House Judiciary Committee Issues Testimony From U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps
"Chairman Nadler, Ranking Member Collins, and members of the Committee, it is my honor to appear on behalf of the
"My name is
"In my testimony today, I will discuss aspects of the ORR program's policies and administration that I have been involved in since
"In my time at HHS, I have had the privilege of helping to oversee and support the grantees that provide the actual care for children, as well as the process of placing children with sponsors.
"More recently, I served as the Federal Health Coordinating Official (that is, the HHS operational lead) for the interagency mission to reunify children in ORR care as of
"I am proud of the work of our team on the reunification mission, and of the care provided every day in the UAC Program to unaccompanied alien children, who are some of the most vulnerable children in our hemisphere.
"About the Program
"ORR is responsible for the care and temporary custody of UAC who are referred to ORR by other federal agencies. ORR does not apprehend migrants at the border or enforce the immigration laws. Those functions are performed by
"The Homeland Security Act of 2002 (HSA) and the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008 (TVPRA), as amended, govern the ORR program. So do certain provisions of the Flores Settlement Agreement (FSA).
"As defined by the Homeland Security Act, if a child under the age of 18 with no lawful immigration status is apprehended by another federal agency, and no parent or legal guardian is available in
"UAC shelters provide housing, nutrition, routine medical care, mental health services, educational services, and recreational activities such as arts and sports. They provide an environment on par with facilities in the child welfare system that house
"The exception is ORR's temporary hard sided influx care facility in
"The UAC program bed capacity has expanded and contracted over the years, driven by fluctuations in the number of children referred and the average time children remain in ORR care. To respond to these fluctuations, HHS has developed processes for bringing both permanent and temporary UAC housing capacity online as needed. HHS has a bed capacity framework with grant and contract mechanisms that provide standard permanent bed capacity, with the ability to quickly add temporary beds, which provides the capability to accommodate changing flows.
"The fluctuations in the numbers of children in care are significant. Currently, HHS maintains about
"13,000 beds. This is up from 6,500 beds on
"HHS cares for all UAC until they are released to a suitable sponsor, almost always a parent or close relative, while they await immigration proceedings. These children also leave HHS care if they return to their home countries, turn 18 years of age, or gain legal immigration status.
Current State of the Program
"In fiscal year (FY) 2018, 49,100 children were referred to ORR by
"In FY 2018, 92% percent of ORR's referred children came from
"In FY 2018, children typically stayed in ORR custody for 60 days; so far, in FY 2019, the average length of care has been 89 days, although we expect this average to decline throughout the remainder of the fiscal year. In FY 2018, ORR released 86% percent of children to a sponsor: 42% percent were parents; 47% percent were close relatives such as an aunt, uncle, grandparent, or adult sibling; and 11% percent were more distant relatives or non-relatives such as a family friend. In FY 2019, of those children discharged from ORR custody, 89% percent of children were released to individual sponsors and of those sponsors: 46% percent were parents, 45% percent were close relatives, and 9% percent were more distant relatives or non-relatives.
Operational Implementation of Executive Order (EO) 13841 and the Ms. L. Court Orders
"The President issued EO 13841 on
"On
"Shortly after the Ms. L. Court issued its orders, the Secretary directed HHS--and the IMT in particular-- to take all reasonable actions to comply. The orders require the reunification of children in ORR care as of
"The IMT faced a formidable challenge at the start of this mission. On the one hand, ORR knew the identity and location of every one of the more than 11,800 children in ORR care as of
"On the other hand, ORR had never conducted a forensic data analysis to satisfy the new requirements set forth in the Court's orders, much less aggregated such rigorous, individualized data analyses into a unified list. As a result, our first task was to identify and develop a list of the children in ORR care who were possible children of potential Ms. L. class members.
Identification of possible children of potential Ms. L. class members
"HHS worked closely with
"The interagency data team analyzed more than 60 sets of aggregated data from CBP and ICE, as well as the individualized case management records for children on the ORR UAC Portal. Collectively, hundreds of HHS personnel reviewed the case management records for every child in ORR care as of
"The data analysis that yielded the initial list of 2,654 possible children of potential class members was dependent on the information that was available at the time of the analysis.
"Going forward, ORR continued to amass new information about the children in ORR care through the case management process. The new information that ORR amassed between July and
"Similarly, the new case management information that ORR amassed between July and
"As a result of the addition of 162 total children through re-categorization, the current reporting of 2,816 possible children of potential Ms. L. class members to the Ms. L. Court is accurate. That is, we have fully accounted for such children who were in ORR care as of
"It is important to understand that ORR knew the identity, location, and clinical condition of all 162 recategorized children at all times during their stays with ORR. The re-categorizations were for the Ms. L. litigation, not clinical reasons. They did not affect the care the children received from ORR.
"Indeed, HHS did not "lose" any children at all. The HHS Inspector General found no evidence to the contrary. ORR can determine the location of every child in care at any moment by accessing the UAC Portal case management system. We always know where every child in the care of ORR is.
Reunification of Ms. L. class members with their children
"Generally, ORR has a process for releasing UAC to parents or other sponsors that is designed to comply with the HSA, the TVPRA, and the FSA. This process ensures the care and safety of UAC referred to ORR by
"Working in close partnership with colleagues in ICE, DOJ, and the
"Absent red flags that would lead to specific doubts about parentage or about child safety, adults in ICE custody were transported to reunification locations run by ICE, where deployed field teams from HHS interviewed them. During the interviews, HHS sought verbal confirmation of parentage and the desire to reunify, and after that, HHS transported the child for physical reunification with the parent in ICE custody. Some reunified family units remained in ICE family detention, while others were released by ICE to the community, after connecting them with nonprofits serving immigrant families.
"For children whose parents had been in ICE custody but had been released to the interior of
"For parents who had departed
"their home countries, and provided contact information for all the parents to the
"Of the 2,816 children reported to the Ms. L. Court, as of this morning we have reunified 2,155 with the parent from whom they were separated. Another 568 children have left ORR care through other appropriate discharges--in most cases, release to a family sponsor such as the other parent, a sibling, an aunt or uncle, a grandparent, a more distant relative, or a family friend.
"Of the 2,816 children reported to the Ms. L. Court, there are 21 children still in ORR care who were separated but cannot be reunified with their parent, because ORR has made a final determination that the parent meets the criteria for exclusion from the class or is not eligible for reunification. That is, the parent has a criminal history, or the parent is otherwise unfit or poses an unacceptable risk to the safety and well-being of the child, such as when a case file review shows that the child has made credible allegations of abuse by the parent. There are 44 children still in ORR care whose parents are outside the
"As of this morning, of the 2,816 children reported to the Ms. L. Court, there are six children who HHS cannot reunify unless there is either a change in the parent's status, or the parent conveys to us their wishes through
"Like everyone on the team that worked for months to identify and then reunify the separated children, I look forward to the day when we can say that all of those children are back with their families.
"As I indicated earlier in my testimony, the 2,816 children reported to the Ms. L. Court do not include all children who have ever been separated at the border by
"There were, without any doubt, other children who were separated from their parent(s) at the border by
"probably parents or close relatives. To the extent it is even possible to count such children, HHS has not tried to do so because HHS has only limited resources and such a count would not help HHS fulfill any current UAC program requirements. Moreover, HHS has no jurisdiction over the children once they are discharged to sponsors, and, except in very limited circumstances, intervention by HHS after discharge would not serve a child welfare interest.
In Closing
"ORR's UAC Program provides care and services to UAC every day. At HHS, we are proud of the work we do to provide that care to children consistent with laws and court decisions, and consistent with the values of Americans about how we take care of children in crisis. In the case of this distinct population of children separated from their parents following
"Our program's mission is a child welfare mission, and we seek to serve the best interest of each individual child. This has guided us also in our work to get each separated child back in his or her parent's arms, or discharged safely to another sponsor where that is the parent's wish or where the parent poses a danger to the child. We have done our best as a department to achieve that goal.
"Thank you, and I will be happy to answer any questions you may have."
[TheHill]
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