HHS officials say they can't find 1,500 migrant kids they placed with U.S. sponsors

13.5.18

HHS officials say they can't find 1,500 migrant kids they placed with U.S. sponsors: Those sponsors “undergo a detailed background check,” and “workers at the department follow up with calls to ensure that the minors continue to live with the sponsors, are enrolled in school and are aware of their court dates.” But when officials tried to reach 7,635 children during a three-month period last year, officials found that not only had some two dozen of the kids run away and another 52 were living with non-sponsors, but that they “were unable to determine with certainty the whereabouts of 1,475 children.”

There’s several reasons why Central American unaccompanied minors come to our southern border in the first place. Some kids, orphaned and escaping drug cartels, gang violence and domestic abuse, leave on their own. Others are sent by their parents to escape violence. It’s a choice no parent should be forced to make, but when it’s a life-or-death situation, parents love their kids, and above all they want their kids to live: