>>19009577
Ms Lee:
Mr Wolf, I'd like to return specifically to a line of earlier testimony you were providing about the decisions of Secretary May orcas to suspend certain policies that have had the net effect of endangering these unaccompanied Children who are coming across our border.
1:06
Specifically, you touched on a couple of things that the vetting of sponsors and household members for these Children is not being done appropriately and that site visits have been eliminated.
1:20
Would you tell us please a little bit more about those safety protocols and the significance of them not being done effectively.
1:28
Sure, once Children come across that border and border patrol apprehends them, they are quickly transferred over to HHS facilities where they stay until they're able to find a sponsor and the sponsor comes, picks them up and, and they do that.
1:39
What we were finding was that individuals coming to pick them up.
1:42
We didn't know who they were.
1:44
and the background checks and the type of vetting that was done was not sufficient.
1:48
We wanted to make sure that we were protecting those minors and that they were going into households, that they wouldn't be trafficked, they wouldn't be further trafficked in.
1:55
but again, this administration for a variety of different reasons, I think we could only guess, decided to reduce the amount of vetting on those sponsors that come and pick them up, but it's not only the sponsor, it's the, again, it's the others in that household.
2:08
So it's not enough to, to do that background check on, on one adult, but there's five other adults in that household.
2:15
You want to know who they are as well.
2:16
Again, they have reduced those vetting requirements, site visits as well.
2:21
And my, my guess and it's, it's a guess is because early on in this administration, the number of Children coming across that border in such astronomically high numbers was backing up HHS facilities.
2:33
There were too many Children in there and So the quickest way to get Children out of those facilities is to reduce the amount of time they're in the facility, which is to say, reduce the amount of vetting because vetting does take time.
3:18
From the HHS perspective, Chief Scott talked about it earlier.
3:21
DNA.
3:22
Testing is something that border patrol could do.
3:24
So we actually tried to find it early in the system as early in the system as humanly possible, which is when they cross that border and they go before that border patrol officer to do the that questioning that line of questioning.
3:35
And again, as you reduce that, you're taking more and more protections away from trying to protect these Children and trying to reduce the amount of trafficking that's going on, thank you, Hugh.
3:45
And on that subject, Mr Scott, would you please return to the subject of DNA testing and tell us what role, what, what role does DNA testing?
3:53
Why is it important in our efforts to combat human trafficking and the exploitation of Children?
3:58
It's very important for the simple reason.
4:00
You're trying to identify people and you're trying to make sure people's stories actually match.
4:05
I left out on my, my statement earlier in the I N A.
4:09
It mandates that we fingerprint and photograph anybody over 14 years of age.