A Guatemalan national previously convicted of sexual battery claimed a 14-year-old unaccompanied migrant child was his sibling. He then got custody of her in 2023 in Ohio and subjected her to sexual abuse.
Cases like that one, which is now the subject of a federal indictment, prompted the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to overhaul its vetting policies for sponsors of unaccompanied alien children (UACs), the federal government’s term for minors with neither legal status nor a legal guardian to care for them.
HHS is expected to publish a new proposed rule on Friday codifying new policies for vetting the sponsors of migrant children, implemented by the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR). The proposed rule would require potential sponsors to meet a higher standard for proof of income, and identity, along with more stringent background checks. It’s part of the administration’s broader crackdown on fraud related to the sponsors of migrant children, which has become widespread in recent years.
This week’s proposed rule also follows a series of news reports in The Free Press and other outlets detailing the backlog of hotline calls that mounted during the Biden administration involving thousands of children who were illegally trafficked, suffered sexual abuse, or went missing while in custody of sponsors. Many of those unaccompanied children have never been found or have turned 18 since they were reported missing.
