Separated Without Hope: HHS Reports What Happened To Refugee Children
We now know that the Trump administration ordered that children be separated from their parents at the southwest border long before the official policy was announced. This happened even as Homeland Security secretary Kirstjen Nielsen tweeted that the US was not separating children from their families. The HHS report issued this past week documents the chaos in which children were removed. Forms did not have a place to name the family members from whom the children were separated. No tracking information was taken that could reunite the families. Children were not properly tracked let alone their family connections.
Separated children were placed under the care of the Office of Refugee Resettlement, a division within HSS. According to the report, “Federal law requires the safe and timely placement of UAC (unaccompanied children) in the least restrictive setting that is in the best interest of the child.” The best interest of the child apparently does not include reunification with family members.
The Washington Post reported “In June, HHS’s refugee office opened a giant tent city in Tornillo, Tex., to house the ballooning number of migrant children, and more than 6,000 passed through it. After repeated complaints, including concerns of inadequate background checks for the staff, HHS officials said last week that they had moved out all the children and were closing it down.” The majority of children crossing the border are unaccompanied and they have been held in inappropriate settings, including those that fail to conduct staff background checks. The additional cruelties imposed on separated children reflect the worst of who we are.