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Report: DHS Was Unprepared to Enforce “Zero Tolerance” Border Policy

HeadlineOct 04, 2018

A new report by the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general finds the Trump administration was woefully unprepared to enforce the president’s “zero tolerance” border policy, with migrant children held in detention centers far longer than legally allowed. The investigation also found border agents gave inconsistent information to immigrant parents arriving in the U.S., often failing to explain that they were about to be separated from their children. The report also found DHS’s computer systems were unable to track separated family members, delaying and in some cases preventing officials from meeting a court order to reunite families. The finding directly contradicts this testimony by Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar to Congress last June.

Health and Human Service Secretary Alex Azar: “There is no reason why any parent would not know where their child is located. I could, at the stroke of—at keystrokes—I’ve sat on the ORR portal—with just basic keystrokes, within seconds, could find any child in our care for any parent.”

In fact, the report found there was no shared database between the Department of Homeland Security and the Health Department’s Office of Refugee Resettlement.

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