Majority Of Employees At Child Migrant Facilities Were Not Vetted For Child Abuse Or Sex Offenses, IG Report Claims

The serious strain on the southern border, which has remained open since Biden took over, led to emergency holding facilities being opened by the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) to accommodate the huge influx of child migrants. An Investigator General (IG) report on said facilities reveals that these sites have been lax in vetting some of their own employees for child abuse, neglect, and sexual offenses, according to Just the News. 

The Office of Inspector General within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) performs its audit of various border-related facilities by conducting "site visits at 1 ICF [influx care facility] and 10 of the 14 EISs [emergency intake sites] in 3 States in May and June 2021. The 11 sites were fully operational at the time of our audit start. Across the 11 sites, we reviewed background checks for 259 employees, and across the 10 EISs, we reviewed background checks for 89 detailed Federal employees to verify that required background checks were conducted."

The report noted that "[i]n addition, we reviewed background checks for a sample of 10 drivers and 20 transportation specialists associated with a contract ORR entered into for transportation services. Finally, during our site visits of the ICF and 10 EISs, we assessed procedures in place to control access to the facilities."

The Office of Inspector General through its audit found that "For some employees, ORR's ICF and EISs did not conduct or document all required background checks or did not conduct the checks in a timely manner. In addition, ORR did not require the transportation services contractor we reviewed to conduct background checks on employees as required by ORR minimum standards. The figure summarizes facility compliance with employee background check requirements based on our judgmental sample."

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The audit noted a litany of problems that occurred through lax oversight. There was no evidence that FBI fingerprint checks were conducted for 174 out of 229 EIS employees and that while such checks were conducted for 25 employees they failed to conduct such a procedure in a timely manner. Only for 30 employees did such checks occur in a timely manner. Background checks for child abuse and neglect were only conducted in a timely fashion for 9 EIS employees out of 229. For the rest, the vast majority did not have any such check documented. It further noted that the ORR waived its own Child Abuse and Neglect check requirement for 51 employees out of 200.  

The audit added that "[t]he issues we identified occurred primarily because the influx of unaccompanied children required ORR to rapidly set up new facilities in order to expand capacity as well as develop formal policies and procedures related to the EISs."

Assistant Regional Inspector General Sylvie Witten told Just the News that the ORR failed to vett many employees through the DOJ's sex offender registry despite being required to. She said that "The waivers ORR issued to the three EISs waived the FBI fingerprint check and CA/N check...For the three EISs with a waiver, ORR required a sex offender registry check (in addition to the public records check required of EISs)."