“Over 300,000” unaccompanied migrant children have been released into the United States over the past three years, rather than returned to their home countries, Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra testified Wednesday in Congress.
Becerra quoted the numbers while speaking to the Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Appropriations Subcommittee about his department’s budget for 2025, when he was asked about the numbers of children released, including those going to unrelated adults, reports The Washington Examiner.
However, he would not provide a number when Rep. Andrew Clyde, R-Ga., asked him how many of the children the HHS followed up on after they were released to sponsors.
“It’s not a statutory obligation, but we make a commitment to try to follow up with every child that we place with at least three phone calls to this child and three phone calls to this sponsor,” Becerra said.
The figures he shared were in line with the HHS website reports that 392,000 children were released to sponsors since October 2020, including the last four months of former President Donald Trump’s administration.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection data shows more than 464,000 unaccompanied minors were apprehended at the border between the first month President Joe Biden was in office in 2021 through Jan. 2024, with many arriving after the Department of Homeland Security decided not to send children back to Mexico as the Trump administration did during the pandemic.
Click here to read the full story at Newsmax.
