Senator Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) today released previously unseen data showing U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) officials gave custody of 11,488 Unaccompanied Alien Minors (UAMs) to sponsors who were not their parents or legal guardians and who had not undergone a mandatory rigorous FBI background check.

“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. It’s appalling to prioritize speed and optics over the safety and wellbeing of children,” Grassley said in a statement.

“I appreciate the Trump administration’s efforts to undo the damage caused by the last administration’s failed border policies, and I’ll continue my oversight of the issue to ensure abuse like this never happens again,” he added.

Federal law requires that would-be sponsors of UAMs must submit to the FBI’s criminal history check, which is based on digital fingerprints. According to the Grassley report, HHS placed the 11,488 children with unvetted sponsors throughout the one-term presidency of Joe Biden during the years of January 2021 to January 2025.

“The Biden-Harris administration disregarded this law and failed to request or receive fingerprints or background checks for approximately 11 percent of migrant children placed with sponsors who were not their parent or legal guardian,” the Grassley report stated.

In addition, according to Grassley, “during that same period, the Biden-Harris administration did not conduct home studies for 79,143 migrant children under the age of 12, including 1,961 children who were placed in households where a home study was recommended. HHS regulations require home studies before releasing a child 12 years or younger to a sponsor who is not their parent or legal guardian. The Biden-Harris administration ignored this rule and failed to conduct home studies for approximately 10 percent of migrant children who were recommended to have one.”

Grassley praised HHS officials appointed by President Donald Trump for initiating procedural reforms designed to ensure that such violations can never be repeated in the future.

Earlier this year, Grassley made public an HHS Inspector-General report that found Biden administration HHS and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials lost track of hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrant children who crossed the border alone into the U.S.

“HHS frequently placed migrant children in rundown apartment complexes and dilapidated motels with barred windows, appliances stacked on patios and apartments with no doors or kitchens. Local police noted many of these properties were located in areas with high violent crime rates, daily shootings and gang activity,” the IG report stated, according to Grassley.

Also earlier this year, the Iowa Republican exposed the failure of HHS officials during the Biden years to follow up on more than 65,000 reports concerning missing kids, including 7,300 that specifically focused on sex trafficking.

The latest revelations from Grassley come hard on the heels of an emotional July hearing before the House Homeland Security Committee and reported by The Washington Stand that included impassioned remarks by Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.), who was clearly angered by the actions of HHS and DHS officials regarding illegal immigrant children during the Biden years.

The key factor in HHS losing so many unaccompanied minors is federal officials relied too heavily on well-funded NGOs to provide supposedly screened sponsors to accept responsibility for the children while their cases went through the immigration system, according to Ali Hooper, president of Guiding Understanding, Awareness, Research and Defense Against Trafficking (GUARD), a non-profit investigative research group.

“In interviews with cartel members incarcerated for human trafficking, they explained how weak sponsor verification incentivized trafficking by enabling cartels to control children’s placement by supplying children with exact sponsor information, allowing control over their destination,” Hooper told the House committee.

“Cartels infiltrated NGOs along smuggling routes to the southwest border, using them to facilitate in the smuggling or trafficking of children. By providing children with false documents and pairing them with adults to pose as family units, they placed the children in grave danger,” Hooper continued. “According to an internal audit conducted by [HHS], approximately 70% of sponsor applications examined were found to be fraudulent, making child traceability and safety assurances nearly impossible.”

Further worsening the situation, Hooper noted, was the failure of HHS officials to follow up on information provided by more than 65,000 calls to a telephone hotline established specifically to aid in tracking unaccompanied minor from August 2023 to January 2025.