HHS handed six trafficked Guatemalan children over to a labor-trafficking ring in Ohio, then let the ring's members block follow-up checks on the kids.
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What happened
In 2014, HHS's Office of Refugee Resettlement placed at least six unaccompanied Guatemalan children with sponsors who turned out to be paid by a trafficking ring; the children, some as young as 14, were then forced to work 12-hour days on Marion County egg farms under threats and debt coercion, federal indictment records show. A bipartisan Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations inquiry, detailed in Chairman Rob Portman's January 28, 2016 hearing statement, found ORR conducted no home visit before placement in the case, ran background checks only on the sponsor (not other adults in the home), allowed sponsors to block post-placement welfare checks, and at the time performed home studies in only about 4% of placements. The Subcommittee identified more than 30 additional cases with indications of trafficking or abuse among children ORR had placed. Five of the six Marion defendants pleaded guilty.
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