WATCHDOG DETAILS DISTRESS OF MIGRANT CHILDREN

Unaccompanied migrant children held at a makeshift shelter in a Texas military base last year spent weeks without hearing any updates on their cases, causing distress, anxiety, and in some cases, panic attacks, according to an internal watchdog report released Tuesday.

 

A rapid staffing ramp up at Fort Bliss resulted in inexperienced and overworked case managers responsible for hundreds of children, many of whom ended up falling through the cracks, according to the report from the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General.

 

The report found that staffing shortages, high rates of turnover, and the large number of children onsite led to overloaded case managers during the spring of 2021, which contributed to delays in providing children with updates.

 

A large influx of unaccompanied children crossing the border in the spring of 2021 forced the Biden administration to open more than a dozen emergency intake facilities: unlicensed, temporary facilities designed to meet basic standards of care for children on a short-term basis.

 

Those inexperienced case managers also meant children were released into potentially unsafe situations.

 

“In some cases, release recommendations made by these inexperienced case managers reportedly failed to consider children’s significant history of abuse and neglect or whether sex offenders resided in the potential sponsor’s household,” the report found.