The US has failed to protect many migrant children, a review has found

An independent government watchdog found serious deficiencies at the Department of Health and Human Services in protecting children who migrate to the United States on their own, according to a report released Thursday.

HHS, the federal agency responsible for caring for migrant children when they arrive alone, has repeatedly turned them over to adult sponsors in the United States without thorough vetting and has sometimes failed to conduct timely safety checks on children after they were released, said the report by the department's inspector general.

“I would describe these gaps as very serious,” said Haley Lubeck, the evaluation project leader. “We know that these children are particularly vulnerable to exploitation.”

The findings echoed New York Times reporting that screening of sponsors and other safeguards for migrant children failed during the early years of the Biden administration, when hundreds of thousands of children crossed the border amid an economic collapse in parts of Central America during the pandemic. Migrant children have ended up working in dangerous industrial jobs in violation of child labor laws across the country — in slaughterhouses, factories, construction sites and elsewhere, The Times found. Some have been seriously injured or killed.

The report will follow in June audit that HHS implemented in response to Times reporting that found many children living with strangers who expected or even forced them to work. That audit found that government officials had released more than 340 migrant children to adults who sponsored three or more children who were not family members.

In early 2021, record numbers of children began crossing the border faster than HHS could process them. With no more space in shelters, many children were left on cots in overcrowded tents, sparking public outrage. The Biden administration pressured staffers to get children out of shelters more quickly, and administration officials said they saw children being sent to adults who clearly intended to put them to work.

HHS should call all children one month after they begin living with adult sponsors. But data obtained by The Times showed the agency was unable to reach more than 85,000 children in two years. In Thursday's report, the inspector general found that HHS employees failed to make these calls in a timely manner in more than a fifth of cases and in some cases waited nearly a year.

In other cases, the investigation found, government officials skipped important safety checks, including investigating whether adults had abused children in the past, or ensuring that the addresses to which children were released were actual places of residence. In a third of cases, referees submitted illegible identification. In other cases, the agency sent children to sponsors without making mandatory home visits.

The report also found that some protective measures, including periodic reviews by case coordinators, were withdrawn when shelters were overcrowded.

One child who said he did not receive the mandatory follow-up call is Wander Nimajuan. He was 13 when he was released in 2022 to a man listed by HHS officials as an unrelated adult. His mother arranged for him to travel to the United States because the family was struggling in Guatemala. He said he expected to continue his studies in high school. Instead, his sponsor immediately put him to work.

Wander has spent the past two years working as a roofer, the country's most dangerous profession for young people outside of agriculture. “I would have liked to talk to someone,” he said.

An HHS spokesman, Jeff Nesbit, said the new report raised issues the agency had “already improved,” including through better policies and a joint task force with the Department of Labor. “These changes simultaneously prioritize the well-being and safety of children, while minimizing the time children spend in congregate care settings,” he said.

Over the past year, HHS has created a team focused on identifying cases of migrant child exploitation, committed to providing universal case management for children after they are released, and has begun offering free legal services to more children.

So is the Labor Department's inspector general look into how officials there have dealt with the recent increase in child labor.