Feds can’t say how many children were separated at border: IG

The government can’t say how many illegal immigrant children were separated from their parents at the border over the years, but the number is in the thousands in just the last two years, according to a new inspector general’s report Thursday.

The situation is so messy that more than five months after a federal judge ordered reunifications of children with their parents, the government is still finding juveniles who were missing and should have been reunited, according to the Department of Health and Human Services’ inspector general.

At least 2,737 children have been identified as having been separated, but the audit found others who were left off the lists in 2017 and 2018. Shoddy record-keeping and lack of standards and transparency make it impossible to know exact numbers.

The findings are another black eye for the now-defunct “zero tolerance” border policy, which the White House has blamed on former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, and which saw illegal immigrants criminally prosecuted for jumping the border.

In cases involving parents and children, prosecution of the parents meant they were taken to adult jails — and their children were taken from them, were declared “unaccompanied,” and were put into the health department’s population with tens of thousands of other children who actually were unaccompanied.

A public outcry and a legal battle ensued, and the Trump administration caved, ending the zero tolerance policy and accepting a judge’s order that families be speedily reunited.

But that turned out to be tougher than expected because the government couldn’t track which children were separated.

“In June of 2018, no centralized system existed to identify, track, or connect families separated by DHS,” the inspector general concluded.

That finding directly contradicts an assertion the Department of Homeland Security made last summer that such a system did exist and that no children were falling through the cracks.

In reality, Homeland Security and Health and Human Services had to invest in a massive effort to try to synchronize their files and figure out who had been separated and whether their parents were still in the country to be reunited.

Even late last year, after the zero tolerance policy had been canceled, some children were still being separated, with the inspector general counting 118 juveniles from July 1 through early November.

About half of those were separated because of a parent’s illness, criminal history or danger to a child. But the inspector general said in dozens of cases little information was provided to justify those decisions.

“The total number and current status of all children separated from their parents or guardians by DHS and referred to [the Office of Refugee Resettlement’s] care is unknown,” the audit concluded.

Sen. Richard Durbin, Illinois Democrat, said it was “inconceivable” the government can’t figure out how many children have been separated.

“Today’s bombshell report reveals the true scope of this horrific policy: that thousands of children were forcibly removed from their parents before the policy was made public and the fate of these children is still unknown,” he said.

HHS and its Office of Refugee Resettlement, which is charged with caring for the children, says it has “accounted publicly” for all children who were in its care as of June 26, when a judge ordered the reunifications to begin.

HHS and ORR said the inspector general’s report went beyond the judge’s rulings, which accounts for why the total number of separated children is not known.

“Counting prior DHS separations would take away from ORR’s primary focus on caring for the children currently in ORR care and promptly discharging them to appropriate sponsors,” the department said.

HHS said the report proves it didn’t lose track of any children, though the department acknowledged “challenges” in identifying which children fell into the separated category.