Charges of child abuse and sexual assault in the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) have been on going for years, But the Federal Government’s silence is increasingly concerning. 

• An exclusive report by The Daily Caller reveals that despite reports of rapes and other sexual assaults, federal officials refuse to divulge any information to the public about the safety of Central American children in facilities run by third-party contractors.
• The claims of sexual assaults have been supported since in a 2014 Freedom of Information Act response to the Houston Chronicle the department stated that there were 101 “significant incident reports” of sexual abuse of unaccompanied children in the contractor facilities.
• Federal officials with ORR only inspect contracted facilities every three years and depend upon contractors to self-report any crimes.
• Agency spokesman Victoria Palmer told TheDCNF Friday that ORR officials don’t regularly compile sexual abuse or assault data of the immigrant children living at the facilities, stating, “the statistics you are requesting are not compiled or readily available.”
• Rep. Marsha Blackburn, a Tennessee Republican and vice-chair of President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team is quoted in TheDCNF article saying, “It is both incomprehensible and unacceptable that ORR does not appear to be keeping statistical data about child abuse at its facilities,” Blackburn also said, “ORR must pull back the curtains on its operations and provide assurances to Congress that allegations of child abuse at their facilities have been dealt with appropriately.”
• Since 2013, at least 207,000 children have arrived at the U.S. border as “unaccompanied alien children” — ORR’s official designation for them — and are or have been in the agency’s care. But little is known outside of ORR about the conditions the children face inside the facilities. TheDCNF reports the number of Central American children entering the U.S. without parents doubled from 28,000 in 2015 to 47,000 this year, Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs Chairman Ron Johnson reported Nov. 29.

Article by The Daily Caller / TRUNEWS summary.