U.S. Senate Blames Health & Human Services for Abuse Towards Migrant Children in Foster Homes

Two U.S. senators have blamed the government for the serious abuses suffered by undocumented migrant children in safe houses.

At a congressional hearing, Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill accused the Department of Health and Human Services for the unsafe housing of "vulnerable and traumatized minors," which mostly came from Central America. These children were reportedly "abused by their sponsors, or forced to engage in backbreaking labor for little or no pay, while being housed in unsanitary and dangerous conditions," EFE reported (via Fox News Latino).

HHS is in charge of finding safe homes in which to house the children while the justice system determines if they will be allowed to remain in the United States, the news outlet noted.

McCaskill and Ohio Sen. Rob Portman's investigation revealed that the minors were exploited by criminals both sexually and at work, EFE further reported. In the report, the senators said that 13 minors were victims of people smuggling and another 15 could be abused. However, they stressed out that it is impossible to determine the total number of victims because the HHS is unable to follow the cases.

"HHS placed one 16-year-old with a sponsor who claimed to be her cousin. In fact, he was completely unrelated to her and had paid for her to come to the U.S . . . The minor . . . was forced to have sex with her sponsor," said McCaskill, as quoted by EFE.

During the inquiry's six-month course, the government was found to have failed to conduct the most basic checks on the adults entrusted with caring for the minors, Chicago Tribune wrote. The government is said to be swamped with the surge of tens of thousands of children crossing the border to escape violence and economic crisis in Central America.

Plenty of adult sponsors didn't go through extensive background checks, the news outlet continued. Government officials didn't visit homes and at times, didn't know that adult sponsors are in custody of several unrelated children, which is a possible sign of human trafficking.

Majority of the cases indicated by the senators were labor-related. Both McCaskill and Portman, who serves as the chairman of the Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, accused the HHS of having "failed to address systematic deficiencies in their placement process," the news outlet noted.

At the hearing, HHS officials said that the Congress didn't grant them legal authority to conduct follow-ups on the children's status, Chicago Tribune reported. That response angered both Democratic and Republican senators, who complained about the officials' incomplete answers and failure to take full responsibility for the children who suffered abuses.