Jonathan Starkey

The News Journal

Delaware's top Democrats said the federal government should provide more information about the 117 migrant children placed with Delaware families and should reimburse state agencies and nonprofits for providing services to the children while they await immigration hearings .

Gov. Jack Markell said he learned Tuesday on a White House conference call that the federal government had placed the children with Delaware families after they, along with thousands of other Central American children, were caught migrating alone across the southern U.S. border. U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson and Sylvia Burwell, secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, led the call.

Most of the child migrants are staying with their own relatives, Markell said.

But federal officials have not disclosed the location or identities of the children, making it more difficult for state officials to coordinate services like education and health care that state taxpayers ultimately could have to pay for. Markell said governors on the conference call "made it clear that we ought to be kept up to speed on a regular basis.

"This is part of the challenge," Markell said. "Essentially, once they are handed over to these families, there is really very little responsibility that the federal Department of Health and Human Services maintains."

U.S. Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., said he learned of the 117 children's placement in the state when he read a News Journal report on Friday.

"The state of Delaware should have more facts about how many kids who came to the country illegally over the southern border have been placed with families in Delaware, who they are, when they came here," Coons said. "Then we can have a better informed conversation about who bears the cost and challenges.

"I can't think of a reason why the state and its public health service and its school districts shouldn't know who's being sent."

Lack of information

Delaware Senate Republican leaders began pressing for information last week, citing information they received that children had been placed in the state without notification.

"We implore that this crisis be addressed in a much more transparent manner," Senate Minority Leader Gary Simpson, R-Milford, and Minority Whip Greg Lavelle, R-Sharpley, wrote to Markell, saying they were "surprised and frustrated" by the lack of information.

Late last week, Markell wrote to Burwell, the nation's health secretary, saying Delaware was "prepared to do our part" but said state agencies and local nonprofits should not bear the entire cost of caring for child migrants placed here by the federal government while awaiting potential deportation.

"I ask that the federal government undertake to provide or pay for appropriate services for these children who have been placed with Delaware families," Markell wrote to Burwell. "The children are here as a result of federal decisions not to keep the children in federal custody and details about the circumstances in which these children are living are not released. As a result, the federal government should be principally responsible for ensuring that the children receive needed services once placed here."​

Migrant children living in Delaware could enroll in public schools and require health care. But undocumented children do not qualify for coverage under federal social service programs, and the cost of services like education and health care could be "shifted to states and non-profit providers," Markell said to Burwell.

The federal government will pick up the cost of services for child migrants sheltered in group housing facilities, Markell said in his letters, but not those placed in the community with family members.

Markell has 'legitimate beef'

More than 57,000 children have crossed the U.S. border since Oct. 1, mostly from the Central American countries of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. Twenty percent are 12 years old or younger.

U.S. Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del., a former Delaware governor, suggested the federal government is "basically telling states what they have to do, need to do…and not providing much of anything in the way of helping underwrite the cost.

"I think the governor has a legitimate beef," Carper said. "My hope is as we work on the supplemental [appropriations bill] going forward, that we'll be able to craft it in a way so that when states do assume costs, that they can expect at least some help from the federal government."

Markell wrote Burwell the same day that he sent a letter to top Delaware lawmakers, informing them that the federal government had placed the 117 child migrants in Delaware and saying their presence here could come at a cost to the state.

Delaware Senate President Pro Tem Patricia Blevins, D-Elsmere, who was copied on Markell's letter Thursday, said the federal government should be more transparent about the placements and pick up the cost for services. Blevins also questioned the federal government's decision to place some children with family.

"I'm not sure this was the best decision for these children or the state of Delaware," she said. "I understand the federal government is facing a huge crisis. I think we should be understanding of that. In an ideal world, there would be a place for these children to wait that's licensed, that has licensed caregivers."

U.S. Rep. John Carney, D-Del., said the federal government should reimburse states and nonprofits for services provided for children living in Delaware while they await possible deportation. Carney was also critical of the lack of information coming from the federal government, saying in a letter to Johnson and Burwell that "a more coordinated approach between federal and state partners would be beneficial to both the children, and the state of Delaware."

Call for feds to step up

Members of Congress are still considering parts of a $3.7 billion emergency funding request from President Barack Obama to deal with the influx of children at the southwestern border. Democrats in the U.S. Senate are considering a trimmed-down $2.7 billion plan, while House Republicans are pursuing a $1.5 billion plan that would speed up deportation hearings and put a focus on border security.

"I would like to see whatever we pass here include that kind of assistance for states and communities," Carney said Friday, adding that Congress and federal immigration officials should carefully consider violence in the home countries of some of these children when considering how to act.

"We shouldn't be turning them back to communities where they are going to be at significant risk of injury," he said. "There are some difficult questions here for sure. The fact that we've failed to address immigration reform in a comprehensive way makes it worse."

Delaware House Minority Leader Daniel Short, R-Seaford, said he contacted Markell's office last week after receiving information that the undocumented children had been placed in Delaware. He agreed with Markell that the federal government should pay for services for children sheltered here.

"We need to be compassionate because they are children," Short said. "At the same token, the federal government needs to step up and do the right thing. They need to make states whole, and they need to make nonprofits whole."

Short said the federal government did not properly inform the state of child migrants living here.

"Are we truly going to work together?" Short asked. "At the end of the day, it just shows the federal government is not conforming to what I would call good business practices by informing a chief executive and his staff of what's going on and how it's impacting the state."

A 'humanitarian crisis'

Republican leaders in the Delaware Senate wrote to Markell last week after receiving information from a Sussex County immigration lawyer that undocumented children were placed in Delaware without notification.

"If, in fact, these children are in Delaware, why haven't Delaware citizens been informed," said the letter signed by Simpson and Lavelle. "Considering this issue has the potential to impact so many Delawareans, we are surprised and frustrated that so few details have been made public by your administration."

That letter was sent on Thursday, the same day Markell sent a letter to top state lawmakers notifying them of the 117 children placed here by the federal government.

Obama administration officials first wrote to Markell on July 2, asking him for help in finding large facilities to house unaccompanied minors crossing the U.S. border. Markell has said that there are no such facilities in Delaware, operated by an entity licensed to provide an array of services, including education, mental health services, medical care and group and individual counseling.

In a letter to top Delaware lawmakers on Thursday, Markell called the issue of unaccompanied minors a "humanitarian crisis" and urged compassion, saying the immigration debate "has been marked too often by scaremongering and xenophobia.

"If we can provide help, shelter and respite to these unaccompanied children, we will do so and remain mindful that we are called upon to provide for the least of our brothers and sisters," Markell wrote to lawmakers.

Contact Jonathan Starkey at 983-6756, on Twitter @jwstarkey or at jstarkey@delawareonline.com.

Unaccompanied children crossing the southern U.S. border placed in nearby states Delaware 117 New Jersey 1,504 Maryland 2,205 Pennsylvania 386 Virginia 2,234 Washington, D.C. 187 New York 3,347

* Source: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, as of July 7.