Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) revealed unaccompanied migrant children were placed in a household linked with the gang MS-13.
Records from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), obtained through whistleblower disclosures from former staff members of the Unaccompanied Children (UC) program, revealed that HHS knowingly placed two migrant children in an MS-13-associated household.
“HHS, Congress and the American people must face the facts: HHS’ UC program has glaring defects that are harming innocent children,” Grassley said in a statement. He explained the records “are the kind the government fights tooth and nail to withhold from the public, and they ought to send a chill up every person’s spine.”
“I’m not going to stop fighting until the UC program is fixed, and HHS and its contractors end their obstruction and fully respond to my oversight requests. I’m also doing everything in my power to ensure federal law enforcement leaves no stone unturned in the pursuit of justice for lost and abused unaccompanied kids.”
According to the records, an HHS UC staff member attempted to “intervene in the transfer of a female unaccompanied minor to a sponsor who formerly maintained a romantic partnership with an MS-13 gang member. HHS officials dismissed concerns regarding the sponsor’s MS-13 ties and transferred the girl to the flagged sponsor the following day.”
“Records further document the staff member’s repeated follow-up attempts to prevent the sponsor’s unaccompanied minor son from being sent to the same household,” the release states. “The boy’s father was an official member of the MS-13 gang and had received a lengthy prison sentence for gang-related crimes. According to records and supporting whistleblower statements, HHS again rejected the staff member’s flags and transferred the boy.”
Grassley previously alerted the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to possible labor and sex trafficking operations following HHS UC placements.
Unaccompanied migrant children were placed with poorly vetted sponsors, according to whistleblower disclosures.
In one instance, more than fifty migrant children were “sent to the same address,” Grassley’s office revealed. “Many sponsors submitted seemingly fraudulent documents in an attempt to prove their relationship with the children they acquired.”
According to HHS data last updated on July 5, 74,789 unaccompanied migrant children were released into the United States between October 2023 and May 2024. More than 9,700 children have been sent to sponsors in Texas.
