U.S. official says agency did not lose immigrant children
Over 1,500 immigrant children who have entered the United States unaccompanied are not "lost," as Senate testimony by an administration official in April suggested, a U.S. Health and Human Services official said on Monday, as outrage over their treatment triggered a social media storm. Deputy HHS Secretary Eric Hargan issued a statement and fact sheet on Monday night saying the department's Office of Refugee Resettlement attempted to follow up on the 2016 release of unaccompanied children by contacting their families, a step he said was not required of the department. Following recent news reports of children lost in the system after crossing the border illegally, outrage erupted on social media in recent days after reports emerged that HHS over the past three months of 2017 lost track of 1,475 children who crossed into the United States from Mexico by themselves and were placed with sponsors.
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