Lankford Raises Red Flags on HHS Allowing Human Trafficking at US-Mexico Border

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WASHINGTON, DC – Senator James Lankford (R-OK) today attended a roundtable hosted by Senators Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Bill Cassidy (R-LA), and Ron Johnson (R-WI) entitled “The Exploitation Crisis: How the US Government is Failing to Protect Migrant Children from Trafficking and Abuse. The roundtable was focused on examining the failures of the Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Unaccompanied Children (UC) Program, which has allowed thousands of vulnerable migrant children to be trafficked in the US.

Lankford and Grassley introduced a Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution of disapproval to strike down the Biden Administration’s rule endangering the safety and wellbeing of unaccompanied alien children. The CRA would force meaningful reforms to the government’s Unaccompanied Children (UC) Program. Lankford and Grassley last year also called on HHS’ Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) to overhaul its harmful and deficient policies governing the agency’s treatment of unaccompanied alien children in the US.

Witnesses included HHS UC Program whistleblowers, as well as Florida Department of Children and Families Secretary Shevaun Harris and criminology expert Dr. Jarrod Sadulski.

Excerpt

Lankford: Right now, we are fighting our own government to be able to get basic information to be able to protect and value children. It’s bizarre to even say this out loud—that we’re having to be able to fight this Administration to stop facilitating human trafficking in our own country. But for some reason they don’t want the photo of the crowd on the southern border. It’s easier to just distribute children nation-wide, and to who-knows-what, so they don’t have a bad photo-op at the border. So, better politically for them—worse for these kids by far.

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