Anna Giaritelli, Washington Examiner, September 18, 2108

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“From our data that we’ve seen just recently, you’re looking at close to 80 percent of the people that are sponsors or household members within these residents are illegally here in the country,” Matthew Albence, executive associate director for ICE, said in testimony before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

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Now, as Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., pointed out, HHS policy allows a child to be released to a sponsor regardless of immigration status. The result, he added, is the federal government is sometimes challenged with finding the sponsor and child at a later date because a sponsor is hiding due to his or her unlawful status.

“We tend to lose children when they go and are placed in a home of someone who’s already not legally present, who’s been living under the radar for years and then we’re surprised when they both disappear,” Lankford said.

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