The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has lost track of tens of thousands of unaccompanied minors after they were smuggled over the border by illegal aliens, a bombshell new report has revealed.
The Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Office of Inspector General (OIG) sent a report to Congress on Tuesday that outlines the findings.
The report from the DHS watchdog is titled: “Management Alert – ICE Cannot Monitor All Unaccompanied Migrant Children Released from DHS and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Custody.”
The interim report warns that over the past five years, more than 32,000 unaccompanied migrant children [UCs] are no longer accounted for by ICE.
Border officials often encounter children who have been abandoned by illegal aliens at the border.
By posing as families, illegals have more success when illegally entering the country if they travel with children.
However, those children could be abducted or part of a child trafficking operation and are often unrelated to the illegal border-crossing adults.
Once the illegal aliens are safely onto U.S. soil, the child is cast aside, despite the risk to the minor’s safety.
If the child is lucky, they are picked up by border officials who find them wandering.
The internal watchdog reported:
“During our ongoing audit to assess ICE’s ability to monitor the location and status of UCs who were released or transferred from the custody of the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), we learned ICE transferred more than 448,000 UCs to HHS from fiscal years 2019 to 2023.”
“However, ICE was not able to account for the location of all UCs who were released by HHS and did not appear as scheduled in immigration court.
“ICE reported more than 32,000 UCs failed to appear for their immigration court hearings from FYs 2019 to 2023.”
A large portion of these unaccounted migrant children is a consequence of individuals failing to appear at immigration court hearings after being released from government custody.
“Despite its responsibilities for overseeing UCs [unaccompanied migrant children] through the immigration process, we found ICE cannot always monitor the location and status of UCs once they were released from DHS and HHS custody,” the report states.
“Even though OPLA issued new guidance to verify the location of UCs who failed to appear for their court hearings and improve coordination with HHS, we found ICE often neither followed this guidance nor issued corresponding guidance for its officers in the field,” the report continued.
The report was issued by Inspector General Joseph Cuffari and addressed to Patrick Lechleitner, ICE Deputy Director and Senior Official.
The numbers could be even worse than documented, however.
According to the watchdog’s findings, approximately 291,000 unaccompanied migrant children have not yet been marked for removal proceedings because ICE has routinely failed to schedule immigration court dates and serve notices.
The DHS and ICE have come under intense scrutiny under the Biden-Harris administration.
The inability of federal agencies to manage the influx of migrants from South America has led to individuals slipping through the cracks.
https://slaynews.com/news/ice-lost-tens-thousands-unaccompanied-minors-smuggled-border-dhs-inspector-general-reveals/
No comments:
Post a Comment