Tom McClintock

20/11/2024 | News release | Distributed by Public on 21/11/2024 17:15

Chairman McClintock Opening Statement Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement

"Today, the subcommittee meets to conduct oversight into the activities of the Office of Refugee Resettlement administered by the Department of Health and Human Services. We welcome HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra to answer questions we have arising from his administration of this Office.
"I think we would all agree that if a child shows up lost and alone on your doorstep, you have a moral obligation to find out where that child lives and return him safely home. The last thing any decent person would do is to take that child to a stranger's house and leave him there. Yet it appears this is exactly what this administration has been doing for the last four years.
"In just four years, this administration has deliberately allowed 7.6 million illegal aliens to enter the United States, releasing more than 5.7 million illegal aliens into the country while more than 1.9 million known "gotaways" evaded apprehension -- an illegal population larger than the state of Arizona, our fourteenth largest state.
"Among them have been an estimated 530,000 unaccompanied alien minors. That's about the entire population of Wyoming.
"Instead of protecting these children until they could be returned safely home or until their rightful families could be located, HHS deliberately circumvented protocols designed to protect these children and abandoned them to poorly vetted sponsors in the United States. The House Judiciary Committee estimates that roughly 150,000 of these children have now disappeared. They have simply vanished into a dark underworld of sex and drug trafficking, forced labor, gang activity, and crime.
"Of course, many are not helpless children, but rather teenagers or adults posing as teenagers who themselves present a mortal danger to the public.
"Take the case of Walter Javier Martinez. He was transferred to the Office of Refugee Resettlement as an unaccompanied alien child, despite a previous arrest in El Salvador for "illicit association" with MS-13. One call to Salvadoran authorities would have confirmed this. Maryland authorities later noted that he had gang tattoos. Instead, Martinez was released into our country no questions asked, and on July 27, 2022, he brutally attacked and killed Kayla Hamilton who was sound asleep in her own bed. While the prime suspect in her murder, Martinez was placed in a foster home with other children and enrolled in a local high school. He has since admitted to four murders, two rapes, and additional other crimes.
"Or Juan Carlos Garcia Rodriguez from Guatemala, also fast-tracked into our country by Mr. Becerra as an unaccompanied alien child and released to an unrelated sponsor who was himself an illegal alien. On August 12, 2023, he murdered 11-year-old Maria Gonzalez in her own home, wrapped her body in a trash bag, and stashed it under her bed, for her father to find.
"We don't know how many more such monsters are among the 150,000 unaccompanied alien minors that HHS has lost track of, or how many helpless children have been abducted and exploited. But we are slowly finding out, tragedy by preventable tragedy.
"What we do know is that in 2021, Mr. Becerra removed the requirement that ORR provide biographic and biometric data for all adult members of a sponsor's household to check for criminal histories. What could possibly go wrong?
"Records produced by a whistleblower show that in 2021 HHS disregarded repeated warnings by a case manager about the MS-13 affiliation of one sponsor attempting to take custody of two unaccompanied alien children.
"According to the New York Times, Secretary Becerra berated employees for not processing minors fast enough, saying -- quote -- "If Henry Ford had seen this in his plant, he would have never become famous and rich. This is not the way you do an assembly line."

"In July 2021 concerned employees drafted a memo warning that "labor trafficking was increasing" and complaining that the agency had become "one that rewards individuals for making quick releases, and not one that rewards individuals for preventing unsafe releases." According to press reports, Becerra told then-ORR Director Cindy Huang that - quote -- "if she could not increase the number of discharges, he would find someone who could." Huang resigned a month later.

"The American people have already passed judgment on these policies in the recent election. But those responsible have much to answer for to the victims of their policies and to history. And we welcome the Secretary here today to account for his actions."


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House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement hearing held Wednesday, November 20, 2024. The hearing, "Oversight of the Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Refugee Resettlement," examined the agency's failures, including fast-tracking the release of gang-affiliated and criminal unaccompanied alien children (UACs). The hearing also examined the agency's prioritization of speed over safety in the placement of UACs with sponsors, resulting in HHS losing track of an estimated 150,000 UACs since January 20, 2021.

Hearing Witness: Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra