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TN has received 760 unaccompanied illegal immigrant children

by Tom Humphrey
July 25 , 2014

Tennessee has received about 2.5 percent of the unaccompanied children crossing into the United States.

New federal data published Thursday by the Department of Health and Human Services' Administration for Children and Families showed Tennessee received 760 of the more than 30,000 children who have been released to sponsors this year through July 7.

Texas, New York, Florida and California received the most, accounting for 46 percent of the children received during that time.

Unaccompanied children have been fleeing violence in Central America and crossing into the U.S. because they believe they will be allowed to stay.

Children are placed in government shelters and then released to sponsors while they go through deportation proceedings. In many cases, the sponsors are the children's parents, other relatives or a family friend.

The Tennessee governor's letter to Obama:

The Honorable Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW
Washington, D.C. 20500

Dear President Obama:

I write to you to express my concern about the number of unaccompanied immigrant children entering this country and the failure of the federal government to notify states in which children are being released.

On July 13, the nation's governors met with Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Sylvia Burwell during the annual National Governors Association meeting, which I hosted in Nashville this year. We spent a significant amount of time in that meeting discussing the issue of unaccompanied immigrant children. Although this is a complex issue and one that ultimately must be solved at the federal government level, governors are rightly concerned about the impact on states. We emphasized to Secretary Burwell the need to be informed of any children being relocated to our states.

It is unacceptable that we became aware via a posting on the HHS website that 760 unaccompanied children have been released by the Office of Refugee Resettlement to sponsors in Tennessee without my administration's knowledge. Not only was our state not informed prior to any of the children being brought here, I still have not been contacted and have no information about these individuals or their sponsors other than what was posted on the HHS website and subsequently reported by media.

Although solving the border crisis is a federal responsibility, this influx of immigrant children could have a significant impact on state and local governments. Therefore, we strongly believe that the state needs to be informed prior to any additional unaccompanied immigrant children being released in Tennessee, and we also need immediate answers to the following questions:

1. What was the process for determining that these children should be released to sponsors in Tennessee?
2. How did you locate and evaluate the fitness of their sponsors?
3. What medical screenings were the children given prior to their release in Tennessee?
4. What is the official immigration status of these children and their sponsors?
5. In what localities are these children now residing?
6. What are the legal requirements concerning the provision of services for these children while they are in the state?
7. What additional information is available on these children, such as age and health status?
8. How long will these children be in Tennessee?

Tennessee is a diverse and welcoming state, and we also understand that this is a complicated issue. However, an influx of unaccompanied immigrant children to the state, with little information being made available to the public or to state leaders, creates confusion and could be very problematic. The start of school is approaching for many districts across the state, and the federal government's actions have caused great uncertainty around this issue.
I appreciate your attention to this matter and look forward to receiving a response to these urgent questions.

Sincerely,

Bill Haslam,
Governor

Haslam wasn't the only one upset. The Christian Science Monitor reported at the time:

Gov. Chris Christie (R) of New Jersey said US border authorities releasing captured migrant children to relatives who themselves are in the US illegally is "illogical," and Gov. Phil Bryant (R) of Mississippi charged that an "overreaching federal government" was involved in "covert immigration practices."

A gaggle of governors and lawmakers, primarily from conservative states, has begun to complain more loudly in the past week about the mostly quiet transferral in the past nine months of some 30,000 unaccompanied alien children (UACs) from the border to all 50 states. Texas, California, and the Washington metro area have received the most children.

The situation is a result of a surge of children and teenagers who are traversing Mexico from Central America and then crossing into the US, largely in Texas. Their numbers have surged in the past year, overwhelming US border authorities. Most children who cross into the US illegally say they expect to be able to stay, and many may be right. By one United Nations estimate, as many as two-thirds of the migrant children - mostly from strife-torn countries like Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador - may have legitimate asylum claims.

...some of the states that have complained the loudest have seen the smallest influxes of the children, often by just the dozens or a few hundred.

Even Kentucky Gov. Steven Beshear, a Democrat, registered his concerns, though gently: "We need to make sure those kids are safe and cared for until we can get them back home. I think they should go home as soon as can reasonably be done."

Charities and social service groups are helping the small US Office of Refugee Resettlement with housing and placing children. But that process is happening largely without any kind of state supervision or involvement, Haslam complained in his letter to Obama.

...For his part, Governor Bryant of Mississippi has threatened to block transports of children.

"To the extent permitted by law, I intend to prohibit the federal government or its agents from housing large numbers of new illegal immigrants in the state of Mississippi," Bryant wrote in a recent letter. "Illegal immigration imposes real and substantial costs on the states, and it is unfair to expect the states to bear the costs of a problem created by the federal government's failure to enforce the law."

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