A bill to limit the use of funds for entities that care for unaccompanied alien children and have been identified as engaging in misconduct toward children.

Mr. President, in the Biden-Harris America, children disappear every day. You won't see their faces on any milk cartons. Search parties aren't sent for them, and the AMBER alert almost never sounds.

According to the Justice Department's filings, some of these children reappear years later in emergency departments with injuries from physical or sexual abuse. Others resurface as underaged laborers working jobs that most adults won't even take, and many are never heard from again.

These forgotten children are overlooked because they are unaccompanied migrant children. These are the children who crossed into the United States without their families--without their moms or dads.

By February 2023, the New York Times reported the Biden-Harris administration could not reach 85,000 of the unaccompanied migrant children that had entered the United States since 2021.

Then, in August of 2024, the Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General found the government failed to enroll 291,000 of these children in immigration proceedings over the last 5 years. Of those that were enrolled, 32,000 never showed up to the court. Many of them are missing.

Government employees working directly with these kids began to sound the alarm. The Biden-Harris administration responded by quietly, very quietly, suppressing attempts to save these missing children in order to avoid a politically inconvenient narrative. And the very same Democrats and members of the media who had actually decried Trump-era immigration policies stayed silent. The media didn't do their job of properly pointing out wrongs, except when you have a Republican President.

At least one whistleblower was actually walked offsite at a shelter for

these children for reporting that children were in danger to law enforcement. Other whistleblowers told my office they were denied access to records that might have raised concerns about children being trafficked.

The most consistent whistleblower complaint that I received was that law enforcement was not given the information needed to save missing children.

Desperate to find these kids, at least one Homeland Security agent asked a whistleblower to establish information-sharing channels on imperiled children because there was no formal channel in place for this information to be shared.

Now, we all know that denying law enforcement access to this lifesaving information was part of the Biden-Harris immigration plan. Three months into their term, the Biden-Harris administration tore up information sharing, an agreement between Homeland Security Investigations and the officials responsible for running the Unaccompanied Children Program.

They replaced that agreement with a watered-down agreement that deleted provisions requiring sponsors to be vetted and run through certain law enforcement checks before receiving custody of a child.

Today, law enforcement has significantly less involvement in vetting sponsors, even if the sponsor is a complete stranger to the child. Now, this is not family reunification, as the Biden administration wants the entire country to believe.

According to government statistics, between October 2021 and September 2022, over 18,000 children were given to distant relatives or unrelated adults.

Now, turning over custody of a child is one of the most consequential actions a caseworker can ever take. From there on out, every decision made for the child belongs to the sponsor--financial, housing, medical, you name it, the sponsor is in control of their decisions.

I can't imagine having every decision critical to my survival turned over to a complete stranger who the government hasn't even fully vetted, but child safety wasn't this administration's priority.

Now, thanks to whistleblowers, we have been provided records and disclosures that were so bad I had to refer the information to law enforcement way back in January to try and rescue kids. But given the poor vetting, it is much harder to find those same kids.

As illegal border crossings surged, pressure mounted from the top of the bureaucracy to process kids faster, to avoid accusations of ``kids in cages.'' During a conference call, Secretary Becerra of HHS admonished his employees that they weren't moving kids out to sponsors fast enough.

That is the environment that I am talking about--getting things done quickly so you can't be politically criticized like Trump was criticized.

Secretary Becerra said:

This is not the way you do an assembly line.

Program operators knew this politically motivated rush could have dangerous consequences, but they proceeded anyway. One official said the quiet part out loud to a whistleblower trying to intervene to protect endangered kids. She was told:

We only get sued if we keep kids in care [of the

government] too long. We don't get sued by traffickers.

Now, can you believe that approach to protecting kids? The Biden administration has published wave after wave of field guidance meant to push kids to sponsors faster and cover up the consequences of this haste.

They removed fingerprint requirements for sponsors claiming to be parents or legal guardians, even without sufficient verification; simply this, just ``I am who I say I am.''

They released kids to sponsors before background checks had been completed. They denied law enforcement access to photographs of children.

Now, during a Senate Finance hearing, Senator Cornyn asked Secretary Becerra who the Biden-Harris administration believes is responsible for making sure that these children aren't being trafficked. Secretary Becerra said it is ``the communities where they enter,'' so just some community, anyplace in the United States, to be responsible, to make sure that these children are treated and not being trafficked.

I am not sure if the Biden-Harris administration ever stopped to wonder how local law enforcement looks after a child when this administration won't even give them a photograph of an endangered child.

I am told that law enforcement can't.

What resulted from this administration's disastrous policies almost inevitably was the systematic abuse and disappearance of migrant children. Whistleblowers fought in vain to prevent children from going to men who sexualized them, MS-13 gang-affiliated sponsors, and also sponsors who were mass applying for kids. We had an example where one address someplace, some city in this country, was used to get massive numbers of kids under that address. Just hearing that ought to scare anyone.

One whistleblower told my office they called a sponsor, only to hear a child's agonizing screams before the line then was quickly disconnected. Whistleblowers testified on all this in heartbreaking detail at an oversight roundtable that I led on this topic just this year in July.

I have lost count of the number of reports and letters sent by Congress to the unaccompanied migrant children's program actually sounding alarms that have gone unheeded, even ignored. Each highlighted program vulnerabilities, and there are plenty of those vulnerabilities. Each made recommendations that could have saved lives.

Now, I have been involved in this in a bipartisan way for a long period of time. My decade of bipartisan oversight has revealed an unaccompanied migrant children program in which abuse and misconduct have become routine and tolerated.

For example, in 2021, Oregon Democratic Senator Wyden and I warned of the rampant sexual abuse of unaccompanied migrant children in the care of contractors, especially Southwest Key. Now, remember that contractor's name is Southwest Key--not a very good place to put kids. The Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General also identified issues with Southwest Key's self-dealing and compensation.

Now, as part of my ongoing investigation, for months I have requested from Southwest Key and other contractors and grantees basic information on their care of unaccompanied children, including whether these contractors performed background checks of their employees before they had access to these kids. Southwest Key has failed to fully respond to this inquiry, actually thumbing their nose at the U.S. Congress. Still the government kept giving Southwest Key contracts to care for these unaccompanied minor kids.

What followed all these contracts? Do we know that the kids are safe or not safe? Well, a recent Justice Department lawsuit alleges ``a pattern or practice of severe or pervasive sexual harassment of children in Southwest Key's care.'' So just think, this Justice Department has said that with this contractor, there is pervasive sexual harassment of children in their care. So we have to ask ourselves, if we are humanitarians, how many more children have to endure abuse before Congress finally says enough is enough? I say it shouldn't be even one more.

I am offering a bill, then--that is why I am here--that denies future contracts to bad actors who have been identified by the Justice Department as abusing unaccompanied migrant children. After applying due process, those government contracts would cease until the Justice Department certifies that the conditions leading to the abuse--that those conditions are taken care of, they are over.

I think this is a very commonsense solution that no politician, no Member of the Senate, Republican or Democrat, should stand against.

So I now make a request, Mr. President. As if in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. 5073, which is at the desk; further, that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid on the table.

Thank you.

It is kind of you to say that. Thank you.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I would like to speak to this issue a little bit and point out some of the shortcomings of what Senator Merkley is trying to accomplish by amending my motion.

I see this amendment merely cementing into place the Biden-Harris policy that lost more than 85,000 migrant children. Can you believe that? If there was any question whether Democrats prioritize speed over safety when it comes to pushing migrant kids out the door, this partisan amendment lays that question to rest.

I think I made very clear, in giving reasons for my legislation, how this is really a big problem. Now, the text of what Senator Merkley is asking me to do mandates that the government make a placement determination for a child not later than 7 days after the government receives a sponsored application. Fingerprint-based background checks aren't required. And even the criminal record of a sponsor isn't necessarily disqualified.

Now, a question: What if a sponsor has no preexisting relationship to the child? Think of that. Well, that is not a problem for this proposal. The fact that a sponsor has no preexisting relationship to a child cannot be the sole basis for denying sponsorship under this Democrat-led solution.

This amendment just willy-nilly turns over children to sponsors who foot-drag on providing the documents needed to verify sponsor identity and safety. I can't imagine a loving parent or guardian slow rolling the paperwork needed to reunite with their child.

To most folks, that would be a very clear red flag, but not to Democrats. For them, it is just an administrative inconvenience.

So just understand, this Democratic solution allows the government to release children to sponsors even if there is a risk of harm to that child. According to this text, that is fine, so long as post-release services are in place. In fact, those are the only conditions under which post-release services are required according to this modification presented to me.

After directing the government to make what could be life-or-death decisions for a child on virtually no information, the bill restricts the ability to share lifesaving information with law enforcement.

Let's go back to what I laid down. I came to the floor tonight to offer a commonsense solution to deny bad actors access to kids. My bill would put contractors on notice that they can't willfully blind themselves to child abuse in order to get rich off taxpayers' dollars. Democrats couldn't even take that blindness seriously.

I encourage my colleagues to read the Justice Department's recent complaint against Southwest Key. I referred to the same Justice Department action in my opening remarks. This is what Justice found out, among other horrors: That complaint describes the repeated sexual abuse of a 5-year-old girl, the prostitution of a 15-year-old boy, and acts of a contractor desperate to even cover up all those wrongdoings.

So thanks to this Democrat-led effort, Congress won't prevent contractors like them from getting access to more kids and more taxpayers' dollars.

So, Senator Merkley, I am sorry to say that your modification doesn't do what I am trying to accomplish and leaves in place too much the status quo; so I have to object.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I reserve the right to object. I will share a few of my thoughts on this, but first I wanted to note that my colleague from Iowa is celebrating his birthday today. So a very happy birthday to you.

And I understand it is his 91st; is that correct?

We should all want to be able to engage in public policy and public debate and dialogue when we have reached the start of our 10th decade, so congratulations to you.

This topic that you have brought up today is one that I have had deep engagement in because I share your concerns about these congregate care facilities.

Back in 2018, I was the first Member of the House or Senate to go down to the border and to witness the separation of children from their parents and then to go up the road to knock on the door of Casa de Padre, which was run by Southwest Key, where I had heard a rumor that perhaps a thousand boys were being warehoused. When I knocked on the door, they didn't want to let me in to see what was going on, so we did a live stream feed of the conversation. I was trying to get the manager to come out and brief me, and the manager said, yes, he would be out, but actually what he did was he called the police to have me arrested.

The police didn't arrest me, but they did tell me that Casa de Padre, run by this organization, Southwest Key, had no interest in letting a Member of Congress come inside, a Member of the Senate come inside; move on. But because this was live-streamed, it became national news. As a result of that, the press got in the following weekend, and I was able to go back with a group of legislators 2 weeks later.

So I very much understand the challenge in the congregate care system and undertook a deep dive with experts across the country on, how do we address this problem? The long and short of it is, those experts all came together, and they helped draft a bill called the Children's Safe Welcome Act, because the issues that exist at Southwest Key are not unique to Southwest Key. In fact, we have had really deep challenges in one congregate care facility after another. Putting children into large, mass settings just does not at all provide a foundation for them to thrive.

I will just note that this policy brief--and I ask unanimous consent that the policy brief by the Women's Refugee Commission be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, it is called ``Decreasing OOR's Dependence on Congregate Care: Four Recommendations of Progress,'' written by the Women's Refugee Commission. But I assure you, this document is not alone. There is commission after commission, expert after expert who has weighed in to say that we have to eliminate these congregate care facilities, which is exactly what the Children's Safe Welcome Act does.

You know, these are children who are going through the process of claiming refugee status, and they are going to go through an adjudication of that status, and they are either going to be able to stay in the United States--and that is eventually adjudicated--or they are going to be sent back home.

If they are going to stay in the United States, we want a strong foundation for them to thrive as residents of our Nation. If they go back home, we want a strong foundation for them to thrive back home in the country they left.

In either case, we have a moral responsibility to these children. That moral responsibility compels us to eliminate these congregate care facilities that are not the right setting. Children should be quickly sent to small settings, to homes. They should be in school. They should be with host families. When there isn't a host family that is related, they should be with a host family that is providing a foundation for them. They shouldn't be in a mass congregate care facility--the name sounds much nicer than the reality.

So I am not going to take the time tonight to go through all of these various reports on how bad congregate care is for the children because I think

you have already touched on how bad it is with one provider. But shutting down one provider and sending them to other congregate care facilities now means the system is maxed out, which means the children coming in not only go to the remaining beds in a system that is maxed out, it also means that now we have to create temporary influx facilities, which are far worse than congregate care.

So this plan I know is so well-intentioned, and I certainly share the criticisms of the particular company you are addressing, but this is not the right answer. The right answer isn't to max out congregate care and create temporary influx facilities that are even worse; the answer is to get rid of these congregate care facilities and do what report after report, recommendation after recommendation has said will provide a foundation for these children to do well.

The National Center for Youth Law said that these influx facilities that would have to be created ``placed children's safety and welfare at risk.''

The Customs and Border Patrol facilities, which are the other option if we don't create the influx facilities, are described as so dangerous that children have died.

It goes on and on and on.

So given your deep interest in this topic and, really, desire for the children to be well-treated, I wanted to invite you to join me in this structure, this bill, the Children's Safe Welcome Act. Experts have said this is the right thing to do for the children.

For that reason, I will do the formal request, but the informal is, I know your heart is in the right place. I know you are pointing out flaws that are very, very real and that I have been personally witnessing since 2018. But the answer isn't more congregate care for these kids or influx facilities or Customs and Border Protection; it is eliminating these congregate facilities and doing what expert after expert, panel after panel has suggested.

So I am following up here. I ask that you, Senator Grassley, modify your request and that the Merkley amendment at the desk be considered and agreed to; that the bill, as amended, be considered read a third time and passed; and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I would just like to note that this bill, put together by the best child welfare experts across the country, has in it a requirement under section 223 requiring background checks to be conducted for each resident of a foster care placement for a noncitizen child. It prohibits children from being placed in a home if a resident has a conviction for child abuse or trafficking or convicted of any offense that has a direct and immediate impact on the safety of a child.

I know that these sorts of dialogues--our staff worked quickly to try to prepare responses. But your actual criticisms are inaccurate. And, indeed, what these experts say is that a child should be put in the least restrictive setting that approximates a family in which the child's needs can best be met consistent with the best interests and special needs of that child.

The experts know congregate care is not the place to do that. The problems that exist in one mass setting are bad, but they exist in the other mass settings. So I do invite you--because I know you want to do the best for the children--to meet with the same experts who live this, night and day, seeking to have a system that creates a safe welcome for children and allows them to thrive so that when they get to that point of that asylum hearing, whether they head back to their home country or whether they become residents of the United States, they will be in a great place, not the sort of terrible place that congregate facilities put them. And, unfortunately, your approach continues to rely upon those very congregate facilities experts say need to be eliminated.

So for that reason, I object.