The tumult over the Trump administration’s decision to unilaterally separate undocumented immigrant families may have somewhat subsided, but that doesn’t mean issues have ceased. In addition to the thousands of children who were taken from their parents or guardians upon making it to the U.S., the Trump administration has kept thousands upon thousands of other children in detention, many of whom arrived to the border alone.
Now, they say that they’ve been unable to account for around 1,500 of those children, adding yet another grievance to the list of advocates’ issues with government policy.
The 1,488 children in question were released to sponsors at some point earlier this year, but when doing follow-up checks, the Department of Health and Human Services ran into some kind of brick wall and could not determine where the children were, let alone whether or not they were safe. HHS has insisted that their failures aren’t cause for alarm — but their failures remain failures anyway and open the door to a whole host of calamities, including the children falling into the hands of human traffickers.
The newest report of 1,488 children unable to be accounted for comes months after a similar report of 1,475 “missing” immigrant children.
In the face of the confusion, lawmakers have proposed measures like forcing the government to run background checks on those they’re handing children over to — because apparently that’s not a thing already, for some reason. How those lawmaker efforts will pan out remains to be seen, while the Trump administration keeps chugging along its fiercely anti-immigrant path.
Featured Image via YouTube screenshot
