appears that
unfortunately some have not learned their lesson as we see
policies coming from this administration that fail to treat
these children with dignity and respect every day. So today is
an opportunity to have an accounting of the fallout from these
policies and to hear what is being done to ensure that no
child, no child is ever neglected again in the custody of this
Government.
Finally, I just want to speak really briefly to the
committee's ongoing investigation into the family separation
crisis. I know and the committee knows there are hundreds of
dedicated career staff at HHS who are devoting their lives and
their careers to caring for these children, and the men and the
women of the Border Patrol put their lives on the line to
protect our border. These staff did not create this crisis, and
that is why the committee is demanding accountability from the
leadership.
But across the board, the administration is obstructing our
legitimate congressional oversight to unprecedented levels, and
it is no exception here. Our committee has had an 8-month-old
request for documents from HHS about its role in the family
separation crisis. HHS has produced thousands of nonresponsive
documents in order to look cooperative while it withholds
documents from key leaders to whom Commander White raised
concerns. It is still unclear who knew about the family
separation policy before it was enacted and what, if anything,
they did to try to stop it. From what I have seen, it seems at
best HHS leaders should have known that it was coming and did
not try to stop it. But since they are hiding documents, we
also have to ask whether they were complicit.
So I hope the administration and HHS in particular will
show good faith cooperation with Congress, end the stonewalling
and air all the facts to let the American people see for
themselves. And Ranking Member Guthrie and I both agree that
documents should be produced. I talked to the administration
several times and asked for narrow categories of documents to
be produced, and they have not been produced. We once again
repeat this demand.
[The prepared statement of Ms. DeGette follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Diana DeGette
Today, this committee is continuing its oversight of the
Trump administration's care for unaccompanied children.
Last year, thousands of children were forcibly separated
from their parents by the Trump administration. We heard the
horror stories of how children were ripped away from their
family. None of us will ever forget the images of crying
children and helpless parents. It was a shameful chapter in our
country's history.
In February, this subcommittee held a hearing about the
callous family separation policy. Commander Jonathan White--who
is here again today--testified that he tried to raise the alarm
within the administration about the damage that would be done
by separations. Unfortunately, those warnings went unheeded.
We also heard from experts about how separating children
from their parents can cause a host of mental and physical
health problems. We feared about the long-term traumatic
consequences these children would have to endure for the rest
of their lives.
It appears that those fears have come true. A new report
from the HHS Office of Inspector General is the first official
government accounting that details the emotional and
psychological toll separations had on children.
Last year, investigators from the OIG went to 45 different
ORR facilities and spoke to approximately 100 mental health
clinicians who provide care for unaccompanied children,
including those who were separated. What they heard is
heartbreaking.
Mental health clinicians described how separated children
cried inconsolably, and believed their parents had abandoned
them. One ORR program director told OIG [quote] ``Every single
separated kid has been terrified. We're [seen as] the enemy.''
OIG tells the story of one child who believed his father
had been killed and that he would be killed, too. Another
medical director told OIG that the children described the
emotional pain they were enduring, with one child saying
[quote] ``I can't feel my heart.''
We should not be surprised by these findings, but we should
also not be complacent. We should take this report as a clarion
call to ensure an injustice like this never happens again.
Moreover, there have been new developments since that
crisis that again call into question this administration's
ability to adequately care for unaccompanied children.
This past summer, we were shocked again to see reports of
children in unacceptable conditions at a CBP facility in Clint,
Texas. Press accounts reported of toddlers at that facility
without diapers, young children caring for infants they just
met, and children unable to shower or wash their clothes. I had
to call Mr. Hayes during that ordeal to ensure these agencies
were working together to address these issues.
To help alleviate that crisis, ORR eventually stood up an
emergency influx facility in Carrizo Springs, Texas. But just
as quickly as it was stood up, it was shut down. As the
operator of that facility said, [quote] ``it was too much too
late.'' This episode raises important questions about how ORR
and CBP are coordinating as they see trends shifting on the
ground, so that these kids are properly cared for.
We are only just beginning to appreciate the carnage that
was unleashed by this administration last year. And it appears
that they have not learned their lesson, as we continue to see
policies coming from this administration that fail to treat
these children with dignity and respect.
Today is an opportunity to have an accounting of the
fallout from these policies, and to hear what is being done to
ensure no child is ever neglected again in the custody of this
government.
Finally, I would like to speak to this committee's ongoing
investigation into the family separation crisis.
We know there are hundreds of dedicated career staff at HHS
who devote themselves to caring for these children. And the men
and women of the Border Patrol put their lives on the line to
protect our border. Those staff did not create this crisis, and
that is why this committee is demanding answers from leadership
at those agencies.
But across the board, the Trump administration has taken
its obstruction of legitimate congressional oversight to
unprecedented levels--and this is no exception.
Our committee has an 8-month-old request for documents from
HHS about its role in the family separation crisis. HHS has
produced thousands of non-responsive documents in order to look
cooperative while it withholds documents from key leaders to
whom Commander White raised concerns.
It is still unclear who knew what about the family
separation policy before it was enacted and what, if anything,
they did to try to stop it or mitigate its effects.
From what we have seen, it seems that at best, HHS leaders
knew or should have known it was coming and did not try to stop
it. But at this point, since they are hiding documents, we also
have to ask whether they were complicit.
I hope this administration--and HHS in particular--will
begin to show good-faith cooperation with this Congress, end
the stonewalling, and air all of the facts to let the American
people see for themselves.
Ms. DeGette. And with that I yield back, and I recognize
the ranking member for his opening statement for 5 minutes.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. BRETT GUTHRIE, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE COMMONWEALTH OF KENTUCKY
Mr. Guthrie. Thank you. Thank you, Chair DeGette, for
holding this hearing. The committee's oversight over the care
and treatment of the unaccompanied alien children by the
Department of Health and Human Services as well as the
sponsorship process for unaccompanied children extends back to
2014 with the first major influx of children and family units
coming across our southern border.
This influx overwhelmed the previous administration and
resulted in children being placed with traffickers within the
United States. Because of the work done by this committee and
others, reforms were made to the Office of Refugee Resettlement
program, including improving the medical care available to
children while in HHS care and custody. And I believe our
member of the committee Dr. Burgess was instrumental in that--
well, I know he was and I believe he was.
Our work continued last Congress after the announcement and
the end of the zero-tolerance initiative. As I said at our
hearing earlier this year, I support strong enforcement of our
Nation's borders, but I do not support separating children from
their parents. It was clear then just as it is now that these
separations caused harm to the children involved.
This spring, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and
HHS experienced another surge of children and family units
coming across our southern border. The influx of migrants this
year has been higher than in previous years, including large
groups of people illegally entering the United States. For
example, on May 29th, CBP agents apprehended over a thousand
migrants illegally crossing from our southern border as one
group. Days earlier, CBP apprehended a group of over 400
individuals in the same area. By the end of July, DHS had
referred over 63,500 unaccompanied children to HHS for this
fiscal year alone. That number, which has certainly increased
over the past 2 months, exceeded the total number of referrals
in the fiscal year 2016 by more than 4,000.
As highlighted in several Inspector General reports from
both DHS and HHS, capacity and resources at CBP and ORR
facilities were strained well beyond their limits. The
increased number of immigrants including unaccompanied children
resulted in overcrowding at CBP facilities, as well as ORR
facilities being at or near capacity. Among other problems,
these capacity issues caused prolonged detention at CBP
facilities that exceeded the 72-hour limit under the Flores
settlement.
Immigration trends are hard, if not impossible, to
accurately predict. But influx numbers like the ones we saw in
2014 and again this year are examples of why it is critical to
ensure that ORR has a capacity model that enables the agency
and its grantees to acclimate and be in a position to accept
and care for the unpredictable number of children that ebb and
flow by the day, let alone month or year.
Whether it is bed capacity, challenges with hiring and
retaining personnel, or ensuring that grantee staff are
appropriately screened and trained before being hired or being
allowed to interact with minors, all of these components are
critical to ensuring that these children are cared for in the
best available and safest way possible.
It is not just HHS and ORR, though. This process from
apprehension all the way to the placement of a child with a
safe and appropriate sponsor crosses multiple departments and
agencies within the Federal Government, which includes
nongovernment entities such as ORR grantees. As a result, it is
crucial to understand how CBP and HHS work together regarding
their respective capacities, processing referrals, healthcare
needs, background checks of potential sponsors, and more.
Ensuring that this process in its entirety is working smoothly
and efficiently will hopefully prevent some of the issues that
arose earlier this year.
Finally, this is the second hearing that this subcommittee
has had on this topic this year, and I hope that we can start
to discuss some solutions to the issues that we discussed at
the hearing in February and I am sure we will be discussing
again today. In addition to sharing any challenges they faced
over the last year, I invite the witnesses to share any ideas
that they may have, particularly if there are ways which
Congress can help. It is an important function of this
committee not only to conduct oversight but to use the
information that is gained from its oversight to change the law
when needed.
I thank our witnesses for being here today and being part
of this important discussion. I thank the Chair for holding
this, and I yield back.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Guthrie follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Brett Guthrie
Thank you, Chair DeGette, for holding this hearing.
This committee's oversight over the care and treatment of
unaccompanied alien children by the Department of Health and
Human Services, as well as the sponsorship process for
unaccompanied children, extends back to 2014 with the first
major influx of children and family units coming across our
southern border. This influx overwhelmed the previous
administration and resulted in children being placed with
traffickers within the United States. Because of the work done
by this committee and others, reforms were made to the Office
of Refugee Resettlement program, including improving the
medical care available to children while in HHS care and
custody.
Our work continued last Congress after the announcement and
then end of the Zero Tolerance Initiative. As I said at our
hearing earlier this year, I support strong enforcement of our
Nation's borders, but I do not support separating children from
their parents. It was clear then--just as it is now--that these
separations caused great harm to the children involved.
This spring, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and
HHS experienced another surge of children and family units
coming across our southern border. The influx of migrants this
year has been higher than in previous years, including large
groups of people illegally entering the United States. For
example, on May 29th, CBP agents apprehended over 1,000
migrants illegally crossing from our southern border as one
group. Days earlier, CBP apprehended a group of over 400
individuals in the same area.
By the end of July, DHS had referred over 63,500
unaccompanied children to HHS for this fiscal year alone. That
number, which has certainly increased over the past 2 months,
exceeded the total number of referrals in fiscal year 2016 by
more than 4,000. As highlighted in several Inspector General
reports from both DHS and HHS, capacity and resources at CBP
and ORR facilities were strained well beyond their limits. The
increased number of immigrants, including unaccompanied
children, resulted in overcrowding at CBP facilities as well as
ORR facilities being at or near capacity. Among other problems,
these capacity issues caused prolonged detention at CBP
facilities that exceeded the 72-hour limit under the Flores
settlement.
Immigration trends are hard--if not impossible--to
accurately predict. But influx numbers like the ones we saw in
2014, and again this year, are examples of why it is critical
to ensure that ORR has a capacity model that enables the
agency, and its grantees, to acclimate and be in a position to
accept and care for the unpredictable number of children that
ebb and flow by the day, let alone month or year. Whether it's
bed capacity, challenges with hiring and retaining personnel,
or ensuring that grantee staff are appropriately screened and
trained before being hired or being allowed to interact with
minors--all of these components are critical to ensuring that
these children are cared for in the best and safest way
possible.
It's not just HHS and ORR though. This process--from
apprehension, all the way to the placement of a child with a
safe and appropriate sponsor--crosses multiple departments and
agencies within the Federal Government, and includes non-
government entities, such as ORR grantees. As a result, it is
crucial to understand how CBP and HHS work together regarding
their respective capacities, processing, referrals, health care
needs, background checks of potential sponsors, and more.
Ensuring that the process in its entirety is working
smoothly and efficiently will hopefully prevent some of the
issues that arose earlier this year.
Finally, this is the second hearing that this subcommittee
has had on this topic this year and I hope that we can start to
discuss some solutions to the issues that were discussed at the
hearing in February and I'm sure will be discussed again today.
In addition to sharing any challenges they faced over the last
year, I invite the witnesses to share any ideas that they may
have, particularly if there are ways in which Congress can
help.
It is an important function of this committee not only to
conduct oversight, but to use the information that is gained
from its oversight to change the law when needed.
I thank our witnesses for being here today and being part
of this important discussion. I yield back.
Ms. DeGette. The Chair will now recognize the chairman of
the full committee, Mr. Pallone, for 5 minutes for purposes of
an opening statement.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. FRANK PALLONE, Jr., A REPRESENTATIVE
IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY
Mr. Pallone. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Today we are continuing our ongoing oversight of one of the
most shameful actions of the Trump administration. Last year,
this administration forcibly separated thousands of innocent
children from their families, leading to widespread chaos and
untold harm to these children. Experts sounded the alarm about
what this would do to the children, and some of HHS's own
career staff voiced concern at another oversight hearing on
this issue earlier this year.
But for reasons still unclear to this committee, those
warnings were not heeded. Now the HHS Office of Inspector
General has released a disturbing report on the effects the
zero-tolerance policy has had on the children who were
separated. The OIG is unambiguous, and I quote, ``separated
children exhibited more fear, feelings of abandonment, and
post-traumatic stress than did children who were not
separated,'' unquote.
Children were angry and confused because they believed
their parents had left them. They isolated themselves, refused
to eat. One separated child suffered such mental distress that
he required emergency psychiatric care. These findings sound
like they come from a dystopian novel, not a Government report
in 2019. But perhaps the most troubling aspect of these
findings is that they were completely avoidable. No child
should have to endure this anywhere, and the fact that it was
the result of intentional Government policy is outrageous.
In addition to the family separation issue, there are
lingering issues relating to planning and ongoing care for
children in U.S. custody. For example, I want to understand how
HHS's Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) and Customs and
Border Protection (CBP) are communicating and planning so that
they can better manage the spikes and populations that seem
predictable. This summer, for example, we saw the complete
chaos as ORR and CBP had to deal with the influx of kids that
resulted in hundreds being jammed into filthy facilities that
were never designed for that purpose. And as soon as an influx
shelter was set up by ORR to help relieve this pressure, it was
shut down a few weeks later. I think there are clearly planning
and communication lessons that need to be learned from this
episode, and I want to know what those lessons are and if they
are now being implemented.
Regardless of which agency is holding a child at any given
time, we need to make sure that they are properly cared for
throughout the system, and that includes ensuring that they
receive appropriate vaccinations. It is critical that the
administration has learned from its mistakes because,
inexcusably, the administration continues to push policies that
are only going to lead to more suffering.
Recently, the Departments of Homeland Security and Health
and Human Services issued a final regulation that essentially
dismantles well-established protections for unaccompanied
children known as the Flores Settlement. The regulation states
that children will be treated, and I quote, ``with dignity,
respect, and special concern for their particular
vulnerability,'' unquote. But, frankly, after the way we have
seen this administration's approach to these populations, this
promise lacks any credibility. We are not here today to attack
the men and women who are doing their best to support the
missions of these agencies, but the leaders of these
departments have deliberately implemented policies that are not
in the best interest of these vulnerable children, and that is
not acceptable.
There are many issues we intend to explore at this hearing,
but we should not lose sight of the fact that everything comes
down to one thing. What is the Trump administration doing to
make sure these children are properly cared for, and that
should be at the forefront of our minds. We need answers to
that question from the administration, and we are going to
continue to hold the administration accountable to make
significant improvements.
So I look forward to hearing from the witnesses on how they
are prioritizing these kids, and I would like to yield the last
minute I have to the gentleman from Massachusetts, Mr. Kennedy.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Pallone follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Frank Pallone, Jr.
Today we are continuing our ongoing oversight of one of the
most shameful actions of the Trump administration.
Last year, this administration forcibly separated thousands
of innocent children from their families, leading to widespread
chaos and untold harm to these children.
Experts sounded the alarm about what this would do to the
children. And some of HHS's own career staff voiced concern at
another oversight hearing on this issue earlier this year. But
for reasons still unclear to this committee, those warnings
were not heeded.
Now, the HHS Office of Inspector General has released a
disturbing report on the effects the Zero Tolerance policy has
had on the children who were separated.
The OIG is unambiguous: [quote] ``Separated children
exhibited more fear, feelings of abandonment, and post-
traumatic stress than did children who were not separated.''
[end quote].
Children were angry and confused because they believed
their parents had left them. They isolated themselves and
refused to eat. One separated child suffered such mental
distress that he required emergency psychiatric care.
These findings sound like they come from a dystopian novel,
not a government report in 2019.
Perhaps the most troubling aspect of these findings is that
they were completely avoidable. No child should have to endure
this anywhere, and the fact that it was a result of intentional
government policy is outrageous.
In addition to the family separation issue, there are
lingering issues related to planning and ongoing care for
children in U.S. custody.
For example, I want to understand how HHS's Office of
Refugee Resettlement (ORR) and Customs and Border Protection
(CBP) are communicating and planning so that they can better
manage the spikes in populations that seem predictable.
This summer, for example, we saw the complete chaos as ORR
and CBP had to deal with the influx of kids that resulted in
hundreds being jammed into filthy facilities that were never
designed for that purpose.
And as soon as an influx shelter was set up by ORR to help
relieve this pressure, it was shut down a few weeks later. I
think there are clearly planning and communication lessons that
need to be learned from this episode, and I want to know what
those lessons are, and if they are now being implemented.
Regardless of which agency is holding a child at any given
time, we need to make sure they are properly cared for
throughout the system--and that includes ensuring they receive
appropriate vaccinations.
It's critical that the administration has learned from its
mistakes because inexcusably the administration continues to
push policies that are only going to lead to more suffering.
Recently, the Departments of Homeland Security and Health &
Human Services issued a final regulation that essentially
dismantles well-established protections for unaccompanied
children, known as the Flores settlement.
The regulation states that children will be treated with
[quote] ``dignity, respect, and special concern for their
particular vulnerability.'' But frankly, after the way we have
seen this administration's approach to these populations, this
promise lacks any credibility.
We are not here today to attack the men and women who are
doing their best to support the missions of these agencies. But
the leaders of these departments have deliberately implemented
policies that are not in the best interest of these vulnerable
children--and that is not acceptable.
There are many issues we intend to explore at this hearing,
but we should not lose sight of the fact that everything comes
down to one thing: what is the Trump administration doing to
make sure these children are properly cared for?
That should be at the forefront of our minds. We need
answers to that question from the administration, and we are
going to continue to hold the administration accountable to
make significant improvements. I look forward to hearing from
the witnesses on how they are prioritizing these children.
Mr. Kennedy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
``Every heartbeat hurts.''
``I can't feel my heart.''
``Child was under the delusion that his father had been
killed and believed that he would also be killed.''
These are the words included in an Inspector General report
released earlier this month which tell the sickening story of
this administration's family separation policy. Kids fleeing
unimaginable violence and poverty and destitution arriving at
our border to claim asylum and experiencing trauma in our
Nation's name.
Think about that for a minute, what they endured, what they
fled, that they left a life where gangs indiscriminately killed
family members and neighbors while meals were scarce and
violence constant. And they made it here to the United States
of America, a beacon and shining city of global light and
freedom and an opportunity for good. The relief they must have
felt touching our soil, and that is what they got. Those
children, those babies, those toddlers will forever carry those
scars with them.
I look forward to getting some answers today. Yield back.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Kennedy follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Joseph P. Kennedy III
Quote: ``Every heartbeat hurts.'' End quote.
Quote: ``I can't feel my heart.'' End quote.
Quote: ``Child was under the delusion that his father had
been killed and believed he would also be killed.'' End quote.
These words, included in an Inspector General report
released earlier this month, tell the sickening story of this
administration's family separation policy.
Kids fleeing unimaginable violence and poverty and
destitution, arriving at our border to claim asylum and
experiencing trauma in our Nation's name.
Think about that for a second. What they had endured. What
they had fled. They left a life where gangs indiscriminately
killed family members and neighbors. Where meals were scarce,
and violence was constant.
And they made it here. The United States of America--this
beacon, this shining city, this global light of freedom and
hope and opportunity and good. The relief they must have felt
to finally see us on the horizon.
Instead, the nightmare continued.
And those children--those babies, those toddlers--they will
carry the scars we gave them forever.
To the witnesses here today, you may have objected to
heartless policies behind closed doors and argued against such
unfathomable cruelty from the confines of your conference
rooms, but that doesn't matter. That doesn't count. What
matters now is what you do--what we do--next. How we take
accountability for the profound mental trauma we inflicted on
children we should have stopped at nothing to protect.
Mr. Pallone. And I yield back, Madam Chair.
Ms. DeGette. The gentleman yields back. The Chair now
recognizes the ranking member of the full committee, Mr.
Walden, for 5 minutes for purposes of an opening statement.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. GREG WALDEN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF OREGON
Mr. Walden. Thank you, Chair DeGette, and thanks for
holding this hearing. I want to thank our panel of witnesses.
Some of you have been here before. We are appreciative of the
work you and your teams are doing. We know it is a tough job.
We look forward to continuing to work with you. As Republican
Leader Guthrie stated, this committee has conducted oversight
of the Office of Refugee Resettlement and Unaccompanied Alien
Children programs since 2014. We saw a lot of problems in the
Obama administration and mistakes that were made there and have
tried to learn from those and not repeat them.
Last Congress, I and every Republican member of this
committee sent a letter to HHS seeking information from ORR to
ensure that children who are in ORR's custody, whether they
cross the border as an unaccompanied child or because they were
separated from a parent or legal guardian during the zero-
tolerance initiative, are properly cared for while in ORR's
care.
I also led a bipartisan delegation of Members down to
McAllen, Texas, a year ago in July, to visit and tour part of
the southwest border. I wanted to see it firsthand. We looked
at the central processing facility operated by CBP and an ORR
shelter. My staff also visited five additional ORR facilities,
including the temporary influx facility in Tornillo, Texas,
that closed at the end of the last year.
Earlier this summer, overwhelming numbers of migrants
crossed the southwest border. This border crisis more than
taxed the resources of every agency involved at each point in
the process, and that includes CBP and ORR. So I wanted to see
for myself again how CBP was handling this new surge of people
at our southwest border, so I visited the CBP facility in Yuma,
Arizona. By the time I had arrived in Yuma, Congress had
finally--finally--acceded to the President's request for
emergency funding, which I supported--I was the only one in the
Oregon delegation to do so--and Yuma had a temporary processing
facility in addition to the regular station.
But just weeks before, the facility had been overwhelmed,
at one point holding more than 1,600 migrants, including UACs.
CBP agents I met with, they answered every single question I
had and they talked to me about the difficulties they face.
They also showed me every part of the facility, even the
storage rooms which were filled with fresh diapers and clothing
and food and other supplies.
I also took a helicopter tour of the border, seeing parts
of the Yuma sector that are so remote that air travel is
necessary to efficiently and effectively patrol it. And I saw a
cave on the top of a mountain where a cartel scout had lived
for months, helping traffickers bring people and contraband
into the United States illegally. And I saw the different types
of border barriers in place in the Yuma sector, some of which
are extremely ineffective at stopping people from entering the
United States.
Now on that same trip, I also traveled to Carrizo Springs,
Texas, to see the ORR-funded temporary influx shelter that was
operational at that time. And, as with other ORR-funded
facilities, I and my staff have seen the children there were
very well cared for. They received not just food and shelter,
but also medical, educational, and counseling services.
But was this too little, too late? This summer, before ORR
was able to open Carrizo Springs, unaccompanied children spent
far too long in CBP facilities, more than the 72 hours mandated
by the Flores Settlement. CBP agents in Yuma told me that at
the peak of the crisis children stayed in their Border Patrol
facility for 7 to 10 days--and nobody thought that was
acceptable, but they were overwhelmed.
Unlike ORR facilities, CBP facilities are not meant to
house children. It is critical that we move them into more
appropriate facilities as quickly as possible. These
immigration and border security issues are complex and
something Congress has grappled with for decades. I have always
been clear I support strong enforcement of our Nation's
borders. A country that doesn't have control of its borders
does not have control of its security.
And children in the care of the Federal Government no
matter where they are in the process or how they arrived here
should be treated as if they were our own children. So I am
pleased we have two of the agencies involved in the
apprehension of the UACs before us today. We should note that
they do not represent the full process, and it would be nice
sometime in this committee if we could have the entire chain
here of agencies involved so we saw a clear and full picture.
I hope that HHS and CBP will also update us today on how
they are using the funds provided by Congress earlier this year
in the emergency supplemental, which the President requested
and I supported, and how each agency is preparing for a likely
increase in migrants in the coming months. We know there would
be a dropoff in the extremely hot times in the summer, but we
also know there will be a pickup. While immigration numbers are
difficult to predict, there are patterns, and we must learn
from this summer's crisis.
And I also echo Republican Leader Guthrie's call for
solutions. If there are legislative changes your agencies need
from us, please let us know. If you need resources as you
requested earlier this year, let us know. So I thank our
witnesses for being here, for the work you and your teams do,
and I yield back.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Walden follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Greg Walden
Thank you, Chair DeGette, for holding this hearing.
As Republican Leader Guthrie stated, this committee has
conducted oversight of the Office of Refugee Resettlement and
the Unaccompanied Alien Children program since 2014.
Last Congress, I, and every Republican member of this
Committee, sent a letter to HHS seeking information from ORR to
ensure that children who are in ORR's custody--whether they
crossed the border as an unaccompanied child or because they
were separated from a parent or legal guardian during the Zero
Tolerance Initiative--are properly cared for while in ORR's
care.
I also led a bipartisan delegation of Members down to
McAllen, Texas, a year ago in July to visit and tour part of
the Southwest border, including the Central Processing Facility
operated by CBP and an ORR shelter.
My staff also visited five additional ORR facilities,
including the temporary influx facility in Tornillo, Texas,
that closed at the end of last year.
Earlier this summer, overwhelming numbers of migrants
crossed the Southwest border. This border crisis more than
taxed the resources of every agency involved at each point in
the process, including CBP and ORR.
I wanted to see for myself how CBP was handling the surge
of migrants at our Southwest border, so I visited a CBP
facility in Yuma, Arizona. By the time I arrived in Yuma,
Congress had provided emergency funding and Yuma had a
temporary processing facility in addition to the regular
station. But just weeks before, the facility had been
overwhelmed, at one point holding more than 1,600 migrants,
including UACs.
The CBP agents I met with answered every one of my
questions about the difficulties they faced. They also showed
me every part of the facility--even the storage rooms filled
with diapers, clothing, food, and other supplies.
I also took a helicopter tour of the border--seeing parts
of the Yuma sector that are so remote that air travel is
necessary to efficiently and effectively patrol it. I saw a
cave at the top of a mountain where a cartel scout lived for
months, helping traffickers bring people and contraband into
the United States illegally. And I saw the different types of
border barriers in place in the Yuma sector--some of which are
extremely ineffective at stopping people from entering the
United States.
On the same trip, I also traveled to Carrizo Springs,
Texas, to see the ORR-funded temporary influx shelter that was
operational at the time. As with the other ORR-funded
facilities I and my staff have seen, the children were well-
cared for, receiving not just food and shelter, but also
medical, educational, and counseling services.
But was this too little too late? This summer, before ORR
was able to open Carrizo Springs, unaccompanied children spent
far longer in CBP facilities than the 72 hours mandated by the
Flores Settlement. CBP agents in Yuma told me that, at the peak
of the crisis, children stayed in their border patrol facility
for 7 to 10 days. Unlike ORR facilities, CBP facilities are not
meant to house children and it is critical that we move them
into more appropriate facilities as quickly as possible.
Immigration issues are complex, and something that Congress
has grappled with for decades. I have always been clear, I
support strong enforcement of our Nation's borders, but I do
not support the separation of children from their parents. And
children in the care of the Federal Government, no matter where
they are in the process or how they arrived there, should be
treated as if they were our own.
I am pleased that we have two of the agencies involved in
the apprehension and care of UACs before us today, but we
should note that they do not represent the full process.
I hope that HHS and CBP will also update us today on how
they are using the funds provided by Congress earlier this year
in the emergency supplemental, and how each agency is preparing
for a likely increase in migrants in the coming months. While
immigration numbers are difficult to predict, there are
patterns, and we must learn from this summer's crisis. I also
echo Republican Leader Guthrie's call for solutions. If there
are legislative changes your agency needs, let us know. If
there are resources you need, let us know.
I thank our witnesses for being here today, and for the
important work that they, and so many others at ORR and CBP do
every day.
Ms. DeGette. The gentleman yields back. The Chair now asks
unanimous consent that the Members' written opening statements
be made part of the record. Without objection, so ordered.
I now would like to introduce the witnesses for today's
hearing. Ms. Ann Maxwell, Assistant Inspector General for
Evaluation and Inspections, Office of Evaluation and
Inspections, Office of Inspector General, U.S. Department of
Health and Human Services.
Mr. Jonathan Hayes, Director, Office of Refugee
Resettlement, Administration for Children and Families, U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services.
Commander Jonathan White, United States Public Health
Service Commissioned Corps, U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services.
And Chief John R. Modlin, Acting Deputy Chief of Law
Enforcement Operational Programs, Law Enforcement Operations
Directorate, U.S. Border Patrol, U.S. Customs and Border
Protection, U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
Don't worry, we won't use the entire titles of each of you
every time we ask you a question.
But I do want to thank each one of you for appearing today.
It is important that we hear all of your testimony. And I am
sure all of you are aware this committee takes hearings--it is
an investigative hearing, and so we have the practice of taking
testimony under oath. Does anyone have an objection to
testifying under oath?
Let the record reflect that the witnesses have responded
no.
The Chair then advises you that, under the rules of the
House and the rules of the committee, you are entitled to be
accompanied by counsel. Does anybody wish to be accompanied by
counsel today?
Let the record reflect the witnesses have responded no.
If you would then, please rise and raise your right hand so
you may be sworn in.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Ms. DeGette. Let the record reflect that the witnesses have
responded affirmatively, and you may be seated. You are all now
under oath and subject to the penalties set forth under Title
18, Section 1001 of the United States Code.
And the Chair will now recognize our witnesses for a 5-
minute summary of their written statements. In front of you is
a microphone and a series of lights. The light will turn yellow
when you have a minute left, and it will turn red to indicate
that your time has come to an end.
Ms. Maxwell, you are now recognized for 5 minutes.
STATEMENTS OF ANN MAXWELL, ASSISTANT INSPECTOR GENERAL FOR
EVALUATION AND INSPECTIONS, OFFICE OF INSPECTOR GENERAL,
DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES; JONATHAN H. HAYES,
DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF REFUGEE RESETTLEMENT, ADMINISTRATION FOR
CHILDREN AND FAMILIES, DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES;
JONATHAN WHITE, COMMANDER, PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE COMMISSIONED
CORPS, DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES; AND JOHN R.
MODLIN, ACTING DEPUTY CHIEF OF LAW ENFORCEMENT OPERATIONAL
PROGRAMS, LAW ENFORCEMENT OPERATIONS DIRECTORATE, BORDER
PATROL, CUSTOMS AND BORDER PROTECTION, DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND
SECURITY
STATEMENT OF ANN MAXWELL
Ms. Maxwell. Good morning, Chair DeGette and Ranking Member
Guthrie and other distinguished members of the subcommittee.
Thank you for the opportunity to discuss OIG's ongoing
oversight of the Unaccompanied Alien Children Program
administered by the Office of Refugee Resettlement. Today, I
will be focusing on our findings regarding challenges ORR-
funded facilities face in addressing the mental health needs of
children in their care.
These facilities serve migrant children who arrive in the
U.S. on their own or who are separated from their parents by
immigration officials. These children have often experienced
intense trauma before coming into ORR care, which is why prompt
medical health treatment is not only required by ORR but is
essential for children's well-being. My testimony reflects what
we heard firsthand from facility staff across the country about
the obstacles they face.
We were told that there are a number of systemic challenges
that make it difficult for staff to address the mental health
needs of children. These include the ability to employ and
support clinical staff. Mental health clinicians reported heavy
caseloads. They also asked for more training and support to
treat traumatized children. In addition, staff faced
difficulties accessing specialty care such as psychologists and
psychiatrists to treat children with greater needs. In one
example, the only bilingual specialist a facility could find
was located in another State.
Finally, staff reported a lack of therapeutic placement
options within ORR's network equipped to treat children who
needed a higher level of care. This was especially acute for
children who needed secure therapeutic settings due to their
history of behavioral problems.
To address these systemic challenges, we recommend that ORR
leverage expertise and resources within HHS and the broader
mental health community to ensure facilities have sufficient
clinical staff who are fully supported and are able to access
the needed specialty care for children.
These systemic challenges, according to facility staff,
were exacerbated by policy changes made in 2018. In the spring
of 2018, the Department of Homeland Security formally adopted
the zero-tolerance policy of criminally prosecuting all adults
for illegal entry and placing their children in ORR facilities.
Facilities reported that addressing the needs of children
who have been separated from their parents unexpectedly was
particularly challenging because these children exhibited more
fear, feelings of abandonment, and post-traumatic stress than
did children who were not separated.
One medical doctor told us separated children would present
physical symptoms as manifestations of their psychological
pain. These children would say their chest hurt even though
there was medically nothing wrong with them. One child said,
``Every heartbeat hurts.''
These children didn't understand why they were separated.
As a result, some were angry, believing their parents had
abandoned them. Others were anxious, concerned for their
parents' safety. And as we've heard, one 8-year-old boy
separated from his father was under the delusion that his
father had been killed and that he was next, and he required
emergency psychiatric care.
Caring for separated children was additionally challenging
because they were often younger than the teenagers the
facilities were used to serving. Staff reported that younger
children had shorter attention spans, needed greater
supervision, and were more commonly exhibiting defiance and
other negative behaviors. They couldn't always accurately
communicate. The little ones, as one program director said,
don't know how to express what they are feeling.
Other policy changes that occurred in 2018 involved the
process for discharging children to sponsors. ORR added new
screening requirements and started sharing sponsor information
with immigration officials. Staff noted that these changes led
to longer stays in care for children, and that had a negative
effect on their behavior and their mental health. They said
that even children who entered care with good coping skills
became disillusioned as their time in care dragged on,
resulting in higher levels of hopelessness, frustration, and
more instances of self-harm.
While the policy changes made in 2018 have largely been
reversed, facilities continue to serve separated children as
well as children who are not quickly discharged from care. To
address these continuing challenges and to ensure that children
are not unnecessarily harmed, we recommend that ORR continue to
reassess whether its current policies are negatively impacting
children in any way and adjust as needed. We also recommend
that ORR establish guardrails that ensure the future policy
changes prioritize child welfare considerations above all other
competing demands.
Thank you to the committee for the opportunity to present
this information and your ongoing support of our oversight
work. I am happy to address any questions.
[The prepared testimony of Ms. Maxwell follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. DeGette. Thank you so much, Ms. Maxwell.
The Chair now recognizes Mr. Hayes for 5 minutes for
purposes of an opening statement.
STATEMENT OF JONATHAN H. HAYES
Mr. Hayes. Thank you, Chair DeGette, Ranking Member
Guthrie, and members of the subcommittee. It is my honor to
appear today on behalf of the Department of Health and Human
Services. My name is Jonathan Hayes, and as the Director of the
Office of Refugee Resettlement, I oversee the Unaccompanied
Alien Children Program.
I became the permanent Director earlier this year, and it
is a privilege to serve in this role alongside the ORR career
staff. I am continually impressed with the level of commitment
and professionalism that I see in the ORR career staff and our
grantees on a daily basis. The caring culture of ORR directly
impacts our day-to-day operations and goals as well as a staff
who carry out our round-the-clock operations of service of some
of the world's most vulnerable children.
I have visited over 50 UAC care providers over the last
year so that I can see firsthand the quality of care that the
ORR staff and grantees provide to the UAC. I also heard the
perspectives and input from our field team, which allowed me to
better understand ways to improve our services and overall
mission. My strong desire is to ensure the safety and well-
being of the children in our care in a manner that is
consistent with both the law and the prevailing child welfare
best practices and one that empowers the career professionals
and senior staff at ORR.
As the director of ORR, I am committed to making decisions
that are in the best interest of each child in ORR's care and
custody. Prior to my time at ORR, I worked for two Members of
the House of Representatives for approximately 8 years, and
that experience provided me perspective into the important
oversight role that you and your staff have in ensuring that
Federal programs operate successfully.
I apologize.
In the Homeland Security Act of 2002, or the HSA, Congress
placed the responsibility of care for UAC with ORR. The
Homeland Security Act defines an unaccompanied alien child as a
person under the age of 18 with no lawful immigration status
and without a parent or legal guardian present in the United
States available to provide for the care and custody of the
child. Once an apprehending agency determines that the child is
a UAC, that agency is responsible for referring the child to
ORR. Congress instructed ORR to ensure that the best interests
of the child are considered when providing care and custody for
children. All of us at ORR take this responsibility to heart,
and work every day to ensure the safety and well-being of the
children in our care.
To that end, based on the provisions of the Homeland
Security Act, the Trafficking Victim Protection Reauthorization
Act of 2008, and the provisions of the Flores Settlement
Agreement, HHS has built a network of dedicated care providers,
developed rules and standards for care for those providers, and
created mechanisms of oversight to ensure compliance.
HHS's role in the lives of UAC is often misunderstood. HHS
does not apprehend migrants at the border or enforce
immigration laws. The Department of Homeland Security and the
Department of Justice perform those functions. ORR does not
have jurisdiction over children that arrive with an adult
parent. DHS is responsible for those families. HHS's UAC
program is a humanitarian child welfare program designed for
the temporary care of children until they can be safely
released or unified with family or other sponsors.
The number of UAC entering the United States during this
fiscal year has risen to levels we have never seen before. As
of September 16th of this year, DHS has referred more than
67,000 UAC to us at ORR, which is the highest number in the
program's history. By comparison, HHS received just over 59,000
referrals in fiscal year 2016, which is the second-highest
number on record. ORR operates nearly 170 State-licensed care
provider facilities and programs in 23 States. ORR has
different types of facilities in order to meet the different
needs of the minors in our care.
HHS is, again, deeply committed to the physical and
emotional well-being of all children temporarily in our care.
Staff at our care providers are trained in techniques for
child-friendly and trauma-informed interviewing, ongoing
assessment, observation, and treatment of the medical and
behavioral health needs of the children, including those who
have been separated from their parents.
Care provider staff are trained to identify children who
have been smuggled and/or trafficked into the United States.
Care providers must provide services that are sensitive to the
age, culture, and native language of each child. ORR provides a
wide range of medical services to the children in our care.
These services include a complete medical examination, routine
medical and dental care, and emergency health services.
Mental health services are available at all of our
facilities. ORR policy requires at a minimum that the UAC and
ORR State-licensed facilities receive an individual counseling
session and two group counseling sessions with a clinician
every week. Additional mental health services are available as
needed. I believe that a child should not remain in ORR care
any longer than the time needed to find an appropriate sponsor.
A central part of ORR's mission is to discharge children from
care as quickly as possible while ensuring their safety.
As of the end of August of this year, the average length of
time that a child stays in HHS's custody is approximately 50
days, which is a dramatic decrease of over 40 percent from late
November 2018, when the average length of care was 90 days. ORR
will continue to assess the efficiency of its operations, to
improve the process for release, and reduce the time a child
remains in our care and custody.
Again, my top priority and that of me and my team is the
safety and well-being of the children in the temporary care of
HHS as we work quickly and safely to release them to a suitable
sponsor. Thank you for the opportunity to discuss our important
work. I'll be happy to answer questions that you may have.
[The prepared testimony of Mr. Hayes follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. DeGette. Thank you so much, Mr. Hayes.
I now recognize Commander White for 5 minutes for purposes
of an opening statement. Commander?
STATEMENT OF JONATHAN WHITE
Mr. White. Chairwoman DeGette, Ranking Member Guthrie, and
members of the subcommittee, it's my honor to speak again
before you today on behalf of the U.S. Department of Health and
Human Services. My name is Jonathan White. I'm a career officer
in the U.S. Public Health Service Commission Corps. I'm also a
social worker and emergency manager. I previously served as the
Deputy Director of ORR, the senior career official over the UAC
program, and more recently I served as HHS's operational lead
for the interagency mission to reunify children in ORR care who
had been separated from their parents at the border.
Shortly after the Ms. L court issued its orders, Secretary
Azar directed HHS and the Incident Management Team, which I led
in particular, to take all reasonable actions to comply. The
IMT worked closely with Department of Homeland Security,
including CBP and our colleagues at ICE, to try to identify all
parents of children in ORR care who potentially met the court's
criteria for class membership. And as a result, the current
reporting of possible children of potential Ms. L class members
to the Ms. L court is 2,814 children. To be clear, that count
of 2,814 children does not include children who had already
been discharged by ORR before June 26th, 2018, nor does it
include separated children referred to ORR care after that
date.
Working in close partnership with colleagues in ICE, DOJ,
and the Department of State, we first worked to reunify
children and parents in ICE custody. This was an unprecedented
effort. It required a novel process, which we developed and
which the court approved. And under the compressed schedule
required by court order of 15 days for children under the age
of 5, and 30 days for children age 5 to 17, we reunified 1,441
children with parents in ICE custody, all of the children of
eligible and available Ms. L class members who are in ICE
custody.
For children whose parents had been released to the
interior of the United States, we implemented an expedited
reunification process. For parents who had departed the United
States, the ACLU, which serves as Plaintiff's counsel for the
Ms. L class member parents, obtained from those parents their
desire either to have the child reunified with them in home
country or to waive reunification so the child could undergo
standard ORR sponsorship process. And once we received the
parents' desire for reunification, HHS, DHS, and DOJ
coordinated with the ACLU, with the government of the home
country, and with the child's family to ensure safe
reunification into the care of the parents.
Of the 2,814 children reported to the Ms. L court, as of
September 6th, 2,787 have been discharged from ORR care. We
reunified 2,168 of them with the parent from whom they were
separated. Another 619 children have left ORR care through
other appropriate discharges. There are 12 children still in
ORR care whose parents are outside the U.S. and have waived
reunification. There are four children in care who we later
determined hadn't been separated.
There are eight children in ORR care who were separated,
but we cannot reunify them because we've made a final
determination that the parent poses a clear danger to the
safety of the child based on sound social work child welfare
methods. There's one child in care whose parents are in the
U.S. and have waived reunification. There's one child left for
whom the ACLU has advised that the resolution of the parents'
wishes will be delayed. One child from the ACLU could not
obtain the parents' preference.
As of April 25th of this year, the court also approved our
plan to identify those children who had been separated from DHS
starting on July 1st, 2017, referred to ORR, but had already
been discharged pursuant to the TVPRA process before June 26,
2018. Teams of U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps
officers reporting to me have completed manual review of the
UAC portal, the UAC program's official record, case file review
for every child whose referral and discharge dates fell in that
range. We resolve to err on the side of inclusiveness in
identifying any potential preliminary indication of separation.
In weekly lists that data went from HHS, first to CBP, then
to ICE where they could conduct their own manual records, and
we since have been providing the ACLU on a rolling basis with
lists of possible children of potential class members. And as
of today, we have provided seven lists to the ACLU comprising
989 possible children of potential class members. The judge has
given the Government until October 25th to provide the ACLU
information on all the possible children of potential class
members, and at this time I anticipate we will meet his
deadline.
The UAC program's mission is a child welfare mission. And
this has guided us also in our mission to reunify children, to
place every child where we can back in their parents' arms, or
to safely discharge that child to another family sponsor when
that's a parent's wish or when it's in the best interest of the
child.
Thank you. I'll be glad to answer any questions that you
may have for me.
[The prepared testimony of Mr. White follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. DeGette. Thank you so much, Commander White.
Now I am pleased to recognize Chief Modlin for 5 minutes
for purposes of an opening statement. Chief?
STATEMENT OF JOHN R. MODLIN
Mr. Modlin. Thank you, Chair DeGette, Ranking Member
Guthrie, and members of the subcommittee. I'm honored to
represent the men and women of the Border Patrol before you
today. The phenomenon of unaccompanied alien children or UACs
crossing our border illegally is relatively new in the 95-year
history of the Border Patrol. In an unprecedented surge in
fiscal year 2014, Border Patrol encountered more than 68,000
UACs along the southwest border. With just a few weeks
remaining in this fiscal year, we have already surpassed
74,000.
This year's record-setting UAC numbers did not happen in a
vacuum. At the same time, Border Patrol apprehended more than
289,000 single adults and 465,000 individuals and family units,
surpassing total southwest border apprehensions for every year
since 2007. This volume and mix of demographics overwhelmed
Border Patrol capabilities like nothing we have ever seen.
UAC is a term defined in law, and any child who's
apprehended without a parent or legal guardian is processed by
Border Patrol as a UAC. Additionally, Congress has assigned HHS
as the lead agency to provide care and custody for UACs until
sponsors can be identified. Therefore, while Border Patrol is
the first to encounter UACs when they cross the border, our
role is limited. Beginning when agents apprehend a UAC in the
field, we provide transportation to a Border Patrol station,
conduct initial processing to prepare an immigration file and a
referral to HHS, and arrange transfer to HHS once placement is
confirmed.
To accomplish these steps as quickly as possible, generally
within 72 hours, agents prioritize UAC for processing followed
by family units and then single adults. As we saw earlier this
summer, this process only works when both Border Patrol and HHS
have the needed capacity. Border Patrol has no way of knowing
how many UACs we will apprehend in any location on any day, and
we cannot transfer UACs to the custody of any governmental or
nongovernmental organization other than HHS. This means the
Border Patrol has no control over when UACs come into our
custody or how quickly they transfer out. Therefore, we are
incredibly reliant on the capacity of HHS.
On May 1st, HHS asked Congress for 2.8 billion in emergency
supplemental funding because they could not maintain the level
of shelter space needed. They announced they would be cutting
services to prioritize remaining funds for basic care. Also in
May, Border Patrol saw the highest month of UAC apprehensions
in our history. Combined, Border Patrol's rapid increase in
apprehensions and HHS's funding challenges resulted in UACs
remaining in our custody far longer than they should. By early
June, this backup led to as many as 2,700 UACs in Border Patrol
custody. Additional resources didn't arrive until early July
after Congress passed the supplemental. Now, with HHS fully
funded and apprehensions on the decline, we are down to only
100 to 200 UACs in our custody, and we're generally
transferring them to HHS within 24 to 30 hours.
All of us here today agree that a Border Patrol station is
not an appropriate place for a child. For the limited time
they're in our custody, our processing facilities are set up
only to meet the basic necessities of food, water, and shelter.
Available space is challenged by the need to safely hold
children apart from unrelated adults and appropriately grouped
by age and gender. The best thing we can do for these children
is to expedite their transfer to the kind of comprehensive care
and services that HHS is set up to provide.
All of what I've described speaks only to the treatment and
care of children once they are in our custody of the U.S.
During interviews, agents are often told horror stories from
the journey. Border Patrol sees the cruelty of smugglers
firsthand. Agents have rescued more than 550 children so far
this year. We need to focus more on how to discourage parents
from sending their children on this dangerous journey.
The unique treatment of UACs under our laws, particularly
those from noncontiguous countries, is currently being
interpreted as guaranteed admission if a child crosses the
border before their 18th birthday. Smugglers are capitalizing
on this perception, even using it as a tactic. Just 2 weeks
ago, agents identified two Mexican adult males who posed as
Guatemalan teenagers to avoid detention. One man admitted
outright that the smugglers told him this would ensure his
release into the U.S. A few days later, the diligent work of
our agents led to the identification of a 23-year-old
Bangladeshi man posing as a UAC. This trend is concerning.
In total, more than 316,000 children have been apprehended
along the southwest border either as UACs or as part of family
units this year. More parents are being convinced by smugglers
to bring or send their children on this dangerous journey under
the belief that children and anyone with children will be
released into the U.S. under our laws.
While additional funding for temporary facilities,
consumables, and medical support have improved our ability to
respond to this crisis, there is simply no substitute for
congressional action to address these pull factors in our
immigration framework. I thank you for your time, and I look
forward to your questions.
[The prepared testimony of Mr. Modlin follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. DeGette. Thank you so much, Chief Modlin, and thanks to
the entire panel for your testimony. The Chair now recognizes
herself for purposes of questioning for 5 minutes.
During our February hearing on family separations, we heard
from child welfare experts about the decades of research
showing that family separations lead to toxic stress and result
in long-term traumatic consequences. And in fact, Ms. Maxwell,
your investigation seemed to confirm our worst fears about the
harms that this cruel separation policy had on the children.
According to the program directors and mental health
clinicians who cared for the separated children, these children
exhibited more fear, feelings of abandonment, and post-
traumatic stress than children who were not separated. Is that
correct?
Ms. Maxwell. That's correct.
Ms. DeGette. And you also found that the children who--you
found children who believed their parents who abandoned them
were angry and confused. Some children expressed feelings of
fear or guilt and even became concerned for their parents'
welfare, and some children expressed acute grief that caused
them to cry inconsolably. Is that correct?
Ms. Maxwell. That's what we heard from the mental health
clinicians that took care of these children, yes.
Ms. DeGette. Now one program director told you that--and
several of us talked about it--a 7- or 8-year-old boy who was
separated from his father without any explanation was under the
delusion that his father had been killed, and he also thought
that he would be killed. The child had to receive emergency
psychiatric care to address his mental health needs. Is that
correct?
Ms. Maxwell. Yes, that's what we heard.
Ms. DeGette. And one medical director told you how physical
symptoms felt by separated children are manifestations of how--
other psychological pain, and separated children would often
say their chest hurt when in fact they were actually medically
fine. And they said--as Congressman Kennedy said--they said,
``Every heartbeat hurts,'' and, ``I can't feel my heart.'' Is
that correct?
Ms. Maxwell. Again, that is what we heard from the staff
that treated the children, yes.
Ms. DeGette. Now, Commander White, in February, you told us
that you had raised concerns with HHS leadership about what a
family separation policy would mean for children in the
capacity of the program. And some of the documents that we got
from HHS show that, while this was all going on, you were
increasingly raising the alarm about separations within HHS.
So I want to just make a guess here that you are not really
surprised about some of these findings in the IG's report about
the reactions of the children.
Mr. White. The findings in HHS OIG's report are absolutely
consistent with what all the best available evidence and
science would tell us that we should anticipate when children
experience the traumatic event of separation from parents.
Unfortunately, we have extensive scientific research that would
allow us to know what we would expect to see. The consequence
of this for the child's health and behavioral health are
severe. The risks are profound, and the effects are often
lifelong.
Ms. DeGette. So that was what I wanted to follow up with
you, is we heard from the experts back before and now from Ms.
Maxwell about the immediate manifestations. But in your
professional experience, what is the prognosis, the lifelong
prognosis for these kids?
Mr. White. The prognosis for each child will be very
different.
Ms. DeGette. Obviously.
Mr. White. However, what we know about the particular
trauma of prolonged separation of a child from a parent is that
children both are at lifetime risk for trauma-related mental
health problems and also a whole set of toxic stress-created
effects that can have lifetime effects on them cognitively, in
terms of their cardiac health. Overall, the consequences for
many of these children, even if they are able to receive robust
clinical services, will be quite severe. And this speaks to the
harm that is involved when you have separation of children
except strictly for cause.
Ms. DeGette. Thank you.
Chief Modlin, I was glad to hear that the amount of time
that it is taking to transfer the children from CBP to ORR has
decreased now, but something that I talked to several people
about over the summer is what kind of guidance the Border
Patrol was being given when they are taking these children into
custody before they can be transferred.
Has there been a coordination between CBP and ORR about the
minimum conditions that need to be given to the children?
Mr. Modlin. Sure. I'm a little unclear on the question. Is
the question about the guidance given at the separation, or
whatever's the coordination between CBP and HHS?
Ms. DeGette. Well, my time has expired so I will explore
this later. But this is what I am just shocked by is the
report, the reports that I saw that I mentioned in my opening
statement about children wearing dirty diapers, about them not
getting showers or cleanliness, about 6- and 7-year-olds having
to take care of infants and toddlers.
And what I am just wondering is, because of the different
agencies that we have got, if CBP didn't get guidance from ORR
about the standards that you have to have for children.
So my time has expired, but I will ask you more about that
later. I will now recognize the ranking member, Mr. Guthrie,
for 5 minutes.
Mr. Guthrie. Thank you, Madam Chair, for the recognition,
and I will start.
Commander White, you were before this subcommittee last
February. One of the issues that you discussed at the hearing
was whether HHS receives adequate information from CBP when a
child is separated from a parent or legal guardian. Is HHS now
receiving sufficient information from CBP when a child is
separated, and what steps is ORR taking from a policy or
technology perspective to ensure ORR is receiving sufficient
information?
Mr. White. Respectfully, Congressman, I'll defer to Mr.
Hayes----
Mr. Guthrie. OK.
Mr. White [continuing]. Since he currently directs ORR and
I don't work there anymore.
Mr. Hayes. Thank you, Commander.
Yes, Congressman. We do have a specific team now inside of
the Office of Refugee Resettlement with both Public Health
Service officers that are inside of ORR as well as career,
senior career officials that track very closely the number of
separations that we have since June 27th after the court
injunction last year. These are separations for cause. We get
updates every couple of weeks, and we do have a very close
monitoring of this. And, you know, there are questions that our
intakes team will go back and forth with at times with CBP to
get additional information, but the information we are
receiving from CBP is allowing us to keep a close track of this
record, and we are.
Mr. Guthrie. Thank you. And do you--so, Director Hayes as
well, do you believe there is a need for Congress to clarify
when it is and isn't OK to separate a child? Are ORR's
sponsors' evaluation policies and procedures an appropriate
guide for CBP agents to determine when to separate a child, and
would these same policies and procedures be a good guide for
legislation to clarify the issue?
Mr. Hayes. Yes. I would answer that question in two ways,
Congressman. I think some additional clarity or clear
boundaries or guardrails as Ann Maxwell suggested would be
wise, but this also gets into the area of law enforcement, and
I would defer to my colleagues at CBP on that.
Mr. Guthrie. Do you think that Congress should clarify when
it is appropriate for you to separate a child?
Mr. Hayes. Sir, the times that children are separated right
now, which has existed throughout my 24 years in the Border
Patrol, are guided by the results of the Ms. L case. So we're
already following the outcome of that case, sir.
Mr. Guthrie. My understanding under the zero-tolerance
policy, that was legal to do in the law. That was zero
tolerance was--we were enforcing the law without prosecutorial
discretion, so Congress could clarify that you can't separate a
child from a parent or legal guardian if the infraction is
merely an immigration violation.
Mr. Modlin. Yes, sir.
Mr. Guthrie. Congress could clarify that. But right now,
you can do that under the law. Not that you are doing it, but
you can do that under the law.
Mr. Modlin. Yes, sir. As I'm sure you're aware that the
zero-tolerance prosecution initiative was to prosecute everyone
that crossed the border illegally for a violation of 8 U.S.C.
1325.
Mr. Guthrie. Right.
Mr. Modlin. After the executive order on maintaining family
unity, those processes were stopped, and now we follow the
guidance of the Ms. L litigation.
Mr. Guthrie. Right. And I won't--you don't have to add, but
Congress could clarify, that is my point. So, Chief Modlin,
this year we have seen a record number of migrants apprehended
at the southwest border. The system was completely unprepared
to handle this. How did CBP work with HHS at the height of this
crisis to move children out of CBP facilities into ORR
facilities as quickly as possible?
Mr. Modlin. So what I would first like to say, sir, is that
the men and women of the Border Patrol are professional and
compassionate. We follow the guidelines that are set forth in
our TEDS policy that's been spoken about many times in these
hearings, the Flores litigation, TVPRA, PREA. In addition to
that, at the height of this crisis, our communication with HHS,
as I'm sure you're aware, is always difficult. As a law
enforcement agency communicating with a non-law-enforcement
agency, our systems can't speak directly to each other for many
reasons, that being one of them.
But what it was, we put procedures in place to get as much
of the pertinent information that we could to HHS while
preventing the law-enforcement-sensitive information from going
forward, and at the same time not receiving information from
them that they wouldn't want to go to a law enforcement agency.
Mr. Guthrie. This may be more for Director Hayes. But,
Chief Modlin, because you brought it up, Congress spent I guess
from sometime early--I don't know the exact dates--early May to
right before the 4th of July break, the administration begging
for a supplemental funding bill because of the crisis at the
border.
You said that you have had relief, Chief Modlin, because of
the supplemental. We wasted about 2 months arguing for I don't
know what about getting a bill to the floor to help you out. So
how has that improved? What issues did that cause and how has
that improved since you have had it passed? And Congress has
been late getting it to you.
Mr. Modlin. Yes, sir, Congressman. So what you say is
correct. There was a delay in getting us the additional
supplemental funding that we requested. I don't remember the
exact timeline, but there was a period where we entered into a
deficiency.
Mr. Guthrie. At least 6 weeks.
Mr. Modlin. Yes. There was a period where we entered into a
deficiency, meaning we knew we would not make it to the end of
the fiscal year with our current appropriation. That absolutely
created a potential limitation on some services, created a lot
of uncertainty in the program and across our grantees, many of
which are, you know, very small, not-for-profit facilities and
programs, I know, that don't have a lot of resources other than
the grants that we give them to care for these children. So,
once we got those resources, it absolutely brought certainty
and you gave us the additional resources we needed.
Mr. Guthrie. Thanks. My time has expired----
Mr. Modlin. Yes.
Mr. Guthrie [continuing]. And I yield back. Thank you.
Ms. DeGette. The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from
Massachusetts, Mr. Kennedy, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Kennedy. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Chief Modlin, just to begin with you, you said that there
was challenges getting your systems, because you are a law
enforcement agency, to interact with HHS. Is that right?
Mr. Modlin. Yes, sir.
Mr. Kennedy. Do your systems include a telephone?
Mr. Modlin. I'm sorry?
Mr. Kennedy. Do your systems include a telephone?
Mr. Modlin. Yes, telephones are used to contact that
agency, sir. What cannot----
Mr. Kennedy. And how about email?
Mr. Modlin. What cannot pass back and forth is law-
enforcement-sensitive information. So IT solutions that are
normally a solution between non-law-enforcement entities can't
be used----
Mr. Kennedy. Understood, sir. But that could be perhaps a
telephone call saying, ``Hey, we have a crisis. This needs to
stop. This needs to change.'' Did those conversations happen?
Mr. Modlin. Absolutely, sir. They happen between the
agency. They happen from our leadership to Congress. They
happen from our leadership to the press. Absolutely, those
conversations took place, sir.
Mr. Kennedy. Well, I don't believe that is what evidence
has indicated from prior testimony here, from prior hearings,
but we will get back to that in a second.
Ms. Maxwell, I would like to talk to you more about the
impact of the 2018 family separation policy on ORR's ability to
care for children in their custody. Your report found that ORR
care providers found it particularly challenging to provide
age-appropriate mental health services for the very young and
the many very young children it had to care for because of the
forced separation policy by this administration. Ms. Maxwell,
is that correct?
Ms. Maxwell. That's correct, what we heard.
Mr. Kennedy. Ms. Maxwell, in fact you found in your report
that the number of young children which you defined as 12 and
younger requiring ORR care increased sharply in May of 2018
when DHS formally began implementing a zero-tolerance policy
that led to family separation. Is that correct?
Ms. Maxwell. That's correct.
Mr. Kennedy. In fact, your report notes that ``faced with a
sudden and dramatic increase in young children, staff reported
feeling challenged to care for children who presented different
needs from the teenagers that they typically served.'' Is that
correct?
Ms. Maxwell. Indeed, it is.
Mr. Kennedy. Ms. Maxwell, briefly, what were some of those
challenges?
Ms. Maxwell. Well, I think there's two things to keep in
mind when we think about the increase in the younger children
in ORR population. The first, as you mentioned, is the dramatic
increase. We were looking at over 164 percent increase from
April to May of the 6- to 12-year-olds, and 80 percent from
April to May for the 0 to 5. So just the dramatic and sudden
increase was a challenge in and of itself.
And then of course the younger children presented different
needs. As I mentioned, they have shorter attention spans, they
need more supervision, and they can't always communicate. So
the normal methods, the modalities of treatment are different
for a younger population than for the teenagers the facilities
are used to treating.
Mr. Kennedy. And, Ms. Maxwell, you--to quote you on--excuse
me. You quoted an ORR program director in your report who said,
``A 7- or 8-year-old boy was separated from his father without
any explanation as to why the separation occurred. The child
was under the delusion that his father had been killed and
believed that he would also be killed. This child ultimately
required emergency psychiatric care to address his mental
health distress.''
Ms. Maxwell, is it common for separated children to face
serious mental health issues?
Ms. Maxwell. We heard that from the staff that treat them
that they were more difficult and more challenging to treat
because of the separation than children who weren't separated.
Mr. Kennedy. And, Commander White, this is your area of
expertise. What kind of challenges did the separations pose to
the providers who had to care for those children?
Mr. White. So the separated children pose really sort of
multiple problems for program providers, some of which are
merely capacitation issues. But to focus--if I understand your
question--focus narrowly on the additional clinical
requirements, while the ORR program providers are trauma-
informed programs, the level of trauma and the type of trauma
experienced by unaccompanied children really is dwarfed by the
reality of separated children.
Separated children's needs are very different in four
important ways. First, their trauma is uniformly recent.
Second, it is currently ongoing, it is not a past event. That
separation is happening right now in the moment. Third, it
involves a disruption of family systems that are very different
from what we see from unaccompanied children. And third and
most importantly, it is very difficult for the child to
distinguish that the people there, such as the clinician in the
shelter, are not part of the separation process. They see us as
one government and one entity, so their ability to establish
therapeutic rapport and to benefit from clinical intervention
is much less. Separated children cannot be served effectively
in an ORR or UAC program setting.
Mr. Kennedy. Commander, if I remember your testimony from
your prior appearance here, you indicated that--did you get
advanced notice of a family separation policy before you
started seeing an increase in separated children?
Mr. White. We did not receive any notice of a policy prior
to its announcement on television. Discussions----
Mr. Kennedy. Which was after the policy was in place?
Mr. White. Correct. Discussions of possible future policy
options which would include separation began in February of
2017. We began to observe significant, or essentially a tenfold
increase in separation over historic norms beginning in July of
2017.
Mr. Kennedy. And presumably your phones and emails were
working at that point too. You could have received a phone call
from anybody within the administration announcing this policy
change?
Mr. White. At the field level, coordination between ORR's
intakes desk and CBP border stations is an everyday process and
is very robust.
Mr. Kennedy. Yield back.
Ms. DeGette. Commander, just to clarify, during those
conversations about a potential separation policy in 2017, you
continually raised the red flag that this would be detrimental
to the children. Isn't that correct?
Mr. White. My consistent recommendation and that of the
entire ORR career team was that separation of children from
family units and their designation as UAC would pose an
unacceptable danger to the child and, moreover, would pose a
set of capacity problems that would overwhelm the program
operationally.
Ms. DeGette. Thank you. The Chair now recognizes the
ranking member of the full committee, Mr. Walden, for 5
minutes.
Mr. Walden. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thanks again for
having this hearing. And once again, I want to be unequivocal
too: None of us supported this child separation policy. We
agree with your leadership and that of your career team on this
matter.
And Madam Chair, thanks again for having this hearing. I am
sorry, I had to step upstairs. They are having one on
pharmaceutical drugs. And as I said up there and I will say
here before I get into this issue, I beg of the majority to
share with us the legislation that is going to completely
rewrite pharmaceutical law in America. We have just been told
there is a hearing already scheduled for next Wednesday. There
is no legislative text, and we have been completely excluded
from the process. It has all been written in the Speaker's
office.
And our committee has a proud and thorough tradition of
working together on these issues. And I am----
Ms. DeGette. I would certainly give it to you if I had
written it, don't worry.
Mr. Walden. And I know you would. That is because I know
the work you have done on Cures in a bipartisan way and on
CREATES and other things. And this doesn't have to be this way.
We have a great tradition of working together. We have a lot of
good brains on both sides of the committee. This is a common
issue we need to tackle like this one is, and so I am deeply
disappointed. We will maybe get one witness next Wednesday and
no time to prepare, no view of the legislative text. Thank you.
Now, let me get on to this. When I was down in Yuma, Chief
Modlin, I was--we looked at the facility. Your team, by the
way, was terrific. Anything I asked they answered. They didn't
try and stop me from seeing anything. By the way, we had
followed the rules, planned ahead of time, worked with your
folks. They were terrific. And I want to tell you that they
were very accommodating and did a great job.
But what they did tell me that was really a disturbing
piece of this puzzle was about the challenges they faced in
identifying false families. False families. And that they had
encountered not a lot, not a lot, but enough adults who were
pretending to be the parent of a minor child in hopes of being
released into the United States. One agent told us about a
father who was apprehended with an infant child that he claimed
to be his. And while the Border Patrol agents strongly
suspected he was not actually the father, they had no way to
prove this.
Another agent told me about an ongoing prosecution where
children were paired with adults--and this is important for our
committee to hear--paired with adults multiple times, same kids
multiple times, to create false family units. And after the
purported family unit entered the United States, was
apprehended and released, the child was sent back out of the
country and made the journey over again.
So my question is, how frequently do CBP patrol agents
encounter these types of situations--I cannot imagine the
trauma those poor children go through--where an adult claims to
be the parent of a minor but isn't? How difficult is it for you
and your team to ferret these traffickers, I will call them,
these abusers, which is what they are, and my God, what happens
to those kids? Can you enlighten us, because your team brought
this to my attention.
Mr. Modlin. Absolutely. Thank you, sir, for the question.
What I can say is, to your point, it is very difficult to
discern that, especially if you can put yourself in the
position of the Border Patrol agents in those crowded
facilities during that time, during the height of this crisis.
What I can tell you is that the diligent work of the men and
women of the Border Patrol, their attention to detail, their
caring for these children, they recognize when things aren't
right between what's purported to be a family member and a
child. They notice things that don't occur in a normal familial
situation. To date we have identified more than 6,100
individuals that have made fraudulent claims as to being a
family member in order to gain the benefit that you speak of.
Mr. Walden. Six thousand one hundred individuals?
Mr. Modlin. Over 6,100, sir. Yes. And that's just what the
Border Patrol has found, as I'm sure you're aware that ICE HSI
would be glad to talk to. They investigate these same claims as
well and their numbers would be apart from the numbers that I--
--
Mr. Walden. You said ICE investigates these claims?
Mr. Modlin. ICE HSI. Yes, sir.
Mr. Walden. All right, because there are members of this
body that want to eliminate the funding for ICE and wipe them
out, so they would not be available to investigate this kind of
human trafficking. That is my own statement. You don't have to
comment on that.
But 6,100. So how often are we seeing this recycling of the
same kids where they are being abused and used and sent back
and then they----
Mr. Modlin. So it's a daily occurrence, sir. What I would
say to your earlier comment is that, without the abilities of
ICE to then further investigate these claims and find where the
kids are being recycled as you're talking about, where it is
the children are being used as nothing more than a commodity in
this, and this of course goes to the interior of the country to
locations where the cartels and these TCOs are using these kids
over and over. ICE is critical for that. Without ICE, we would
never be able to investigate and then prosecute those people.
Mr. Walden. All right, my time has expired. Thank you,
Madam Chair.
Ms. DeGette. The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from
California, Mr. Ruiz, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Ruiz. Thank you very much. As a father and a physician
with training in humanitarian aid, I am outraged not only by
the inhumane family separation policies that derive from the
zero-tolerance policies, but the conditions that affect the
mental health of migrant children while in the custody of our
Federal Government. We have been talking and sounding the alarm
before this report came out about toxic stress and how those
extreme conditions without an infant's, a toddler's, a child's
ability to be consoled by their parent aggravates this and will
have permanent damage not only to their ability to relate to
others, but also in a physical form with diabetes, cardiac
problems, and other ailments, and that is no condition that we
want any child of ours or any of our neighbors to experience.
And so, let me get to some specific scenarios.
Commander White, what does lack of sleep do to mental
health, because this is what this report is focused on, is the
mental health of these children. What does lack of sleep do to
mental health of an individual?
Mr. White. So, as you know, Dr. Ruiz, in both children,
adolescents, and adults, lack of sleep both exacerbates
behavioral health conditions and is a symptom of many
behavioral health conditions.
Mr. Ruiz. An extreme lack of sleep can even lead to
hallucinations.
Mr. White. Certainly.
Mr. Ruiz. And other psychoses, correct?
Mr. White. Certainly.
Mr. Ruiz. OK, so now what if you get a child who has
experienced traumatic events and you keep them in a freezing
temperature, about 56 degrees Fahrenheit, the lights always on,
OK, constantly interrupted with noise during the night, lay
them on a hard concrete floor in a room with these lights
always on in a crowded quarter, what would that do to a child's
mental health?
Mr. White. So that would potentially be deleterious to a
child's mental health. But to be clear, those conditions are
nowhere present in any ORR facility.
Mr. Ruiz. Correct. But they are at CBP, and I have
witnessed them. And this is an issue that we hear reports from
children from many CBP facilities.
So let me ask you, Chief Modlin, is it a policy to keep a
room at that freezing temperature? Is it a policy intentionally
that you are keeping the lights 24/7? Is it a policy that you
do routine spontaneous checks to wake up children who are
laying on a crowded floor in close quarters, is it a policy
from CBP? Is it intentional?
Mr. Modlin. Doctor, I'm unaware of any freezing rooms. I
can tell you----
Mr. Ruiz. I have been there. I have felt them in New
Mexico, and I have heard reports from Yuma and El Centro.
Mr. Modlin. Doctor, what I can tell you is that----
Mr. Ruiz. Is it--just answer my--is it a policy? Are you
intentionally doing that? If it is not a policy, then would it
be simple enough to make some changes?
Mr. Modlin. Temperature is in accordance with the Flores
Settlement, sir.
Mr. Ruiz. OK. Well, they are 56 degrees Fahrenheit, and
they are freezing. Is it a policy to keep the lights on all
night and interrupt their sleep?
Mr. Modlin. Lights being on, sir, are a result of PREA, the
Prison Rape Act, to avoid----
Mr. Ruiz. OK, so you need legislative changes to fix that,
or can that be done administratively for the best interest of
the children? Because the conditions right now that they are
experiencing is promulgating and causing more harm to these
children. Let me move on to another question.
Director Hayes, is it in the best interest of a child to be
detained in large facilities for long periods of time, or is it
in the best interest to place them in a more individualistic
approach to address their mental health care through foster
homes and small group nonprofits?
Mr. Hayes. So, Congressman, the desire of ORR in the best
interest of child welfare concerns would be to have more
smaller and medium-sized shelters and foster----
Mr. Ruiz. OK, so then why are you proposing to lease a
large space that would warehouse many children in the Inland
Empire in my region where it is 74,000 to 91,000 square feet to
house and warehouse over 400 kids?
Mr. Hayes. So, sir, you are referencing the efforts that
were underway right now with the----
Mr. Ruiz. In the Inland Empire, you purposely are right now
looking to house children and lease this for 17 years. And let
me remind you that the border supplemental gave you $2.88
billion to the Office of Refugee Resettlement. That same border
supplemental required the Department of Health and Human
Services, or HHS, to ``prioritize use of community-based
residential care including long-term and transitional foster
care in small group homes and shelter care other than large-
scale institutional shelter facilities to house unaccompanied
alien children in its custody.''
Why are you defying the law by searching for a 74- to
91,000 square foot warehouse facility to keep unaccompanied
children in the Inland Empire?
Mr. Hayes. All right, let me be clear, Congressman. We are
looking at about seven or eight different locations around the
country. And I want to be crystal clear, sir.
Mr. Ruiz. I don't care where they are at.
Mr. Hayes. May I answer the question?
Mr. Ruiz. As long as they are not large warehouse
facilities.
Mr. Hayes. May I answer the question, Chairwoman?
OK. We're--I just want to be crystal clear for this
committee. We are looking to expand our permanent State license
network, and the cities that you mentioned in your area as well
as across the country we are looking to find small to medium-
sized shelters that will be State-licensed by the respective
States and towns we reside in.
Mr. Ruiz. Yes, but housing them in intentionally 17 years--
--
Ms. DeGette. The gentleman's time has expired.
Mr. Ruiz [continuing]. Is not in the best interest of the
children.
Ms. DeGette. The gentleman's time has expired. The Chair
now recognizes Mr. Burgess for 5 minutes.
Mr. Burgess. Thank you.
And, Mr. Hayes, that is an important point, because Chief
Modlin told us in his testimony that they are entirely--they
don't have control over their population. The people that walk
in and turn themselves in to Customs and Border Protection,
they are obligated to process. They cannot send someone out who
is under the age of 18 until you have an open bed for them.
Mr. Hayes. That is correct, sir. And I just want to
clarify. We are seeking to increase our foster care network. We
are seeking to increase specialty-type shelters. We are seeking
to increase State-licensed permanent network, and in order to
timely accept these children when referred to us from DHS, we
absolutely need the flexibility in both large, special and--I'm
sorry, not large--small, medium, and specialty-type shelters in
order to timely receive these children. That is our goal.
Mr. Burgess. Right, because you have got to relieve the
burden, the bottleneck that is occurring in Customs and Border
Protection. They are not set up for the long term, anything
longer than the very, very acute care of a child during the
time that the processing occurs that Congress has determined
that Customs and Border Protection shall provide.
Now, there is some talk about maybe we don't need a law
that prevents someone from coming into this country without
authorization. I suppose that is a discussion that we are going
to have during a presidential election year. But until Congress
changes the law, Chief, you have got to follow the law, right?
Mr. Modlin. Yes, absolutely, Congressman.
Mr. Burgess. And, really, one of the tragic situations of
May and June of this year was you were caught. Mr. Hayes
doesn't have any beds. Cartels are bringing people across the
river in places that I visited in south Texas, the lower Rio
Grande Valley in particular. They don't call you and say,
``Hey, you have some incoming,'' you just have to be prepared
to accept them, correct, at McAllen and Weslaco and all of the
Custom Border Protection facilities?
Mr. Modlin. Yes, sir.
Mr. Burgess. And if they are out of space and you are out
of money for disposables and things that you might need to take
care of people, you are in a world of hurt, right?
Mr. Modlin. Yes, sir. If I could, in fact when the crisis
was ramping up, we were expending our operational funds on
those consumables, on diapers, on food, all those things that
we were not prepared to deal with. And I believe it was your
statement earlier about unclear on the time between the request
and the appropriation, that was 57 days, 57 days at the height
of this crisis that our agents were bringing in diapers from
home. They were buying toys for these children. They were
bringing clothes to give to these children. That's what the
compassionate and professional men and women of the U.S. Border
Patrol did on their own while we were waiting for action so
that the capacity at HHS and further upstream could open up so
that we could release all these subjects from our custody and
get them to where they need to be.
Mr. Burgess. And just for the record, I have made multiple
trips over the past 12 or 14 months. I have been to McAllen two
or three times. I have been to Brownsville and Casa Padre. I
went to Tornillo twice, was at Clint earlier this summer right
after you got the supplemental funding.
At the station that I guess is called Ursula in Mission,
Texas, I was there right at the end of May when you were at the
height of the influx and Mr. Hayes was unable to take the
number of people that you had prepared to send them, and it was
tough. I mean, it was tough sledding. It was hard on your men
and women who work in Customs and Border Protection. Most of
them have children themselves.
It was--you could see it in the eyes of Chief Garza when I
was down there that this is hard on them and they wanted
Congress to do something. And you are caught, we won't help?
And we are not allowed to secure the border? We won't provide
you any additional funding and, guess what, it gets bad in a
big hurry.
I do just want to reference one thing. And, Commander
White, I respect the fact that there is a difference between a
child who has to go through acute separation, but I will tell
you in 2014 visiting the Weslaco station down at the lower Rio
Grande Valley sector and the time that the surge of
unaccompanied minors was at one of its heights and seeing the
young boys that I saw sitting on cement benches, they weren't
punching each other. They weren't pulling each other's hair.
They were sitting, staring straight ahead.
Now, these were not children who had been there for a
while. These were children who had just arrived that day. And
it told me that the trauma that they endured on the trip up to
the United States had to have been significant. They looked
like victims of child abuse. I think that there is significant
danger to children in making that journey.
And, Chief Modlin, you did an excellent job in your
testimony. I encourage everybody to read that about the
problems that are extant in the fact that we have legislation
and court decrees that do not make sense and we need to
straighten it out. And we need to do it, you can't do it.
Ms. DeGette. The gentleman's time is expired.
Mr. Burgess. It can't be done administratively.
I yield back.
Ms. DeGette. The Chair now recognizes the gentlelady from
New Hampshire, Ms. Kuster, for 5 minutes.
Ms. Kuster. Thank you very much. And I too have been to
these facilities at the border. And these children are
traumatized, and all the more reason to treat them with respect
and not engage in furthering their trauma. So I think this is
an incredibly important topic for us to be considering at this
point because these children are in our custody and life is
getting much worse for them with the trauma of separation. I
was there with the mothers whose nursing babies had been ripped
from their arms. So we have got to do better, and that is why
Congress has acted to give you the resources that you need.
I want to focus in on a very specific issue, if I could,
which is with regard to sexual assault in the custody of our
Government. And following up on this report, which is
devastating--I recommend it to everyone. Thank God we have an
Inspector General. Thank God we have courts that are creating
standards for people in our custody, particularly young
children.
But in July of this year, NBC reported allegations of
physical and sexual abuse at the hands of CBP officers. Now,
Chief Modlin, you have standards for the prevention, detection,
and response to sexual assault and in confinement, and that
requires CBP to publish annual reports on the effectiveness of
your own sexual assault prevention strategies. But I am
wondering why that report has not been filed. It is now 11
months after the end of the fiscal year 2018 and CBP has failed
to publish that report.
Mr. Modlin. Ma'am, thanks for the question. What I can tell
you is that here I represent the United States Border Patrol,
not CBP at large, but what I'm more than happy to do is go back
to CBP for you and get the status of that report and have that
reported back to you.
Ms. Kuster. Because that report is well overdue to
Congress. And I think the actions reflect the priorities and
the concerns, and combating sexual violence is a priority of
mine and I think one that we need to take very seriously. So I
reviewed CBP's most recently published report and found in
fiscal year 2017 seven allegations of sexual abuse. If you
could take back as well to the people in the CBP, there are now
23 complaints of sexual abuse in fiscal year 2018, and we want
to make sure that that is thoroughly investigated and reported.
Mr. Modlin. Yes, ma'am. We absolutely will. And as I'm sure
you know, none of that would comport to our standards and what
we expect from our agents, and we will look into that and I'll
be happy to get those answers to you.
Ms. Kuster. So switching gears to Director Hayes, what is
the criteria for determining which out-of-network facilities
are used, and what is the oversight for these facilities? And
in particular we had a network shelter, Rolling Hills Hospital
in Oklahoma. In May of 2017 there were serious safety
violations, including a neglect and abuse by the staff at the
facility, January of 2018, resulting in a patient being left
with a fractured vertebra, broken foot, and bruising all over
the body.
So two questions: What is the criteria for choosing the
facilities, and what is the oversight?
Mr. Hayes. So, thank you, Congresswoman. First off, I just
want to be crystal clear that any child that would be abused is
one too many, and we have policies and procedures in place at
the Office of Refugee Resettlement to prevent that. And in the
unfortunate occurrence where it might, we have very strict
reporting procedures up to the chain of command to the
leadership of ORR.
Ms. Kuster. And what is the oversight for monitoring the
out-of-network facilities?
Mr. Hayes. So, I don't have specifics on some of the out-
of-network, but I do know that we have a very--because I am not
specifically familiar with this facility you're referencing--
but we have a very robust monitoring program that includes both
monitoring from our headquarters in DC, onsite monitoring
unannounced, as well as weeklong monitoring visits.
I think what you're referencing is probably where a medical
professional has referred a child for out-of-network care
because the needs of that child, either mental health or
medical help, cannot be met inside our shelter or particular
community. And, honestly, I would not speculate why a medical
professional chose that particular facility. I'm sure there are
a lot of subjective reasons from a medical perspective, and I
would not want to speak for the medical person that made that
situation.
Ms. Kuster. OK, switching gears again, Commander White,
thank you. You are an American hero. You tried to issue an
alarm when you learned that children were being separated from
their parents. What we need to focus in on is that apparently
that alarm was not heard, and I want to understand specifically
where and how. Secretary Azar said that he did not know that
children were being separated. And I want to understand, if you
could, and very briefly I will ask the indulgence of the Chair,
because the committee staff would like to understand what
happened with your warning, and why wasn't it heard?
Mr. White. So, I can only speak to the conversations that I
was in. I elevated my concerns and those of my entire team to
three levels above me in the hierarchy. That would be to my
immediate supervisor, then-Director of ORR Scott Lloyd; to his
supervisor, my agency head, then-Acting Assistant Secretary for
the Administration for Children and Families Steven Wagner; and
to his managerial POC on the team in the immediate Office of
the Secretary, that was Maggie Wynne, the counselor for Human
Services to the Secretary. So I elevated these concerns as high
as it was possible for me to reach. I really couldn't speak to
what conversations occurred other than those that I was in
myself.
Ms. DeGette. The gentlelady's time has expired. The
gentleman from West Virginia is now recognized.
Mr. McKinley. Thank you, Madam Chairman. I thought this
panel was all about unaccompanied children, but you can see
this conversation has drifted to other matters of the
separation, the children being grasped away from their parents
or whatever. So if we could just get back, and I appreciate,
Commander White, you are trying to clarify the difference in
this debate between separated children and unaccompanied
children, because I think that is what we were supposed to be
talking about here today.
So, but I would like to go back to where we begin on this
whole discussion about crisis. Several of you have talked about
that this is a crisis at the border, so I would like to if you
could just quickly, the four of you, it is a yes or no, in the
past 9 months during this year 2019, has there been a crisis at
the border?
Ms. Maxwell?
Ms. Maxwell. As the Inspector General for HHS, our focus is
solely on HHS's mission, which is the Unaccompanied Alien
Children, so----
Mr. McKinley. It is a yes or no. Has there been a crisis at
the border?
Ms. Maxwell. I don't have any immigration expertise in
which to make that judgment.
Mr. McKinley. OK, you ducked it.
Mr. Hayes?
Mr. Hayes. Yes, Congressman. There's absolutely a crisis at
the southern border.
Mr. McKinley. Mr. White?
Mr. White. Yes, Congressman. Anytime we cannot timely place
children in custody it's a crisis.
Mr. McKinley. Thank you.
Chief?
Mr. Modlin. Yes, sir. A border security and a humanitarian
crisis at the border.
Mr. McKinley. Well, but yet part of what we are fighting
here in Washington, that is what shows this, the unfortunate
divide on this is that we have other folks that don't agree
with you, that there has not been. It is all a fabricated
story.
This was an article that came out in July. It said that
this was a manufactured crisis, and even Steny Hoyer went on to
say that there is no crisis, there has not been a crisis at the
border. The quotes all through this, it is a made-up crisis. It
does not exist at the border. It is a fake crisis, doesn't
exist. That is a lie. It couldn't be further from the truth.
There is no crisis in arrivals, they are fiction. I could on
and on with people saying there is no--so it is no wonder we
have had this problem dealing with, because people won't accept
the reality of what is happening down there by trying to cover
up for it.
So, if I could, and then we have a problem with the
reluctance of people, communities to talk about taking care of
these unaccompanied minors. That the funding for--here is an
article that came out in late July. The Democrats call for
closures of shelters for unaccompanied minors. Not the
separated, unaccompanied. They want to close those facilities.
I think we have to be--then we go to the third, which is where
the unaccompanied minors could go to other communities where
they could be housed. But then you just came out in August,
Washington DC says, ``Not here. We are not going to house
unaccompanied minors in Washington, DC.''
So this whole issue of one after another, it concerns me
about where we are going, because if we don't expand the
shelters, what are we supposed to do? What are you telling this
committee? What are we supposed to do if we are not going to
expand the shelters and we are not going to build and occupy
facilities around the country? What are we supposed to do, turn
these children loose? Is that what it is? Can someone give me
some direction as to what we are supposed to do? If we can't
build them and they can't put them in a different community,
what are we supposed to do?
Because--I see some hesitation on your part. Because the
problem that could--goes to, if these kids aren't in a
controlled environment in either Washington, DC, or wherever
else that we have heard--some of the other communities in
Texas--what kind of medical and psychological care will these
kids get if they are not in our control somehow? Will they get
it by just drifting on the streets? I need to see it. I am from
West Virginia. I don't see this thing on an everyday basis. So
tell me, what happens if we don't put these children in a
shelter, where do they go? Unaccompanied minors.
Mr. Hayes. Congressman, I see your point. And I would just
say that I think that is why Congress moved the unaccompanied
children program to HHS back in 2003 with the Homeland Security
Act of 2002. And the commitment of ORR and the leadership of
HHS is to increase our permanent network capacity so that we
can receive these children as quick as possible and provide for
them the care that we need as we work to get them to a sponsor.
So that's our mission, and we would appreciate a continued
partnership with Congress in order to move in that direction.
Mr. McKinley. And, Mr. Hayes, you are not getting the
support to expand the facilities and we are not getting
communities willing to accept them. So my question--I
understand the policy--but how do we make it work if no one is
helping?
Mr. Hayes. Yes. So the same ask I made yesterday of the
Labor H Committee. I would appreciate help and support from
Members of Congress in helping educate the communities across
this Nation, especially here in our own backyard in DC and
Northern Virginia, as to the critical role and child welfare
mission that ORR has, and that the majority of the children in
our care are indeed unaccompanied and by statute are required
to come into our care and custody as we work to safely find
them a sponsor while there are immigration proceedings.
Ms. DeGette. Thank you.
Mr. McKinley. Thank you.
Mr. Hayes. I think there's a lot of misunderstanding about
our program, sir, and we can have Congress help us educate the
American public on it and the community leaders.
Ms. DeGette. The gentleman's time has expired. The Chair
now recognizes the gentlelady from New York, Ms. Clarke, for 5
minutes.
Ms. Clarke. I thank you, Madam Chairwoman and our Ranking
Member Guthrie.
One of the issues highlighted across multiple OIG reports
relates to certain facilities' failures to conduct background
checks as required by ORR policy. So, Mr. Hayes, an OIG report
on the Tornillo influx facility that ORR was unaware--found
that ORR was unaware that the facility was not conducting
required background checks. While we understand that ORR policy
now requires facilities to inform ORR of an inability to
complete required background checks, is ORR implementing any
other tool to ensure that each facility is conducting the
required checks?
Mr. Hayes. Yes, Congresswoman, we are. We've issued two
clarifications this calendar year, one in January and again in
March, and I believe the OIG referenced that in their report
clarifying to our grantees the requirements for background
checks and investigations of staff prior to coming on board to
help care for these children.
Ms. Clarke. And how are you following up on that? I mean,
because clearly there is a violation of that.
Mr. Hayes. Right, so we're continuing to follow up on that.
And again, you know, to the conversation----
Ms. Clarke. How?
Mr. Hayes [continuing]. I had with Ms. Kuster we continue--
--
Ms. Clarke. How is that being done?
Mr. Hayes. Yes, we continue to do monitoring. We are
increasing our monitoring team. And, again, we do monitoring
both here from DC, desk monitoring, we do onsite, unannounced
monitoring of our grantees as well as weeklong, very in-depth
monitoring. We will continue this.
Ms. Clarke. Mr. Hayes, another report noted that ORR
granted waivers to certain noninflux facilities, allowing these
facilities to hire employees without conducting Child
Protective Services checks. Instead, in these cases, ORR relied
on an employee's self-certification that the employee had a
clean child abuse and neglect history.
Do you believe self-certifications are an adequate
replacement for background checks in ensuring the health and
safety of children?
Mr. Hayes. I would not support self-certification. And I'll
just point out you're referencing the CAN checks, Child Abuse
and Neglect checks. And I think the OIG report also
acknowledged that that is a challenge across the entire Nation
in regards to certain facilities and the access that States and
Federal Government have to that.
Ms. Clarke. Well, I think you have a very specific role
here, right. We are not talking about every other instance,
right. We are talking specifically about a humanitarian
challenge, right. And so my question to you is whether you
believe self-certification is adequate given the very special
circumstances that we find ourselves in.
Mr. Hayes. Well, I want every single employee that works at
our shelters that have access to children to have undergone an
FBI background check, and I can ensure you that that is the
practice and the policies and procedures of ORR to ensure that
the children are in a safe environment.
Ms. Clarke. So there is no self-certification?
Mr. Hayes. Not that I'm aware of.
Ms. Clarke. OK.
Ms. Maxwell, the OIG report indicates that the hirings that
are--over half of the ORR facilities are facing challenges in
hiring and retaining employees, including mental health
clinicians and youth care workers. These reports point to
hiring issues such as difficulties finding bilingual and
qualified candidates, retention issues due to salaries, hours,
and competing jobs opportunities. And your report indicates
that these hirings and retention challenges can affect
facilities' ability to meet ORR's required staffing ratios.
How does an inability to meet these ratios affect the
health and safety of unaccompanied children?
Ms. Maxwell. Thank you for that question. You are right. We
looked at the facilities' compliance with the clinical ratios
and found about 15 facilities were unable to meet the clinical
ratios required by ORR in certain periods of time. And what we
heard from the clinicians is that this results in large
caseloads, and large caseloads certainly mean that they have
challenges providing care that they would like to provide to
all the children underneath their supervision.
Ms. Clarke. It appears that the issues that we have
discussed today span across multiple facilities. So, in your
opinion, what should ORR do to improve its oversight of the
facilities and their compliance?
Ms. Maxwell. We make recommendations that ORR support the
facilities in overcoming the challenges to hiring clinical
professionals, screening them, as well as retaining them. And
we also make recommendations that they think about the
possibility of implementing maximum caseloads for these
clinicians.
Ms. Clarke. Mr. Hayes, do you believe that your directorate
is capable of doing this?
Mr. Hayes. I do, ma'am. And if I could share a few things
of what we're working on and have already implemented at ORR?
We have, we're working on developing an intern program with
colleges and universities in order to place interested students
in our facilities, in our programs.
Ms. Clarke. With background checks?
Mr. Hayes. I'm sorry. What, ma'am?
Ms. Clarke. You say you want to put interns into these
facilities.
Mr. Hayes. No, working with colleges to identify interns
that are working through the clinical field of education in
order to educate them at what we do at ORR so that they might
after postgraduate come and serve us at ORR, because again
there's a national shortage of clinical professionals.
Obviously, any--again, I want to reiterate, any potential staff
person that would have access to the unaccompanied alien
children is expected to have undergone an FBI background check.
Ms. DeGette. The gentlelady's time has expired. The Chair
recognizes the gentleman from Virginia----
Ms. Clarke. I yield back, Madam Chair.
Ms. DeGette [continuing]. Mr. Griffith, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Griffith. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Mr. Hayes, is there anything else you wanted to add on
that?
Mr. Hayes. Yes, sir. Thank you, Congressman. I just want to
add we're also working with additional funding for continuing
for continuing education to our licensed clinician as a
retention strategy. We're working to expand our presence at job
fairs. We've partnered with the National Child Traumatic Stress
Network to develop a webinar series on trauma in UAC. And in
April of this year, we also hired a board-certified adolescent
adult psychiatrist in the division of health for unaccompanied
children inside ORR.
Again, to the OIG report, there is an overall nationwide
shortage of licensed mental health professionals available and
that does, you know, present challenges, or cause challenges at
ORR as well.
Mr. Griffith. Continuing with you, Mr. Hayes, you know, we
understand migration patterns are unpredictable. You previously
testified that you are trying to expand your permanent bed
capacity----
Mr. Hayes. Yes, sir.
Mr. Griffith [continuing]. To account for some of these
fluctuations and the influx of unaccompanied children. You
asked for some flexibility. What kind of flexibility are you
looking for, and what do we need to do?
Mr. Hayes. So that's a great question, Congressman. I think
one of the key components that is often missed is that,
whenever we want to have a State-licensed permanent shelter,
the final say in that shelter of going online and being able to
accept children does not lie with the Federal Government. It
lies with the State and local communities in which those
shelters reside.
And so, you know, I can give a few examples where we've had
these smaller-sized shelters like Dr. Ruiz would like to see us
have, which we would like to have as well, but when, you know,
but when migration patterns are, again, extremely difficult if
not impossible to predict, we have to have flexibility, because
any HHS ORR shelter is a better environment for an
unaccompanied child than a Border Patrol station. I think all
of us on the dais today would agree with that. And so, because
those migration patterns are very difficult if not impossible
to predict, we need to be able to have the ability to turn on
and turn off beds as quick as possible so that we can get those
children out of the Border Patrol stations and into the care
that we have.
And because I don't have the final say--and, again, your
colleague from West Virginia highlighted the struggles we have
in finding them right here in our own backyard in DC and
Northern Virginia--we want to have these shelters, but if we
have reluctance from the local and State officials in doing so,
I'm going to have to have flexibility with some larger or
medium-sized shelters that would be influx shelters run by the
Federal Government.
Mr. Griffith. And Representative McKinley did raise the
issue about Washington, DC, and you have now mentioned it a
couple of times. Are there other areas where communities are
saying, ``No, we don't want to house those folks here''?
Mr. Hayes. I know that we've received formal communication.
I think I would probably limit my response to formal
communication from DC and from the Northern Virginia area,
specifically the City of Alexandria and the County of Fairfax.
Mr. Griffith. All right. Now are you all--are folks having
to apply to provide these shelters, or are you all going out
and looking for existing institutions that already have some
expertise in this?
Mr. Hayes. So the answer is both, Congressman. Normally, a
grantee will respond to an FOA, a Funding Opportunity
Announcement, and, you know, we put forward, our team puts
forward the needs that we have. You know, we have numerous
types of shelters that I've referenced in my opening statement,
but we are also now--and this is something that we've been
working on--but we are now going out ourselves and attempting
to find some buildings that we would have control over and then
seek to find operators to come in. And that would give us more
flexibility, and again those would be State-licensed permanent
beds.
And that's the one that Dr. Ruiz referenced earlier, you
know, the area around L.A. would be a great area for us to open
up a shelter. They have a great population there of clinical
and social work professionals that can be bilingual that are
the requirements of ORR. So we're absolutely doing both. We're
seeking folks to come in and provide the full range of services
but also finding our own buildings and then finding operators
to simply do that, and then we would have the control over
those buildings.
Mr. Griffith. I appreciate that.
I am going to switch gears a little bit and mainly going to
ask Commander White, but maybe I am happy to get information
from anybody. I did domestic relations work. That means child
custody, support, et cetera, for probably 10, 11 years of my
legal career. I ran into lots of children. I obviously
understand the emotional traumas that can happen in all kinds
of situations, but also in that, and you referenced in your
oral testimony, that there was some long-term cardiac issues,
if I understood it correctly.
We don't have time today to go into all that, but could you
give me some of those reports? Because even though I haven't
represented some of these kids in a long time, it is one of
those things that you worry about when you have done domestic
relations work is, you know, what are the long-term prospects
for these kids? Can you give me some reports, particularly on
the--the emotional side I understand, but particularly on the
cardiac or other health besides emotional health, but physical
health issues?
Mr. White. Absolutely, Congressman. So the body of current
evidence around toxic stress, including the Shonkoff studies
and the other works out of the Harvard Center on the Child,
really does speak to the range of risks that children who
experience sustained trauma and high levels of stress can have
on a number of domains of lifelong health functioning. That
would include many children in our domestic child welfare
systems, which is where a lot of that research has been done.
That certainly also applies to unaccompanied children who've
often experienced extraordinary levels of traumatic exposures
in terms of exposure to violence and poverty in home country.
It is--those problems are generally compounded for children who
experience separation. So, yes, sir. We'd be glad to provide
you with that science.
Mr. Griffith. There you go. Thank you.
Ms. DeGette. The gentleman's time has expired. The Chair
now recognizes the chair of the full committee, Mr. Pallone,
for 5 minutes.
Mr. Pallone. Thank you, Madam Chair. This past summer we
saw the disturbing reports of the conditions at a CBP facility
in Clint, Texas, that held large numbers of unaccompanied
children. Toddlers reportedly had to go without diapers, young
children had to look after infants, and visitors reported a
stench from the lack of showers and clean clothes. CBP
officials will explain that its facilities were never meant to
house children and they are supposed to be quickly transferred
to ORR so that qualified child welfare experts can provide
appropriate care, but clearly that broke down.
An El Paso Times article says that CBP officials were
trying to warn ORR about the conditions at the facility. When
talking about his conversations with ORR at the time, the
Border Patrol agent in charge of the Clint station said, and I
quote, ``We were desperately trying to tell them we don't have
the cell space, the holding space, food contracts. If one of us
is going to be over capacity, at least you have the basics.
There is only one legal avenue for me to transfer those
children. They absolutely have to go to ORR by law, so that was
my only option.''
So let me ask Mr. Hayes, how do you respond to that? CBP is
seemingly suggesting ORR could have done more than it did to
alleviate the situation.
Mr. Hayes. Thank you, Congressman. So it is a true
statement that our capacity was strained operationally this
last spring, in May and June specifically. Starting in January
of this year we did see an increase in referrals over the last
calendar year, and HHS made a large number of efforts to
increase our capacity as quick as we can. That's one of the
flexibility options that I referenced earlier in talking with
your colleague from Virginia that, you know, we do need to have
that flexibility and, you know, we operated as best we could,
again, with the limited capacity.
But I want to be clear that there wasn't a day that went by
that we did not both discharge hundreds of children and also
receive hundreds of children from CBP, even during the times of
tight capacity in May and June.
Mr. Pallone. Well, the article I mentioned quotes another
former Border Patrol official who said, and I quote, ``HHS and
ORR were not holding up their end of the deal. Border Patrol
was moving thousands, and they were moving hundreds.'' So, Mr.
Hayes, again it sounds like the Border Patrol officials are
saying that HHS is well aware that the volume of the children
would be increasing but the HHS wasn't freeing up room fast
enough by releasing the kids that had the sponsors.
So again, how do you respond to that official who said that
ORR was not accepting the kids fast enough?
Mr. Hayes. Well, I would say two things. Number one, we did
continue to accept kids every day. I'm not really sure what
thousand kids the CBP would have been moving, because once we
designate a child, ICE has the responsibility to bring those
kids to us at HHS.
And I just would say that one of the challenges that we saw
specifically this spring, sir, was an increase in just a
different type of child that was referred to us. We saw an
increase in sibling groups. We saw an increase in parenting
teens. We saw an increase in, again, the sibling groups,
younger, where you had one teenager, one that was, you know,
tender age, which is under 12, and that did, you know, present
some difficulties in finding the most appropriate shelter for
that child.
Mr. Pallone. Well, let me ask Chief Modlin. I understand
that CBP cannot transfer children out of its custody until ORR
is prepared to accept them. In this instance, when did you
realize you had a problem? Could this crisis have been avoided
if CBP had reached out to ORR sooner?
Mr. Modlin. Yes, sir, so you're absolutely correct. We
cannot move the children to anyone other than HHS, and that's
as part of TVPRA. I do believe that the Border Patrol and CBP
as a whole sort of sounded the alarms as early and often as we
could during this. As you're probably aware, there was quite a
few people that insisted that there wasn't a crisis, that we
weren't over capacity, that maybe these problems were self-
generated.
What I do recognize absolutely is that if HHS is not funded
and appropriated, and ICE as well, that house our family
groups, then there's no place to put them. As I said in my
opening statement, we're the only component in this entire
chain that has no control over what comes into our custody.
Mr. Pallone. Well, let me--I know we are running out time.
But, you know, based on what you said that I know that the CBP
facilities were not intended to house children, but are you
going to take any steps to ensure that the children held in the
facilities are not faced with similar conditions in the future,
or again is the funding the problem? Is that what you are
saying?
Mr. Modlin. So, certainly, during the time at the height of
the crisis, sir, the funding was absolutely the problem. If we
ever fell short of our standards it was because we were
overwhelmed, it wasn't because of callousness.
Mr. Pallone. Well, what about now and the future?
Mr. Modlin. I'm unaware of us falling short of any
standards now, sir. Since the supplemental funding, we've had
shower facilities brought in. We've had washers and dryers
brought in. We've had wraparound services. We have a lot of
things that we needed during the crisis. What I would also
point out is that certainly this crisis is not over. We're
still encountering numbers greater than we ever have before.
It's certainly down from the May-June numbers, but I would just
have everyone please keep that in mind that this is certainly
not over, sir.
Mr. Pallone. All right, thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Ms. DeGette. I thank the gentleman. The Chair now
recognizes the gentlelady from Indiana, Mrs. Brooks, for 5
minutes.
Mrs. Brooks. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman, and thank you for
holding this really important hearing. I want to build on and
ask a little bit more questions about what the chairman of the
full committee asked you about, Chief Modlin. You talked about
the height of the crisis. And if I am not mistaken, during the
height of the crisis CBP and ORR came to the Congress and asked
for funding. Is that correct, and asked for help?
Mr. Modlin. Yes, ma'am. We did.
Mrs. Brooks. And when CBP and ORR came to Congress and told
us that we had what you called the height of the crisis, it
took us 6 weeks, didn't it, to get funding?
Mr. Modlin. Yes, ma'am, 57 days actually.
Mrs. Brooks. And what happened during those 57 days of
lapse of funding after you came to us and said we are in crisis
mode?
And, Mr. Hayes, I think you mentioned that for the first
time you were in antideficiency mode.
Mr. Hayes. Not the first time in history. It happened in
the early '80s at HHS, but it definitely was unprecedented at
this time. We were in deficiency, and the Antideficiency Act
rules and restrictions kicked in at ORR. Yes, ma'am.
Mrs. Brooks. And we didn't do anything for 57 days, is that
right? And so what happened? What happened with CBP and ORR
during that period of time that we did nothing?
Mr. Modlin. Yes, ma'am. So what happened is, we had to
reach back into our operational funds, the funding that's meant
to help us secure the border, and pay for these consumables
that were being used, whether it's sanitary items, whether it's
formula, it's baby food, it's diapers. As I've testified
earlier, our agents purchased diapers themselves and brought
them in. They brought in clothing from home. They did
everything they could to alleviate as much of the crisis as
they could while we were waiting.
During that time, we also started to contract with standup
soft-sided facilities that you're aware of to increase our
capacity. The one thing we never want to do is hold people
longer than that 72 hours, but we recognized that we were far
over capacity. You know, our--generally our capacity on the
southwest border is about 4,000 people. At the height of this
we were holding 19,000 people in our facilities. So we had to
expand where we could and use the funds, any funds that we
could.
Mrs. Brooks. Thank you.
Mr. Hayes?
Mr. Hayes. So, Congresswoman, some of the nonessential
services in a very limited basis were affected at ORR.
Thankfully, not to a large level because we fund our grantees
often for months out at a time, and so the funding that
happened before we went into deficiency did not affect those
operations, but had it continued on it could have affected
especially new grantees coming on, providing legal services,
recreation, education, all things that we absolutely desire to
provide for these children and are required to under the Flores
Settlement Agreement.
Mrs. Brooks. Thank you.
Mr. Modlin, one of the concerns that I have always had is
the health, the physical health. Not necessarily that I am not
incredibly concerned about the mental health and the challenges
we have with the mental health. And not only the children
coming up and leaving home at the time and what their journey
is like and then once they get here, but with respect to flu
vaccines and what types of vaccines children might have when
they come. Why are flu vaccines not provided when they are in
CBP custody?
And I have heard from pediatricians back home of the
willingness to have more mobile units that might be able to
help CBP, particularly when we have these massive influxes as
we have experienced. What are your thoughts of having more
mobile units of medical personnel available? Chief Modlin?
Mr. Modlin. Yes, Congresswoman. What I would say is the
Border Patrol's absolutely opposed to vaccinations inside our
facilities. It is so far outside of our scope and mission that
it's basically inconceivable to me to imagine that. We do not
want to do anything that would increase the time that these
vulnerable populations are in our facilities, whether that's by
an hour, whether that's by 2 or 3 days.
Where all this needs to take place is in the HHS facilities
and facilities that are further down the immigration line where
the comprehensive care and services can be coordinated. And the
physicians at CBP agree.
Mrs. Brooks. And, Mr. Hayes, the issues around vaccines and
the health, physical health of the kids?
Mr. Hayes. Yes, ma'am. So every time a child arrives at one
of our shelters, within 2 business days they're required to
undergo a full medical examination. We call it an IME, initial
medical exam or examination. And according to the American
Academy of Pediatrics, we provide all the vaccinations as age-
appropriate to each child, and for any child that is 6 months
of age or older we also give them the flu vaccine. Again, each
doctor has discretion in regards to that, though.
Mrs. Brooks. Thank you.
And, Madam Chairwoman, I would just like to share that I
have also visited the Texas border. I visited an ORR facility
in Bristow, Virginia. I visited a new service coming on board
in Indianapolis. And one of the things that I heard, which is
very troubling, is that part of the reason children are
transported in the middle of the night--which people may not
realize they are being transported in the middle of the night--
it is because our citizens are attacking and chastising ICE and
CBP and others and ORR employees who are moving them and who
are trying to care for them.
Ms. DeGette. And I thank the gentlelady, and her time has
expired.
Mrs. Brooks. Thank you. I yield back.
Ms. DeGette. I now recognize the gentlelady from Illinois,
Ms. Schakowsky, for 5 minutes.
Ms. Schakowsky. I just want to say that I think this period
in history right now, which I think is characterized by just
unimaginable and unnecessary suffering of immigrants in this
country that is a nation of immigrants--neither of my parents
was born in the United States of America--will be long
remembered and long criticized.
In an April of 2018 Memorandum of Agreement, the Department
of Health and Human Services agreed to share information about
parents and family members coming forward to sponsor refugee
children who arrived alone at the southern border with the
Department of Homeland Security. And earlier--it is--this cruel
and harmful policy sparked fear in many potential spouses,
people who now are afraid to come forward. I had an incident at
the airport in Chicago on a problem kind of like this.
Earlier this month, HHS Office of the Inspector General
found that many ORR facilities ``reported that it became more
difficult to identify sponsors willing to accept children'' and
that these difficulties resulted in ``delays in placing
children with sponsors.'' These delays caused the average
length of stay for children to skyrocket to 93 days in November
of 2001.
And I wanted to ask you, Mr. Hayes, has ORR considered
withdrawing entirely from that MOA? And if not, why?
Mr. Hayes. Yes. So I would answer that question in two
ways, ma'am. Number one, I think it's important to note that
there are certain components to the MOA that we can still
consider very valuable--referral information, information that
is learned by DHS after the child comes to ORR care. That's
information that we want to be shared, and so that's how
information sharing has happened, happens. It also memorialized
abuse reporting to DHS that HHS might learn about after the
child comes into our care.
In regards to the negative impact on the average length of
care, I became Acting Director at the very end of November of
last year, and a few weeks later on December 18th we issued,
with my approval, the very first of four operational directives
that sought to deal with the--basically the negative child
welfare implications that an increase in length of care was,
you know, was affecting. That allowed us to discharge some
8,000 children in about 30 days.
Additionally, in March of this year we issued a second
operational directive that ended the fingerprinting of moms and
dads that were already here seeking to sponsor the children--
these are not separations, these are moms and dads that were
already here--unless there was a red flag during the public
records check, then we would do additional checking.
Ms. Schakowsky. Thank you.
Mr. Hayes. Yes, ma'am. So, yes.
Ms. Schakowsky. OK.
Ms. Maxwell, let me just say how appreciative I am of the
OIG report, and I think it documents so many of the harmful
effects of the policies that we have. And what effects do
longer length of stays have on ORR facilities' ability to
provide adequate health and mental health care to children in
custody?
Ms. Maxwell. Thank you for that question. We heard a lot
about that from the frontline positions and clinicians that
work with these children, and they said that it has a negative
effect on their behavior as well as their mental health. And
that they saw that children's mental health deteriorated the
longer that they were in care, which is why the OIG recommends
that ORR look at all current policies with an eye towards
trying to figure out if there's anything in there that still
negatively impacts the ability to release children in a timely
way.
Ms. Schakowsky. Thank you. What concerns and challenges did
the clinicians and providers report with regard to treating
children in ORR care, especially those who had been separated
from their parents?
Ms. Maxwell. The clinicians told us that working with
children who had been separated from their parents was more
challenging than the population they were used to serving who
were unaccompanied as they came across the border. They noted
that these children experienced a greater sense of fear,
abandonment, post-traumatic stress, and that in many cases they
were unable to distinguish the Federal employees that had
separated them from the Federal employees who were trying to
help them.
Ms. Schakowsky. And these are long-term effects, right? Or
can be long-term effects?
Ms. Maxwell. That is my understanding from research, yes.
Ms. Schakowsky. Thank you. I yield back.
Ms. DeGette. The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from
South Carolina, Mr. Duncan, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Duncan. Thank you, Madam Chair. The Flores Settlement
was, I believe, in 1997, so at least for as far back as 1997 we
have had children apprehended at our southern border taken into
custody and ultimately released into the country. In 2011, we
saw the beginning, I believe, of the modern unaccompanied
children migration into this country. It spiked again in 2014.
In fact, I remember having a conversation with President Obama
at the Summit of the Americas in Panama in April of 2015. I
have a great picture of it, he and I talking about this issue.
And I surprised him, because I told him I probably agreed with
their administration more than some of my Republican colleagues
about increased money going to the Northern Triangle countries
to take care of the problem there. I remember that conversation
vividly.
But to listen to the other side, you would think that the
problem of unaccompanied children coming to our border and the
separation of children from the adults that they are with only
happened with the election of Donald J. Trump. No, it has been
going on the past administration, this administration, and as
far back as 1997. What concerns me, what I said in the February
hearing and I will say again today, is that every adult
accompanying a child at the border isn't their parent. Human
trafficking is real in this world, and it is happening along
our southern border. Not only with women sold into sex slavery,
other types of human trafficking, but also child trafficking
and possibly child sex trafficking that is unfathomable.
So when a child shows up at a CBP facility or apprehended
by officers out in the desert and that child is accompanied by
an adult, I think it is very important that our Nation tries to
determine who that adult is and what situation that child might
be in. Now, there are a lot of situations where family units
come and the children are with their parents, but you don't
know that by looking at them after they have come across the
desert with dirt- and sweat-stained faces. It is important for
the health and well-being of that child for us to separate that
child from that adult and figure out whether that is their
parent or whether that is a coyote bringing them across the
border or a trafficker hoping to sell that child into some form
of slavery.
So I appreciate this Nation taking the well-being of that
child into consideration in determining who that adult is with
that child, because I can only imagine some of the horrors that
that child has probably seen on his journey north, and I don't
like to think about the horrors that that child may have
endured on their journey north. And I definitely don't want to
think about the children that we don't apprehend that make it
into this country with those coyotes, those human traffickers,
those sex traffickers, and end up in abominable situations.
Now, we can play politics and we can blame this
administration or that administration for separating children
at the border in trying to determine who the adults are. We can
play the blame game and we can play politics and all that. But
I want to applaud the men and women sitting at this table for
trying to have the best interest of those children at heart.
Now, the question I have for Mr. Hayes: How do we get DNA
testing in this so that we can more rapidly determine the
familial relationship between that child and that adult they
are with, or the lack thereof, so that we can prosecute that
human trafficker? But if they are related, how can we more
rapidly reunite those families?
Mr. Hayes. So, Congressman, thank you for that question.
ORR does not use DNA testing en masse. We did use it--and I
would defer to my colleague Commander White--in some of the
reunification efforts that were, you know, under the court-
ordered deadline last summer. It was very different from the
normal ORR policies and procedures. I also think my colleagues
at CBP could address some of what they do on the spot. I know
I've had reports that that's happening and there's increasing
in that.
Mr. Duncan. I am out of time, and maybe the chairwoman will
let them answer. But I will say this. I think the goal of all
of us is to make sure that those families are reunited as soon
as possible.
Madam Chair, I yield back.
Ms. DeGette. Thank you. The gentleman yields back. The
Chair now recognizes the gentlelady from Florida, Ms. Castor,
for 5 minutes.
Ms. Castor. Well, thank you, Madam Chair. And thank you for
your efforts to shine a light on this, because this new report
chronicles the harm inflicted on children due to the cruel
policy of family separation instituted by the Trump
administration. This report now confirms it with in a most
sweeping fashion and in the most sweeping fashion of any
analysis done to date and I want to thank the Office of
Inspector General for doing this. And the fact that these
children are likely never to recover from the pain and cruelty
will be a stain on this administration forever.
Ms. Maxwell, one of the key findings in your report is that
the kids sent to ORR facilities had previously experienced
intense trauma such as physical or sexual abuse and other forms
of violence within their country of origin even before their
entry into the United States. Is that correct?
Ms. Maxwell. That is correct. That's what we heard.
Ms. Castor. And your report found that family separations
resulted in a whole new level of trauma inflicted on the
children. The report states that ``according to program
directors and mental health clinicians, separated children
exhibited more fear, feelings of abandonment, and post-
traumatic stress than did the children who were not
separated.'' Is that correct?
Ms. Maxwell. That is correct.
Ms. Castor. You also found that ``separation from parents
and a hectic reunification process added to the trauma the
children had already experienced and put tremendous pressure on
the professionals in the facilities.'' Is that correct?
Ms. Maxwell. Indeed it is, yes.
Ms. Castor. So let me highlight a few examples of how the
family separation policy made the jobs of ORR providers even
harder than it normally is. Your report found, for example,
that some separated children could not distinguish facility
staff from the immigration agents who separated them from their
parents. You also quote a program clinician who said, ``Every
single separated kid has been terrified. We are seen as the
enemy.'' Is that accurate?
Ms. Maxwell. Yes, we heard a number of heartbreaking
stories from the frontline staff who treat these children.
Ms. Castor. And we have heard that some within HHS, at
least some ORR career officials, were trying to sound the alarm
that a forced separation policy would be harmful for the
children and would strain ORR, but it is not clear what
happened to those concerns. Given that these concerns prove
valid, are there lessons for HHS leadership about why these
warnings either within the Department or outside the Department
were not taken more seriously?
Ms. Maxwell. The Inspector General has a wide range of work
that we are doing looking at the health and safety of children
in the facilities. But in addition to that work, we are
exploring the factors that challenge the Department as well as
the facilities in reunifying the children separated from their
parents. And, as part of that work that is upcoming, we are in
fact looking at the interagency communication prior to the
official adoption of the zero-tolerance policy.
Ms. Castor. And we are trying to get those documents as
well, but the administration has stonewalled us. Have they
stonewalled you as well?
Ms. Maxwell. To the best of our knowledge, they have been
forthcoming with documents to the Inspector General and have
made staff available for our interview and discussion.
Ms. Castor. How can you ensure that you have gotten all of
the documents and correspondence and emails?
Ms. Maxwell. That is an excellent question that we have
asked ourselves many, many times. We have been engaging
probably over the last year with the Department, and we have
our legal counsel involved in working with the OGC within the
Department to assure us that we have received all responsive
documents to our requests.
Ms. Castor. Are you confident that that has been the case,
or do you still have questions about that?
Ms. Maxwell. We have had in-depth conversations with the
Department about how they procure the documents, the algorithms
that they used, the technology they used, and at this point we
do feel confident that the Department has been responsive to
our requests.
Ms. Castor. Has HHS leadership conducted an internal
lessons-learned assessment about what happened here?
Ms. Maxwell. I would have to defer that question to the
Department.
Ms. Castor. Do you think they should?
Ms. Maxwell. I certainly hope that our report that comes
out looking at this will in fact drive positive change and some
reassessment and lessons learned for the Department,
absolutely.
Ms. Castor. Mr. Hayes, have you gone--have you had time
to--well, I hate to put it this way. I mean, this is such a
sweeping report and such a damning indictment on this policy, I
mean, certainly you have gone back and accepted responsibility
for what has happened?
Mr. Hayes. Well, I just want to be clear. The family
separation and zero tolerance was before my time at HHS. But I
will say that myself, and there's a letter from Assistant
Secretary Johnson, my immediate supervisor, back to the OIG, we
concurred with their recommendations, and we are working on
implementing those.
And when I became permanent director earlier this year,
ma'am, and I think if you polled any of the career staff at
ORR, it was absolutely my desire to change the culture and how
we operate inside there. I absolutely, every single day undergo
best-practices discussions and rely heavily on the counsel of
my senior career staff at ORR, both the child welfare experts
and the medical team, our policy team, and the operations team.
They're the experts.
Ms. Castor. And if that is the case, I encourage you to do
a better job with providing the documents to this oversight
committee. That needs to happen.
Mr. Hayes. OK. That would be with the Assistant Secretary
of Legislation and her team, and it's my understanding that the
committee staff and her team are working on that.
Ms. DeGette. The gentlelady yields back. The Chair now
recognizes the gentleman from Oklahoma, Mr. Mullin, for 5
minutes.
Mr. Mullin. Thank you, Madam Chair. And thank you for
everyone that is here. Obviously, you are doing the best job
you can underneath the conditions, and I just want to tell you
thank you. I know it can be difficult, and sometimes you can
come up here on the Hill and feel like you have been kicked
around a little bit, but I think everybody is passionate about
it. It doesn't matter what side of the aisle you are on. We may
look at it a little bit different. But I do want to thank you
for your service. It means a lot to all of us.
Mr. Hayes, in response to the surge of the unaccompanied
children crossing the border back in '14, did the Obama
administration use temporary shelters to house and care for
unaccompanied children?
Mr. Hayes. Yes, sir. They did.
Mr. Mullin. Do we have any of those still open today?
Mr. Hayes. No, sir. We do not.
Mr. Mullin. I thought Homestead in Florida was stood up.
Mr. Hayes. Homestead was selected as a site and the
provider. It was sometime in very late 2015, sir.
Mr. Mullin. In 2015.
Mr. Hayes. Yes, December, I believe.
Mr. Mullin. But it was still underneath the Obama
administration that it was stood up, though.
Mr. Hayes. That is correct. In the last administration, the
site and the provider was chosen at Homestead December 2015.
Mr. Mullin. And that was specifically in response to the
unaccompanied children in the surge of '14 to make sure----
Mr. Hayes. That is correct.
Mr. Mullin. OK.
Mr. Hayes. It was brought on as an influx shelter,
Congressman.
Mr. Mullin. And just making sure I was clear on there.
Commander White, what was the policy during the Obama
administration to determine if the children were indeed with
their parents or family members when they were crossing the
border?
Mr. White. So the determination as to whether a child is
accompanied by a parent or is unaccompanied is a DHS
determination, not an HHS determination, unfortunately.
Mr. Mullin. Well, you stated that you were raising flags
about the zero-tolerance policy, so that will tell you that
there must have been some separation that was taking place
before the zero-tolerance policy came into place underneath the
Trump administration. But was there separation taking place
underneath the Obama administration?
Mr. White. There have always been for the history of the
program a small number of separations for cause. However, no
one should confuse that with the reality in the world that
changed approximately July of 2017 when there was a tenfold
increase in the percentage of referrals per month that were a
result of separation. That in turn further increased with the
formal announcement of----
Mr. Mullin. What was the reasoning behind the zero
tolerance?
Mr. White. That is a question you'd have to submit to the
Department of Justice. I wasn't in that conversation.
Mr. Mullin. Well, what we were told was because of the
threat of human trafficking and the fact that what our Ranking
Member Walden has pointed out, was that some of these children
are actually being recycled and we were seeing the same
children, that they were being trafficked too. And so that is
why the zero tolerance, because we had to figure out--and
correct me if I am wrong here, Commander White. We had to
figure out if they were actually with family, because which is
worse: keeping them with a trafficker, or making sure that they
are with their family so that we can make sure they are with a
loved one? Because it is not like they are coming across the
line with a birth certificate and proof that it is actually
their child. How are we supposed to know if we don't have
genetics to test that they are actually with them?
Mr. White. Congressman, these are two extremely important
but entirely separate issues.
Mr. Mullin. Not really, because----
Mr. White. The children who experience separation from
their parents are not the children who were exclusion cases.
Mr. Mullin. But how are we--hold on, Commander White. I am
not trying to argue with you. I am trying to figure out, how
else do you determine them? Are you just supposed to take the
individual's word for it? Because I know coyotes don't lie and
traffickers don't lie. I mean, they always tell the truth as
soon as you get them.
I mean, these are individuals that cross the border
illegally, so they already broke the laws. So how is it that we
are supposed to do our due diligence on figuring out if the
individual is actually related to or is the parent of the
child?
Mr. White. That is done both by CBP for its part in the
operation and by HHS.
Mr. Mullin. How else do you do that until you separate?
Mr. White. The method that's used in ORR is verification of
relationship through consular-verified birth certificates, or
when those are unavailable----
Mr. Mullin. If it doesn't exist, what do you do?
Mr. White. In those cases, DNA confirmation of biological
maternity are----
Mr. Mullin. In the meantime, do you separate or keep them
together?
Mr. White. To be clear, Congressman, you are confusing two
issues. One is separation for cause and the other is separation
pursuant to ZTP. They are different.
Mr. Mullin. Well, but there was zero tolerance. I am not
confusing the two, in all due respect. I appreciate it. I know
darn good and well what I am talking about.
Mr. White. You asked me if you were wrong, Congressman.
Mr. Mullin. You had specifically said about the zero
tolerance. That is what you have referred to multiple times.
What I am saying is, what was the determination prior to the
zero determination to figure it out, and if that didn't exist,
what do you do at that point? Because you are the one that has
been saying that you raised red flags and concerns about it.
Well, but at the same time, the Trump administration was
raising red flags as concerns about keeping them with people
that they can't verify the individual is actually with them or
not.
And then there is no such thing as forged documents. You
and I both know that--hahaha. So what is the determination?
Because we know coyotes, we know the traffickers, the cartels
are not sophisticated enough to understand what our policies
are to start making false documentations to actually try
pairing them together. So what else are we supposed to do?
Ms. DeGette. The gentleman's time has expired, but I will
allow as I have with the other Members on both sides who have
asked the questions, I will allow the witness to answer the
questions asked.
Mr. White. The specific methods used by CBP to determine if
there are doubts for parentage or not, which I have tremendous
confidence in, I would defer to my colleague from CBP. I
certainly can speak to our methods in ORR. But I want to be
clear that, in the numbers that we have all reported regarding
separations, those exclude all cases where there was any
determination that these were not parents. So when we speak of
the numbers in the Ms. L case, which I provided in my
testimony, those are all parental cases not covered by an
exclusion such as danger to the child. And I just want to be
clear about that because the congressman is exactly right, the
issue of false families is a compelling concern for both DHS
and HHS, but it's a separate issue from family separation.
Ms. DeGette. I thank the witness. The Chair now recognizes
the very patient gentlelady from California, Ms. Barragan, for
5 minutes.
Ms. Barragan. And I thank you, Madam Chair. First of all,
just to correct the record since we are talking about what
information we are going to get to determine who are adults in
this debate, first of all, you know, there have been
allegations that separations have been--like, the ones
happening under the Trump administration--have been happening
for a long time under different administrations. Prior
administrations used prosecutorial discretion. This
administration, specifically Secretary Kelly, came to Congress
and said one of the reasons they were doing it was to deter
people. It was intentional to deter people, and they were going
to get rid of using the prosecutorial discretion. So I wanted
to just correct that because there is so much false information
going around on that. Second of all, children have not died
until this current administration.
Ms. Maxwell, you testified earlier that children, when they
come over, they have already experienced some type of trauma
prior to arrival. Is that correct?
Ms. Maxwell. That's correct.
Ms. Barragan. And would you say that, if you come here as a
child and you are separated from a parent, that would cause
further trauma?
Ms. Maxwell. That is what we heard from the clinicians in
the field.
Ms. Barragan. OK. And would you say that, if a child were
separated and experienced sexual abuse or assault, that that
would lead to further trauma?
Ms. Maxwell. We are looking at that in our next study, but
certainly that would be another type of trauma.
Ms. Barragan. Do you not think that if a child is sexually
abused that they would experience trauma?
Ms. Maxwell. It's certainly another type of trauma. It's
just not one that we particularly focus on in this study, and
we will be focusing on that in a future study.
Ms. Barragan. Is it your opinion that, if a child is
sexually abused, they would be further traumatized?
Ms. Maxwell. Well, of course.
Ms. Barragan. OK. Is it your opinion that, if a child was
slapped around and dragged, that they would suffer trauma from
that interaction?
Ms. Maxwell. Yes. I would just point out that the benefit
of our report is that we are bringing voices from the field and
we are really relying on what they're telling us about what
they experienced with the children.
Ms. Barragan. Right.
And, Commander White, the Southwest Key location, those are
ORR custody. Is that correct?
Mr. White. Correct.
Ms. Barragan. OK.
Mr. White. And I'll defer to Mr. Hayes about the--but yes,
Southwest Key is one of the large providers of ORR services to
children.
Ms. Barragan. Thank you. The reason I am asking this series
of questions is because these are the types of allegations and
videos that have shown is happening in ORR custody. And our
children, while they may have arrived with some kind of trauma
because of the violence in their home country, are being
further traumatized, whether it is to separation, whether it is
due through sexual abuse, whether it is through being
physically abused, through slapped around and dragged around,
and it is unacceptable. It is completely unacceptable.
I have introduced a bill, H.R. 1336. It is a mental
healthcare bill for children unhumanely separated from their
parents by the Federal Government. And we hear that, when
children get into ORR, they get some kind of mental health
evaluation, but doesn't that mental health service end when the
child's detention ends? Ms. Maxwell?
Ms. Maxwell. Yes. That is my understanding.
Ms. Barragan. Right. So this bill would say that, if a
child suffers from mental health issues, that they would get
ongoing coverage regardless of whether they are in custody or
not. If we are causing additional trauma to a child, I think
that we have the responsibility to provide services for these
children. As one of my colleagues on the other side of the
aisle said, we should treat these children like they are ours.
I want to follow up on my colleagues' questioning about the
new OIG report. It is certainly disturbing. It lays out bare
the carnage that the family separations unleashed on these
children. HHS claimed innocence in the family separation crisis
and has said it did not know about the policy. But the
committee has obtained multiple documents that demonstrate this
isn't quite the full story.
ORR career staff were sounding the alarm bells to HHS
leaders nearly a year before the administration's cruel zero-
tolerance policy was enacted. We obtained a July 2017 memo from
HHS that is in the document binder that all of you have. In
that memo, nearly a year before family separations began,
Commander White warned of family separations that were to be
implemented. That is tab number 2 in the binder. In September
2017, HHS staff again referred to a new DHS policy to separate
families--that is binder document 6--and leaders within HHS
were also talking about family separation policies.
In November 2017, still well before the zero-tolerance
policy was enacted, Eric Hargan, the then-Acting Secretary who
now serves as Deputy Secretary, requested a briefing on family
separations, tab 10. We even have emails from Mr. Hayes'
predecessor, Scott Lloyd, the then-Director of ORR, who said
that ORR noticed CBP was separating families before zero
tolerance and ORR was tracking it. ORR and HHS leadership
either saw this coming or should have seen this coming, and
because HHS leadership ignored these warnings, the worst fears
were realized.
Mr. Hayes, just a quick question. I understand you were not
in your position at the time, but if you had received these
warnings in the year leading up to zero tolerance, what would
you have done with that information?
Mr. Hayes. If I receive any information from my senior
career staff that raises child welfare concerns, I would share
those with my immediate supervisor, Assistant Secretary Lynn
Johnson.
Ms. Barragan. Thank you, I yield back.
Ms. DeGette. The gentlelady's time has expired. The Chair
now recognizes the gentleman from California, Mr. Cardenas, for
5 minutes.
Mr. Cardenas. Thank you very much, Madam Chairwoman and
colleagues, for having this incredibly important hearing on an
issue that affects human beings who have come to our country in
many, many, many cases to flee violence and in some cases
almost certain death. And I hope and pray that we all learn
from this both as practitioners in the field and also as
policymakers as well as to what should be our path forward to
making sure that we respect not only the Constitution, but we
respect the human beings that are in our custody and in our
care.
When it comes to traumatic consequences on children's
mental health--and it is not just the HHS or OIG that has come
to this conclusion, it seems to be a universal understanding
and belief based on science and fact. That is why we have
protections under the Flores Settlement to prevent children
from being indefinitely detained. Despite those protections,
the Trump administration has issued a rule that would
essentially dismantle Flores and permit DHS to detain children
and families beyond the current 20-day limitation.
Ms. Maxwell, in the recently released HHS OIG report, your
office notes, and I will quote, ``children with longer stays
experienced more stress, anxiety, and behavioral issues.'' The
report adds that ``some children who did not initially exhibit
mental health or behavioral issues began reacting negatively as
their stays grew longer.'' Ms. Maxwell, based on these
findings, would you agree or disagree that an increased length
of detention can have detrimental effects on children?
Ms. Maxwell. Certainly, as reflected in our report, we'd
show that the length of stay has a negative effect on
children's well-being. I'll just note that our focus was on ORR
facilities, and the detention policy that you're referencing is
for immigration detention centers. So our report speaks only to
once they have already gone through the detention center into
an ORR facility.
And yes, absolutely what the clinicians at the front line
told us is that, the longer the children are in care, the more
difficult their behavior becomes and the more disillusioned
they become and the more mental health troubles they see, even
including self-harm and suicidal ideation.
Mr. Cardenas. Has there ever been an opinion, a
professional opinion or a study of value, that actually says
that there is a differentiation between what moniker is on the
door of the facility that the child is in when they are
experiencing this trauma?
Ms. Maxwell. I would just offer that the facilities that
ORR runs are State-licensed child welfare facilities that are
governed by Flores and provide a whole host of child-centric
services which are different than immigration detention centers
that have a different mission.
Mr. Cardenas. OK.
Commander White, when you testified before the subcommittee
in February, you stated, and I will quote, ``toxic stress has
consequences both for children's behavioral health and their
physical health, and those consequences are frequently
lifelong.'' Commander White, is there any reason to doubt the
decades of research on the long-term traumatic effects on
children who are detained, for example, or the U.N.'s position
on the detention of children?
Mr. White. The available scientific consensus of the
effects of a toxic stress, particularly in the available
literature on children in detention, I see no reason to
question that scientific consensus. It is well established and
supported by evidence.
Mr. Cardenas. OK. Should the stress inflicted on children
due to detention be a relevant consideration when drafting
rules related to child detainment?
Mr. White. I can't speak to law enforcement or detention.
It is fundamental to any discussion of our work in ORR in child
welfare.
Mr. Cardenas. OK. With experts in the field emphasizing the
detrimental effects of prolonged detention on children, I am
concerned about who is looking out for the best interests of
the affected children. Mr. Hayes, ORR is the expert on child
welfare. What role did your agency play in writing this
regulation, especially on the decision to allow prolonged
detention of children?
Mr. Hayes. So, Congressman, thank you for the question. So
the role or the role that HHS played was very limited in
regards to the overall rule. You know, it sought to codify, you
know, consistent with the Homeland Security Act and TVPRA rules
and regulations. We focused on our part. One of the examples, I
think, was kind of the movement of some of the hearings from
the Department of Justice over to the Department of Appeals
Board, which would be inside HHS, by independent hearing
officers in regards to certain discharges. But the overwhelming
majority of the Flores rule was DHS.
Mr. Cardenas. OK. Thank you very much. My time has expired.
I will yield back.
Ms. DeGette. I thank the gentleman. The Chair now yields to
the gentleman from Florida, Mr. Soto, 5 minutes for the purpose
of questioning.
Mr. Soto. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Director Hayes, I had sent you all a letter on September
10th regarding the proposed facility in central Florida. We
ended up finding out about this because a notice was sent to
our local government officials, but not to Members of Congress,
folks who have oversight over HHS, so I was really surprised
about that, that I would find out through my local mayor rather
than directly from HHS.
What is the nature of the detention center that you all are
looking to put in central Florida?
Mr. Hayes. So to Ms. Maxwell's point, we don't have any
detention facilities at HHS. Ours are child welfare centers
that are licensed by the respective State. And I'll just say,
Congressman, as we look to expand our permanent State-licensed
network, we have a process at HHS where we do notify Members of
Congress, local officials, and if you were not notified, I
apologize on behalf of our Department.
Mr. Soto. So what is the nature of the facility, generally
speaking, that you are looking to locate in central Florida?
Mr. Hayes. So--absolutely, sir. So we're looking at a
number of sites in conjunction with the GSA to identify some
smaller to medium-sized facilities where we can, again with
prior interactions that I've had with your colleagues on the
platform today, where we want to again expand our State-
licensed permanent network. We're looking to own or lease some
of those buildings ourselves, which is a kind of change of how
we operate at HHS, in order to give us more control over the
capacity, and then we in turn find operatives to come in and
run those as the child welfare folks within each of those
shelters. So, yes, sir. Central Florida is an area given the
population, the bilingual nature of a lot of the constituents
there, the educational opportunities, in order to bring both
youth care workers and clinicians on board. We have other areas
that we're also looking at here in the DC/Northern Virginia
area, New York, L.A.
Mr. Soto. What would be the age group of the refugees who
would be housed there?
Mr. Hayes. You know, it's really too early to say because,
again, we have a large number of different types of shelters
we're looking at. I will say this, sir. The majority of the
children in our care at ORR are teenagers, 13 to 17, and the
majority of those are male. But we do need, again, specialty
beds for parenting teens, sibling groups, you know, pregnant
mothers that will deliver while in our care, and so, you know,
so we need a broad array of different type of shelters and beds
in order to timely receive these children from CBP so we can
care for them.
Mr. Soto. So you anticipate this center could be used to
house children as well as adults based upon your current
strategy?
Mr. Hayes. Absolutely not, sir. HHS doesn't have any
authority to house adults. These would be--when I say a
parenting teen----
Mr. Soto. So for children or for birthing, for women who
are pregnant and having children?
Mr. Hayes. Yes, let me clarify that, sir. I apologize. In
that case we are talking about two unaccompanied alien
children. The mother herself is a child that is under the age
of 18 and is unaccompanied, and either the child that she has
with her or the child that she would deliver would also be a
UAC. So we would keep them together.
Mr. Soto. Well, I would be remiss if I didn't mention the
strong opposition locally to putting a center there. I want to
turn also to Homestead next.
Mr. Hayes. Yes, sir.
Mr. Soto. You know, I was welcomed to headlines today about
ORR spending $33 million so far since that facility has been
vacated. Why do we still--why hasn't this facility been closed
yet?
Mr. Hayes. So that's a good question, Congressman. I
welcome the opportunity to expand on the article that I think
left out a lot of key facts and even misconstrued some things.
Number one, there have not been any children there since August
3rd. That is an accurate statement. Shortly thereafter, we did
reduce the number of staff and the supportable census from
2,700 down to 1,200.
And in coordination with my planning and logistics team,
again, senior career staff whose counsel I value significantly
at ORR, and the fact that these migration numbers are difficult
if not impossible to predict, those 1,200 beds are something
that we wanted to be able to have quick access to in the event
of an emergency because a UAC is better off in any HHS facility
as opposed to a Border Patrol station.
Mr. Soto. We also had asked when that facility was at least
in part shuttered where the children who were staying there
went. Seventy percent, we were informed, were reunited, but we
never got a response on where the rest of these children were
sent to. I am getting, to this date, requests from my
constituents to know the details of this because it happened in
our State. And again, a deeply unpopular program and a deeply
unpopular center, because it is against a lot of our values in
immigration.
I realize you are here to manage it and not direct that
policy, but will you commit to me today to get us a response in
where the rest of the 30 percent of the children ended up being
relocated to?
Mr. Hayes. I won't commit to the specifics out of privacy
and concerns and respect for the children. But I will say that
the majority of them that were transferred to other sites
within ORR's network, sir, were either due to medical reasons
or they simply don't have identifiable sponsors here in the
United States, and therefore they could not be discharged to
family like you said. In fact, I think it ended up being
actually more than 80 percent of them were discharged to family
members.
Mr. Soto. Well, without names it would be great to get at
least the statistics on where these kids went so I could
respond to constituent questions about this.
Mr. Hayes. We've put those numbers forward, sir, and I
believe they've even been shared by the media, so I don't see
any reason why the Assistant Secretary for Legislation and her
team couldn't get those to you in a timely fashion.
Mr. Soto. Thank you, and I yield back.
Mr. Hayes. Thank you, sir.
Ms. DeGette. The gentleman yields back. The Chair now
recognizes the ranking member for any closing remarks he might
have.
Mr. Guthrie. Thank you very much. So we aren't doing
questions, just closing remarks, right?
Ms. DeGette. Well, you can do questions, whatever you want.
Mr. Guthrie. OK.
Ms. DeGette. It is your time.
Mr. Guthrie. Well, I will just close. So it is important
that we do this and have oversight. And we know that there have
been issues at the border. There has been crisis at the border.
I know, and I know what my friend Mr. McKinley was talking
about. People were even on the floor of the House and ``there
is not a crisis at the border,'' and the media, ``not a crisis
at the border,'' and there was. And so, we need to do
oversight. It is our job as Members of Congress to make sure
that things, that in our jurisdiction we have the oversight to
look to see, look forward and wanting to see what was the
problem, how do we solve the problem, and how can Congress help
solve the problem.
But the one thing that you want to see is that people are
trying to address the problem and not just let it linger until
Congress steps in and does something. And I think today,
hopefully, people see that there is a big effort to make sure
the problems that have happened at the BP facilities, at
getting them into ORR, tracking--or not tracking, but
understanding the data between the children--is really being,
is being addressed. So I really appreciate that.
I think also we need to look in a mirror. I think that we
talked about 72 hours, we talked about 50 days, and how long is
too long. I thought it was a little over 6 weeks, but I think,
Chief, you said 57 days from the time you requested
supplemental funding until the time it was approved by
Congress?
Mr. Modlin. Yes, sir, 57 days.
Mr. Guthrie. And I am not one to say we should have done it
on day 1. Congress has its duty to do due diligence and make
sure any budget request, particularly of that size, is
appropriate. But if we remember what happened in the spring, it
was brought forward, we went through the spring and all of--and
we had different debates on the floor, had appropriations bills
as Republicans tried motions to recommit.
The appropriate chairman and folks, people on the
Appropriations Committee would say, ``We know it is important
and we are going to do it, but not here, not here, not here.''
It kept lingering to the point where a group of Republicans
would hold time on the floor every day in June to do different
tactics to try to bring it to the attention. And it took to
right before the break for 4th of July for us to get a bill to
you say has made a major difference at the border.
So I think 57 days, 72 hours is--we want to get them out of
your facility sooner than 72 hours. We want them out of your
facility sooner than 50. But 57 days is way too long for
Congress to do its job to give you the resources you need to
make the improvements that you have made. And we appreciate
that, and I appreciate you being here and we still have a lot
of work to do, and we are willing to work with you to do it.
And I yield back.
Ms. DeGette. I thank the gentleman.
Chief Modlin, your career with the Border Patrol. Is that
right? You have been there a long time.
Mr. Hayes. Yes, ma'am, 24 years with the U.S. Border
Patrol.
Ms. DeGette. Twenty-four years, and I want to thank you for
your service. And I also want you to communicate to your agents
there at the border and your employees that we really
appreciate their service too. And what you are saying, when you
said they were bringing diapers from home and, you know, they
don't want to be thrust into this anymore than anybody else
does, and it is the same thing with the ORR personnel.
You know, when we had the family separation I went down and
I talked to some of those personnel, and they were just doing
their best. These rank-and-file folks, they are just doing
their best, and I understand that. You know, some people have
said, ``Well, the Democrats don't understand that. They think
that the Border Patrol are cruel.'' We do not think that at
all.
Mr. Modlin. Ma'am, if I could?
Ms. DeGette. Yes, go ahead.
Mr. Modlin. I will definitely bring that message back.
Ms. DeGette. Thank you.
Mr. Modlin. Because, as I know you are aware, there is
definitely a vilification of the Border Patrol.
Ms. DeGette. Right.
Mr. Modlin. What I can tell you is that more than 128
agents have died in the line of duty----
Ms. DeGette. You bet.
Mr. Modlin [continuing]. Protecting this country. Some of
those agents have died, they've drowned while trying to rescue
migrants from the Rio Grande.
Ms. DeGette. You are right.
Mr. Modlin. They've been run over by drug smugglers.
They've been shot by drug smugglers and TCOs. These are agents
that do everything every day and act professionally,
compassionately, and sacrifice. And they're willing to
sacrifice their lives for this country, for those migrants, for
to secure the----
Ms. DeGette. For human rights.
Mr. Modlin. So I do appreciate your words.
Ms. DeGette. And I agree. So, in your years with the Border
Patrol, I think you can agree--and I think, Commander White,
you would see this too--is we do have a historic waxing and
waning of the number of people presenting at the border. It
happens at the seasons, isn't that correct? Yes or no will
work.
Mr. Modlin. So there are certainly seasonal trends.
Ms. DeGette. Right.
Mr. Modlin. But these numbers have never been seen before.
Ms. DeGette. Right.
Mr. Modlin. This was not a seasonal trend.
Ms. DeGette. But we have the seasonal trends, so then we
saw these numbers. My colleagues on the other side of the aisle
keep talking about how we had a huge influx of unaccompanied
minors in 2014 under the Obama administration, so we have had
an uncertainty at the border now for about 5 years or more. And
I, myself, am not particularly interested in blaming, you know,
one person or another for this influx of people, but today I am
worried about the kids.
So then we keep hearing this continual bashing about 57
days for the emergency supplemental, but the fact is, this has
been going on for a long time. And what we need to develop, I
think what HHS needs to develop and what Homeland Security
needs to develop, is a policy that we can somehow deal with
these surges of children that come for whatever reason so that
the human rights of these children can be preserved.
And, Commander White, this is what you have been saying for
several years, and I want to commend you for saying that.
Irrespective of what is happening is, if you have kids that are
being held and for whatever reason they are separated from
their parents, they are being held without basic cleanliness or
anything, this is psychologically damaging in the long run, and
that is what the IG report shows.
So my concern is that we develop a policy that has
interoperability between the two departments so we can know how
to treat the kids that are in the Border Patrol custody and get
them transferred, but also so that we can keep them united with
their parents or whoever else so that they suffer as little
additional trauma as possible after what they have experienced,
and I think we should be able to do that on a bipartisan basis.
And so, this leads me to my last point, which is we have
got to get these documents, because we have been trying to
figure out for 8 months now--documents regarding how far up the
chain the knowledge of this family separation went.
Commander White, you saw in the notebook we have gotten
some documents that indicate that there was discussion of the
family separation for some months before it actually happened.
What we are trying to find out is how far up the chain this
knowledge went. And the fact that HHS has steadfastly refused
to provide those documents to this committee is really
disturbing, because we can't move forward until we know exactly
what happened.
And so, this is why I am going--Mr. Hayes, I am going to
make one more plea. I know you are not the person in charge of
this, but I am going to make one more plea. We have narrowed
the list down. We need it for investigation, and this is what
this committee's role is, and so we are going to keep pushing
ahead on this.
And I just want to say one last time, Commander White, I
want to commend you for your dedication to these children. I
know you have been as a career civil servant fighting for them
from day one, and this committee on both sides of the aisle, we
appreciate all of the service that you give to this country,
and we thank you and we hope you will continue to do that.
And last but not least, I want to ask unanimous consent
that the contents of the document binder be introduced into the
record and authorize staff to make appropriate redactions.
Without objection, so ordered.\1\
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\1\ The information has been retained in committee files and also
is available at https://docs.house.gov/Committee/Calendar/
ByEvent.aspx?EventID=109953.
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Ms. DeGette. I want to thank the witnesses for coming
today, and I want to remind Members that, pursuant to the
committee rules, they have 10 business days to submit
additional questions for the record to be answered by witnesses
who have appeared before the subcommittee. I ask that the
witnesses agree to respond promptly to such questions, and with
that the subcommittee is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:47 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
[Material submitted for inclusion in the record follows:]
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