Grassley Releases The Results Of His Investigation
A damning oversight revelation by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley has cast a stark light on the Biden administration’s handling of unaccompanied migrant children. According to Grassley’s findings, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), under the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), neglected over 65,000 reports tied to the care and placement of migrant minors. What’s worse—nearly 7,000 of these were suspected cases of human trafficking, and another 2,000 involved fraud.
This isn’t just a bureaucratic backlog. It’s a potential humanitarian catastrophe hidden in plain sight.
Grassley alleges that these reports—most of which were logged during President Joe Biden’s tenure—were either “ignored” or “dismissed,” often leaving children with unvetted, potentially dangerous sponsors. In some cases, background checks were loosened altogether, resulting in the placement of minors into unknown environments with little to no follow-up. Grassley’s findings are backed by an HHS admission from April, acknowledging the backlog and pledging to resolve it. Yet, the senator claims meaningful accountability never materialized.
ORR is digging through nearly 65,000 reports of concern about unaccompanied alien children — most ignored, many dismissed — each one a missed chance to protect a child. This isn’t just paperwork. This is a systemic failure of the Biden administration. It is children’s lives put…
— HHS.gov (@HHSGov) April 22, 2025
Since President Trump returned to office, Grassley reports that the new administration has made significant strides, processing over a quarter of these previously shelved cases and making dozens of arrests. The implication is clear: while Biden’s HHS turned a blind eye, Trump’s HHS is taking decisive action.
“My oversight exposed the Biden-Harris administration for placing unaccompanied migrant children with dangerous sponsors,” Grassley said in a statement. “I applaud the Trump administration for its swift action… I look forward to working with Secretary Kennedy to ensure justice is served.”
The human toll is staggering. Of the roughly half a million children who crossed the border under Biden’s watch, as many as 85,000 have gone missing—lost in the system after being handed over to sponsors, many of whom were never fully vetted. That number represents more than just administrative failure; it speaks to an institutional breakdown that has left tens of thousands of children vulnerable to trafficking, exploitation, and abuse.
Grassley also claims that the prior administration not only ignored the crisis but actively obstructed efforts to investigate it. In a letter to current HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., he blasted former Secretary Xavier Becerra’s team for instructing contractors and grantees to stonewall inquiries and reroute them to legislative liaisons who never responded.
“These aren’t just statistics,” Grassley warns. “Every one of those ignored reports was a missed chance to protect a child.”