Here’s How the Government Managed to Lose Track of 1,500 Migrant Children
Once a child is released to a parent or a sponsor—and very often a sponsor is somebody who is not in any way related to the child—ORR does very little to no follow-up. ORR’s position is that they no longer have any responsibility for that child. In most cases, they will do a follow-up phone call to check in. If there is no answer or if there is a problem that is uncovered by that phone call, I think they said [at the hearing] they may call child protective services. But other than that they don’t do anything. As a result, they have numerous cases where they have identified that that child is either no longer in that house or not reachable, but they have done nothing to follow up.