Biden team left thousands of migrant kids with largely unvetted sponsors, records reveal

fEXCLUSIVE: The Biden administration did not fully vet sponsors who received thousands of illegal immigrant minor children, new data shows.

A lawmaker who sought the records said the former president’s Department of Health and Human Services “stonewalled” his prior requests.

Data presented to Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, showed that between January 2021 and January 2025, the sponsors who received custody of 79,143 unaccompanied alien children (UACs) went without home studies.

A home study is a procedure similar to the vetting of a foster child’s home, where staff can visit the child, evaluate the living situation and raise any custodial concerns. By contrast, the Biden HHS carried out only about 7,000 home studies.

Additionally, the Biden administration placed more than 11,000 UACs with sponsors who were unvetted and not blood relatives.

THE HUMAN COST OF BIDEN’S SHAMEFUL ‘CHILDREN’S CRUSADE’ AT THE BORDER

Grassley said the data release – provided by Trump Assistant HHS Secretary Andrew Gradison and the Office of Refugee Resettlement’s Unaccompanied Alien Children Bureau – followed lengthy “stonewall[ing] by the previous administration.”

“My oversight continues to expose disturbing evidence that the Biden-Harris administration turned a blind eye to tens of thousands of kids who needed proper supervision and care,” Grassley said.

“It’s appalling to prioritize speed and optics over the safety and well-being of children.” 

The lawmaker, who has made oversight of the plight of UAC’s a priority, added he appreciates the Trump administration’s pivot to “undo the damage caused” by “failed border policies.”

The data showed a total of 468,736 UACs being taken under the care of HHS from October 2020 through September 2024.

Of those, 11,488 were placed with unvetted sponsors during former President Joe Biden’s term. Federal law requires sponsors to submit to a criminal background check and be fingerprinted if they are not the legal parent/guardian of said child.

TRUMP BORDER WALL MATERIALS SOLD BY BIDEN MAY SOON FIND THEIR WAY BACK TO FEDS, AUCTIONEER CLAIMS

The Biden HHS failed to request such procedures for about 10% of the overall number of minors placed with non-parent/guardian sponsors.

Additionally, the dearth of home studies during the Biden administration calculated out to about 10% of UACs recommended having one.

Data provided to Grassley also showed that the Trump HHS was reviewing about 65,000 “notices of concern” that had gone “unaddressed” during Biden’s term. Such notices range from change-of-address for the sponsor and child, to severe reported problems like victimization, abuse, lost children and the like.

“NOCs must be submitted to ORR (Office of Refugee Resettlement) as soon as possible but no later than 24 hours of first suspicion or knowledge of the event(s) and, if applicable, documented in the released child’s PRS case file,” the report said.

Under Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., ORR launched a “whole of government approach” to identify sponsor fraud, child exploitation and trafficking within its programs dealing with UACs.

HHS now works with the Justice Department, Treasury, Labor Department and Social Security Administration to identify problems.

The ORR sub-agency tasked with monitoring such transgressions reported 1,600 allegations of fraud by sponsors, children, or parent/guardians in their child’s home country, during Fiscal Year 2024.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

During a November House Homeland Security Subcommittee hearing, lawmakers probed how HHS and ORR’s operations under the Biden administration may have led to an uptick in trafficked children.

“The Biden-Harris administration placed political aims above the welfare of unaccompanied migrant children who crossed, or were trafficked across, the southern border,” then-Rep. Dan Bishop, R-N.C., said.

“Unfortunately, the Biden-Harris administration’s push to quickly release migrants resulted in countless cases of migrant children being released to sponsors with major red flags, placing children at risk of exploitation,” Bishop added.

Fox News Digital reached out to a representative for the former president for comment but did not hear back by press time. 

Reached for comment, a spokesman for Trump’s HHS said ORR is “fully committed to the safety and well-being of every unaccompanied child in its care.”

“While ORR does not play a role in immigration enforcement or proceedings, our job is to ensure that children are placed with fully vetted sponsors in the safest and most appropriate setting possible. In recent months, we have strengthened our vetting protocols — including expanded identity verification, mandatory background checks, and DNA testing — to help prevent fraud, exploitation, and trafficking.”

The spokesman also confirmed the commencement of the new Interagency initiative with DOJ and other agencies while underlining that immigration enforcement operations are chiefly the purview of DHS.

Fox News Digital’s Cameron Arcand contributed to this report.