Reports that the Department of Health and Human Services agency's Office of Refugee Resettlement had lost almost 1,500 children "is completely false," an HHS official said in a statement.
"The assertion that unaccompanied alien children are 'lost' is completely false," HHS Deputy Secretary Eric Hargan said in the statement.
"These children are not 'lost,' their sponsors — who are usually parents or family members and in all cases have been vetted for criminality and ability to provide for them — simply did not respond or could not be reached when this voluntary call was made," Hargan said.
"While there are many possible reasons for this, in many cases sponsors cannot be reached because they themselves are illegal aliens and do not want to be reached by federal authorities."
On Monday, The Washington Post reported on a testimony from Steven Wagner at a Senate committee hearing in April, in which Wagner said that the agency had lost track of 1,475 children who had crossed the U.S.-Mexico border unaccompanied and had then been placed with adult sponsors in the U.S.
Hargan said the Trump administration has been working to close "dangerous loopholes" in immigration laws.
"This is the core of this issue: In many cases, HHS has been put in the position of placing illegal aliens with the individuals who helped arrange for them to enter the country illegally. This makes the immediate crisis worse and creates a perverse incentive for further violation of federal immigration law," Hargan said in the statement.
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