At the office of Refugee Resettlement, the agency within HHS that manages the UAC program, a Notification of Concern is "An instrument used by home study and PRS providers, ORR care providers, and the ORR National Call Center staff to document and notify ORR of certain concerns that arise after a child is released from ORR care and custody." CIS believes the disclosure of these Notifications of Concern will provide Congress, policymakers, and the public with information needed to understand the themes and trends regarding the severity, frequency, and geographic locations of unaccompanied alien children experiencing harms or risk to their lives and safety.
CIS believes the disclosure of these requested records will provide the public, including law enforcement and policymakers, with the information to know whether there are any themes and trends regarding the frequency and geographic locations of the more than 85,000 "Missing" UACs.
CIS believes the disclosure of these requested records will provide Congress, policymakers, and the public with the information to know the level of care that was supposed to be provided to UACs under the contracts, who was responsible for providing that care, and the associated liabilities for failing to provide the set level of care.
In 2023, HHS and its subcomponent, ORR, were at the center of many controversies regarding their involvement in the Unaccompanied Children Program, which is supposed to provide adequate care to hundreds of thousands of UACs who illegally entered the United States.
Under the Unaccompanied Children Program, HHS is responsible for sheltering, providing care, and ultimately finding and vetting "Sponsors" to take custody of the UACs as their immigration status is adjudicated.
Caseworkers within ORR claim that HHS regularly ignored obvious signs of labor exploitation, such as single sponsors sponsoring multiple UACs, "Hot spots" in the country where many UAC sponsors are not the children's parents, UACs with significant debts, and direct reports of trafficking.
Records have been produced showing HHS was aware that private contractors, responsible for the physical transfer of UACs to their respective sponsors, were failing to properly check the identity of the alleged sponsor before releasing the UACs into their custody.
https://cis.org/Farnsworth/During-Human-Trafficking-Prevention-Month-CIS-Sues-HHS-UAC-Records
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