Gotta re-establish the child-trafficking supply lines.
Gotta re-establish the child-trafficking supply lines.
The Biden administration is not requiring FBI fingerprint background checks of caregivers at its rapidly expanding network of emergency sites to hold thousands of migrant children not accompanied by an adult, alarming child welfare experts who say the waiver compromises safety.
In the rush to get as many unsupervised foreign children in the country as possible, as quickly as possible, President Joe Biden is turning to tent camps, convention centers and other huge facilities operated by private contractors and funded by U.S. Health and Human Services. In March alone, the Biden administration announced it will open eight new internment sites across the Southwest adding 15,000 new beds, more than doubling the size of its existing system.
These emergency sites don't have to be licensed by state authorities or provide the same services as permanent HHS facilities. They also cost far more, an estimated $775 per child per day.
And to staff the sites quickly, the Biden administration has waived vetting procedures intended to protect minors from potential harm.
Staff and volunteers directly caring for children at new emergency sites don't have to undergo FBI fingerprint checks, which use criminal databases not accessible to the public and can overcome someone changing their name or using a false identity.
Laura Nodolf, the district attorney in Midland, Texas, where HHS opened an emergency site this month, said that without fingerprint checks, “we truly do not know who the individual is who is providing direct care.”
“That’s placing the children under care of HHS in the path, potentially, of a sex offender,” Nodolf said. "They are putting these children in a position of becoming potential victims.”
“Failure to check fingerprints of frontline facility staff exposes vulnerable migrant children to a significant danger of physical and sexual abuse,” she said.
The Biden administration has gathered 18,000 children and teenagers in its custody, a figure that has risen almost daily over the last several weeks. Biden has declined to reinstate expulsions of unaccompanied immigrant children.
More than 5,000 youths are in border custody, many of them in a South Texas tent facility with limited space, food and access to the outdoors. But Border Patrol is apprehending hundreds more minors than HHS is releasing every day — a difference of 325 just on Thursday.
At the downtown Dallas convention center, one of HHS' emergency sites, almost all of its 2,300 beds were filled just one week after it opened this month.
Tornillo and Homestead were sharply criticized by Democrats and child welfare experts who warned of the potential trauma of detaining thousands of teenagers without adequate support.
Volunteers from the American Red Cross provided care at the first two emergency HHS sites, a converted camp for oil workers in Midland, Texas, and the Dallas convention center. Those volunteers are now being phased out.
The Red Cross and HHS for several days refused to acknowledge that the volunteers weren’t given FBI fingerprint checks.
Leecia Welch, an attorney for the nonprofit National Center for Youth Law who monitors the treatment of immigrant children, said lawyers would pay “close attention to whether this temporary waiver becomes standard operating practice.”
The Biden administration is not requiring FBI fingerprint background checks of caregivers at its rapidly expanding network of emergency sites to hold thousands of migrant children not accompanied by an adult, alarming child welfare experts who say the waiver compromises safety.
In the rush to get as many unsupervised foreign children in the country as possible, as quickly as possible, President Joe Biden is turning to tent camps, convention centers and other huge facilities operated by private contractors and funded by U.S. Health and Human Services. In March alone, the Biden administration announced it will open eight new internment sites across the Southwest adding 15,000 new beds, more than doubling the size of its existing system.
These emergency sites don't have to be licensed by state authorities or provide the same services as permanent HHS facilities. They also cost far more, an estimated $775 per child per day.
And to staff the sites quickly, the Biden administration has waived vetting procedures intended to protect minors from potential harm.
Staff and volunteers directly caring for children at new emergency sites don't have to undergo FBI fingerprint checks, which use criminal databases not accessible to the public and can overcome someone changing their name or using a false identity.
Laura Nodolf, the district attorney in Midland, Texas, where HHS opened an emergency site this month, said that without fingerprint checks, “we truly do not know who the individual is who is providing direct care.”
“That’s placing the children under care of HHS in the path, potentially, of a sex offender,” Nodolf said. "They are putting these children in a position of becoming potential victims.”
“Failure to check fingerprints of frontline facility staff exposes vulnerable migrant children to a significant danger of physical and sexual abuse,” she said.
The Biden administration has gathered 18,000 children and teenagers in its custody, a figure that has risen almost daily over the last several weeks. Biden has declined to reinstate expulsions of unaccompanied immigrant children.
More than 5,000 youths are in border custody, many of them in a South Texas tent facility with limited space, food and access to the outdoors. But Border Patrol is apprehending hundreds more minors than HHS is releasing every day — a difference of 325 just on Thursday.
At the downtown Dallas convention center, one of HHS' emergency sites, almost all of its 2,300 beds were filled just one week after it opened this month.
Tornillo and Homestead were sharply criticized by Democrats and child welfare experts who warned of the potential trauma of detaining thousands of teenagers without adequate support.
Volunteers from the American Red Cross provided care at the first two emergency HHS sites, a converted camp for oil workers in Midland, Texas, and the Dallas convention center. Those volunteers are now being phased out.
The Red Cross and HHS for several days refused to acknowledge that the volunteers weren’t given FBI fingerprint checks.
Leecia Welch, an attorney for the nonprofit National Center for Youth Law who monitors the treatment of immigrant children, said lawyers would pay “close attention to whether this temporary waiver becomes standard operating practice.”
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