DeLauro Condemns ICE Fingerprinting Kids in HHS Care

WASHINGTON, D.C. — (February 5, 2020) Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (CT-03), Chair of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, today released the following statement after news reports indicating Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials are fingerprinting unaccompanied children being cared for by the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR).

"President Trump and Stephen Miller have turned HHS into an immigration enforcement agency. There should be a bright line between ORR and DHS, and the Trump administration's insistence on blurring that line is outrageous. ICE officials coming into shelters to fingerprint youngsters in ORR care is antithetical to ORR's mission, which is to take care of kids and place them into sponsor's care as safely and expeditiously as possible. Make no mistake: ICE's intention is to intimidate and scare children by entering these shelters, and if HHS allows ICE to do so, they will be complicit."

"I do not buy ICE's justification for one second—that this is to ‘mitigate and prevent the risk of [children's] victimization by human traffickers and smugglers'—and I have concerns that the Trump administration is building a repository of biometric information that could be used to criminalize children and their families. If this dangerous new policy was actually about protecting children, it would not have gone into effect without notifying Congress or been leaked out anonymously. I will leverage every resource I have as Chair of the House Appropriations Subcommittee that funds HHS to ensure this policy is overturned and ORR upholds its mission to protect children, not enforce the racist immigration policies of President Trump and Stephen Miller."

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