Portman opens hearing on HHS placing children with human trafficking ring
U.S. Senator Rob Portman (R-Ohio), Chairman of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, opened a hearing Thursday on his investigation into shocking revelations that the federal government placed migrant children with a human trafficking ring in Ohio.
Portman will unveil the results of its six-month investigation into the federal government’s policies and procedures for placing unaccompanied alien children with adult sponsors.
The investigation was triggered by a federal indictment of labor traffickers in Ohio whose victims included children placed by the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement—a division of the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS).
“It is intolerable that human trafficking — really modern-day slavery — could occur in our own backyard, but it does,” Portman said in his opening remarks. “What makes the Marion cases even more alarming is that a U.S. government agency was responsible for delivering some of the victims into the hands of their abusers.
“Perhaps the most troubling, unanswered question is this: how many other cases are there like the Marion trafficking case? The answer is HHS doesn’t know.”
Portman questioned Administration officials on the Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) troubling policies that placed children into the hands of a human trafficking ring that eventually enslaved them in Marion, Ohio.
In an exchange with Acting Assistant Secretary of HHS’ Administration for Children and Families Mark Greenberg, Portman questioned why the Administration continues to evade responsibility.
An excerpt of their exchange is below.
Greenberg: “I’ve had multiple conversations about trying to identify what our authority is and what else we can be doing.”
Portman: “You have kids who actually told HHS that this sponsor was not a family friend … we even have a situation when somebody said as soon as I got to the airport … the so-called sponsor took off. They told you that.
“Obviously you have a responsibility here, you’re not going to be able to say there isn’t adequate legal basis for you to keep these kids out of the hands of traffickers when it is so obvious there was no check done. I am very discouraged about what we are hearing today because you continue to try to evade responsibility when it is so obvious.”
In an exchange with Greenberg and Director of the Office of Refugee Resettlement Robert Carey, Portman confirmed that despite thousands of sponsors, HHS is not aware of an instance in which HHS fired a sponsor for failing to care for a child.