That is what the Director of the Office of Refugee Resettlement Jonathan Hayes told Congress this week.
Actually he calls them “unaccompanied alien children,” but heck when only 15% of the “children” crossing the border illegally without parents are under 12-years-old, we might just as well call them more accurately “teens.” (See data here.)
Virtually all of them are from three countries: Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador.
And, caring for the ‘children’ is costing American taxpayers well over a billion a year!
Here is CNS News,
HHS: Number of Unaccompanied Alien Children Entering US Reaches Highest in History
(CNSNews.com) – The number of unaccompanied children (UACs) entering the United States during fiscal year 2019 has grown to levels never seen before, Jonathan Hayes, director of the HHS’s Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), told Congress on Thursday.
According to his written testimony before the House Energy and Commerce Committee, DHS referred more than 67,000 UACs to ORR as of Sept. 16, 2019, which is the highest number in the program’s history.
Compare that to the 59,170 DHS referrals in FY 2016, the second highest number of referrals on record.
At the moment, HHS has less than 6,000 UACs in its care, but the number fluctuates on a daily basis, Hayes said.
“The number of children in our care is down from a recent high of over 13,700 just a few months ago in June. This decline is due to a decrease in daily referrals over the last few months, and ORR’s ability to maintain a steady high discharge rate of UAC placement with sponsors,” he testified.
Curious about where they have placed tens of thousands of teenagers, I checked the data and here are some fun facts.
Top recipient states of alien (mostly) teens for the first ten months of FY19 are:
(States which ‘welcomed’ over 3,000 in ten months!)
Texas (8,521)
California (7,302)
Florida (6,659)
New York (5,439)
Maryland (4,102)
Virginia (3,645)
New Jersey (3,644)
When you visit that data add up the last 6 years for your state to see the real impact these “children” must be having on your school systems. Maryland, for example, added 18,330 UACs since October 2013!
Now have a look at the lucky counties during that same time period (here):
Harris Co. Tx (4,346)
LA County, CA (3,057)
Miami Dade Co. FL (1,528)
Palm Beach Co. FL (1,395)
Prince Georges Co. MD (1,372)
Dallas Co. TX (1,323)
Suffolk Co. NY (1,293)
Fairfax Co. VA (1,134)
Montgomery Co. MD (1,015)
By the way, when I first started writing about these new ‘refugees’ they were referred to as ‘unaccompanied minors’ so that is the tag I have continued to use.