The problem with the narrative about 1,500 children "lost" by US immigration authorities
It certainly sounds bad. The US government has lost track of 1,475 undocumented immigrant children; an official admitted as much during a Senate committee hearing last month. Fairly, that admission has spurred widespread demand for more agency accountability.
The problem, as the Washington Post notes (paywall), is that many of those missing kids may well be with their parents or families, and they may have gone off the grid deliberately to avoid Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) authorities. Tracking them down could end up endangering more children and families.
The “1,500 children” figure, now in wide circulation, comes from an official with the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), who testified last month about children who had arrived at the Mexico-US border without parents and were transferred into ORR custody. In a survey of 7,635 children ORR had placed with adult sponsors, contacted by the agency between October and December of last year, 6,075 were still living with their sponsors, 28 had run away, five had been deported, and 52 were living with someone else. The rest—1,475—were missing.
There are four levels of sponsors, according to ORR policy, beginning with parents, then siblings and close relatives, then distant relatives or unrelated adults, and finally willing strangers or agencies. Potential sponsors, once identified, must apply for unification with the child and provide evidence of a relationship. If the applicant is approved, the child is released. The ORR tries not to hold kids extensively, and data from 2015 show that children spent an average of 34 days in custody before joining a sponsor.
https://qz.com/1290662/1500-children-were-lost-by-us-immigration-authorities-but-theres-a-problem-with-that-narrative/
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