(DailyVantage.com) – A Department of Homeland Security internal watchdog sent on August 20 a report to Congress where it revealed that the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement misplaced tens of thousands of unaccompanied migrant children since 2019. The report detailed that these children were not only in the custody of the DHS but also of the Department of Health and Human Services.
The internal watchdog explained that while ICE transferred nearly 450,000 unaccompanied migrant children from the DHS to HHS, the agency failed to determine the location of the minors that were eventually released. The report added that ICE did report over 32,000 migrant minors who didn’t assist for their court hearings from fiscal years 2019 to 2023.
Despite what ICE did, the report said that even when their agents had the responsibility of overseeing the minors, it was impossible to permanently monitor their status and location after being released from HHS and DHS custody. The document was formally issued by US Inspector General Joseph Cuffari and was addressed to ICE Senior Official and Deputy Director Patrick Lechleitner.
Journalists on social media explained that the numbers showed by the internal watchdog could have been worse, and revealed that nearly 300,000 of these minors haven’t been properly marked for removal. Some of them explained that the reason behind that situation was that many ICE agents have regularly failed to assign immigration court dates and issue notices.
Over the last few years, ICE and the DHS have been criticized by many politicians in the country because of their inability to properly manage the large influx of immigrants coming from numerous countries around the world. The situation has led to many immigrants illegally staying in the country and being unable to be deported because of their unknown location.
Many political analysts and commentators have blamed the Biden administration for the migrant crisis that the country has been experiencing over the last four years. Some of them have explained that two of the main responsible has been not only Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas but also Vice President and presidential nominee Kamala Harris, who has been the so-called “border czar.”
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