HHS Report Finds Fraud in Biden’s Unaccompanied Minors Program

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said on Oct. 1 that it discovered significant fraud in a program, while under former President Joe Biden, that released unaccompanied illegal immigrant children to sponsors living in the United States.

This resulted in alien minors being released into unsafe conditions in the country, leading to abuse and, in some cases, death, according to the review.

The review by the Office of General Counsel and the Office of Refugee Resettlement, an agency within HHS, found that out of thousands of concerning cases under the previous administration where a sponsor applied to care for an alien child, more than three-quarters involved fraud.

“There was just so much fraud,” Office of Refugee Resettlement senior adviser John Fabbricatore told The Epoch Times.

The Office of Refugee Resettlement received 1,669 reports of Child Level Events, which are incidents, events, or observations that affect the health, safety, and well-being of children, from October 2023 to October 2024. Among those cases involving unaccompanied alien children, the rate of intentional fraud in a sponsor applying to care for that child was 77 percent.

A further review of a subset of those 1,669 incidents—178 cases—found that 85 percent involved intentional fraud.

Fabbricatore likened the previous administration’s handling of the Unaccompanied Alien Children program to “an automotive service line. It was as fast as they could get those kids out the door.”

Unaccompanied Minors

When an unaccompanied child arrives at the U.S. southern or northern border, the Department of Homeland Security refers that child to the Office of Refugee Resettlement’s care, which is then responsible for vetting potential sponsors before releasing the minor to that person.

The review found that as unaccompanied minor referrals sharply increased under the Biden administration, totaling around 479,000 from 2021 to 2024, vetting policies were relaxed and releases were expedited.

Fabbricatore said there were many instances of alien children who were kidnapped from their homes and used by cartel members as cover to cross the border. Other times, they were “recycled,” meaning they’d cross with a foreign national then be sent back across the border to make the journey again with someone else.

Furthermore, Fabbricatore said that 87 percent of the 479,000 unaccompanied minors under the Biden administration were listed as 16- and 17-year-old males.

“We’ve had 20 year olds saying that they’re 17, almost going to be 18, just so they don’t go into ICE custody, and they come to a [unaccompanied alien children] facility instead,” he said. “It was this older, male demographic of older teens that were coming across, and once they were released into the country, they simply disappeared.”

Fabbricatore said this tactic was used by the cartels extensively under the Biden administration as a way to get older teens into the United States States.

Criminal organizations continue attempting to use it to this day.

“If you’re a child and you are definitely in trouble, you’ve been trafficked, you are in danger, we want to help you,” Fabbricatore said.

The HHS secretary under the Biden administration, Xavier Becerra, who is currently running for the California governor’s seat, did not respond to a request for comment by the time of publication.

Becerra defended in November 2024 his agency’s handling of alien children that entered the United States illegally. He told lawmakers during congressional testimony that once a child was placed with a sponsor, they were no longer his department’s responsibility.

“We work really hard to make sure we first and foremost protect the safety and the well-being of those kids. Every day is a challenge, and we do the best we can,” Becerra said.

Also during congressional testimony, Robin Marcos, who was the director of the Office of Refugee Resettlement at the time, responded to questions in April 2023 from lawmakers about potential fraud and lack of vetting of sponsors.

Marcos testified in fiscal year 2023 that about 37 percent of children were being placed with a parent.

“Percentage-wise—say if we’ve got a group of 1,000 unaccompanied minors, what percent do you talk to one parent, what percent do you talk to two parents, and what percent do you talk to no parents?” Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-Wisc.) asked Marcos.

“I will have to get back to you on that,” she responded.

Marcos said in written testimony that more than 85 percent of children in fiscal years 2022 and 2023, amounting to hundreds of thousands of children, were placed with either a parent, legal guardian, or other close family member.

The Review

In fiscal year 2024, the Office of Refugee Resettlement denied less than one percent of sponsorship applications.

This low rate of rejection resulted in unaccompanied children being released into often dangerous situations, Fabbricatore said.

“They were released to sponsors who were either drug addicts or drug traffickers. We found one [child] in the back of a vehicle who had drug overdosed. We found [unaccompanied alien children] who had been murdered in gang violence,” Fabbricatore said.

The review described other examples.

In August 2023, the Office of Refugee Resettlement released a 15-year-old Guatemalan girl to a sponsor claiming to be her biological brother without verifying a DNA match between them. In October 2023, authorities determined the sponsor, a Guatemalan man previously convicted of sexual battery, was in fact not related to the female minor.

The man had allegedly raped and impregnated her.

The false sponsor pleaded guilty in December 2025 to encouraging and inducing unaccompanied alien children to illegally enter the United States and to submitting a sponsorship application with false statements to the Office of Refugee Resettlement.

Six types of fraud were identified in the Unaccompanied Alien Children program under Biden, including false or fraudulent documentation of identity, manipulated photographs, misrepresented or unverifiable addresses, fingerprint-related fraud, failure to disclose household members, and misrepresentation of age by the child.

“I’ve seen pictures in these files that were photoshopped, and as a law enforcement officer for over 30 years, the minute I saw the photo, I knew that it was photoshopped. I mean, that’s how bad that they were. I didn’t even have to do any kind of forensic investigation,” Fabbricatore said.

Fabbricatore told The Epoch Times that the Trump administration is making progress on ensuring the safety of unaccompanied alien children in the United States and confirming they are residing with safe sponsors.

But that’s not always the case, the adviser said.

“We found over 40 kids who were deceased by the time that we found them. We found many children who were in labor trafficking, some involved in sex trafficking,” Fabbricatore said.

Now, Fabbricatore said the administration is focused on strengthening vetting requirements for sponsors and conducting DNA tests on those claiming to be relatives.

He said that the Office of Refugee Resettlement currently has 1,700 children in its care. At the same time in 2024 under Biden, the agency had 22,000 children in its care.

“All we’re trying to do with the vetting is to ensure that children are not going to sex offenders and traffickers and labor traffickers, and that the people who are claiming to be their parents are actually their parents,” Fabbricatore said.