‘NOT FULLY PREPARED’

DHS Falsely Claimed a Database Was Tracking Separated Families: Watchdog

A new report from the Office of the Inspector General shows the department was unprepared for Trump’s zero-tolerance policy.

A Tuesday report from the Office of the Inspector General found that the Department of Homeland Security was “not fully prepared” to manage President Trump’s zero-tolerance policy—which resulted in hundreds of children being held in facilities longer than permitted—and that the department falsely claimed that it had a central database to track separated families and children. Bloomberg News reports that Customs and Border Protection is typically only permitted to hold children for 72 hours, barring exceptional circumstances, before transferring them to the Department of Health and Human Services—but that investigators found that during “zero tolerance,”  861 children were held for four days or more. Bloomberg added that many parents were not told that they had been separated from their children until after the separation occurred, when they were given a flyer in Spanish or English that explained the situation. And despite claims of a central database where HHS and DHS could collectively keep tabs on the location of separated family members, John Kelly, acting inspector general, wrote that investigators found no evidence that said database exists.