'Completely Atrocious': Eli Crane Torches Biden Over Handling Of Unaccompanied Migrant Children

Forbes Breaking News

During a House Homeland Security Committee hearing on Wednesday, Rep. Eli Crane (R-AZ) spoke about the Biden administration's sponsorship program for unaccompanied migrant children.

Transcript

00:00Arizona, Mr. Crane for five minutes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this hearing today on

00:06how NGOs facilitated the Biden border crisis. You can see our colleagues are very upset that

00:14we're having this hearing today. They don't want to talk about this stuff. They don't want to talk

00:19about the 300,000 kids that we still don't know where they are. They're upset that President

00:26Trump got elected. They're upset that he's doing exactly what he said he was going to do, and we're

00:32backing him up here in Congress. This is what the American people voted for because they saw four

00:36years of the carnage that these open border policies plagued on the United States, and we're talking

00:43about the NGOs that they used as middlemen to carry out their operations, like the Catholic charities

00:50they used to facilitate, normalize, and accelerate illegal immigration into this country.

00:56Ms. Hopper, you've worked closely with trafficking victims and survivors. I'd like to explore the

01:01role that the NGOs have played in enabling the trafficking and exploitation of unaccompanied

01:08alien children. Under the last administration, what safeguards were put in place to protect

01:14vulnerable, unaccompanied children?

01:18I previously discussed the post-placement welfare checks, which consisted of two phone calls, again,

01:26if the sponsor didn't answer. The case was no longer followed up on. But there was also a notice of

01:33concern hotline where people could report concerns about the unaccompanied child's safety. But what this

01:40administration found was from August 2023 to January of 2025, 65,000 calls went unanswered. Those calls

01:51spanned from complaints about stale bread all the way to being abused to one case where a child's call

02:03was reporting that grown men were coming into his room at night and they were touching him. Nothing

02:10happened with that call. That call went unanswered until this administration took office, went through

02:17those 65,000 calls, made follow-ups, conducted a welfare check, and now that child has been rescued

02:25and that sponsor has been arrested. These are the safeguards that were put in place, but accountability

02:30and oversight was not had.

02:33So you're telling this committee that the Biden administration, while they were letting all of

02:39these unaccompanied minors into the country, and as we've talked about today, they weren't keeping

02:44track of them. They issued these kids a hotline that they could call if they had trouble with the

02:52sponsor family that they were put with, and you're saying that 65,000 calls to this hotline designated

03:00to protect these kids went unanswered? Is that what you're telling this committee?

03:05Yes, sir.

03:07Wow. That is unbelievable. Unbelievable. I believe you also said, Ms. Hopper, that

03:14according to your research, it was easier to adopt a pet or a dog than it was to get one of these

03:25children. Is that what you said? I said that it was easier to get a child, yes, than to adopt a dog.

03:34You actually had to provide more paperwork to adopt a pet from a pet shelter than you did to sponsor a

03:39child. Yeah, and think about it, guys. This is exactly why the American people are so upset. This

03:45is why they voted for the president, and this is why they voted for this agenda, to not only remove

03:52people from this country, to secure our borders, but to find these kids. I mean, this is completely

03:58atrocious in a day and age where we're starting to wake up to the realities of sex trafficking

04:04and what's going on with these kids. They let all these kids in. We still don't know where over 300,000

04:11of these kids are, and you're sitting here testifying saying that they gave a hotline

04:17for these kids to report if they were okay, if they needed anything, and 65,000 calls went unanswered. Do you

04:24know how many staffers the administration assigned to answering these phones and helping these kids?

04:31One. One staffer? Any idea how many hours a day this staffer was working?

04:41No. Maybe that's why there were 65,000 calls that weren't answered from these little kids, huh?

04:51Unbelievable. Thank you. I yield back.

04:55The gentleman yields back.

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