According to US government officials and related emails examined by Reuters, federal and local authorities are frantically trying to find nearly a dozen unaccompanied migrant children after Houston police voiced concerns about dozens of migrant children reported missing in the Texas city since last year.
The incidents highlight the difficulties the administration of US President Joe Biden faces as a record number of unaccompanied minors enter the country through the southwest border, which must be released to sponsors in a secure manner without delay.
According to an HHS official who declined to be named, a Houston police detective notified the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) earlier this summer after spotting what appeared to be a trend of migrant children going missing from the homes of their US sponsors.
The government organisation in charge of managing the detention and release of kids who have crossed the border between the US and Mexico without a parent or other adult guardian is HHS.
According to the HHS source and an internal email reviewed by Reuters, the HHS refugee office initiated an emergency supervisory assessment of the discharges of unaccompanied minors to non-parent sponsors in the Houston area in August.
According to the HHS official and two additional sources with knowledge of the matter, the agency discovered that 57 unaccompanied migrant children had gone missing in Houston since the end of last year. Nine children who escaped from HHS facilities in the Houston region were counted, the official said.
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Some of the children who have gone missing and been found are now 18 or older. The official stated that just a few children left the houses of relatives serving as sponsors to join their parents who were already in the United States, adding that this is a small proportion of the total number of releases to the region.
More than 6,300 unaccompanied juveniles were released in Harris County, Texas, where Houston is located, from October 2021, when this fiscal year started, to June 2022.
(with inputs from agencies)
