The Trump administration separated far more immigrant children from their parents after crossing the border in the last two years than previously realized, with a new report revealing that the government still has no idea how many families it actually separated.

A report from the Office of Inspector General for the Department of Health and Human Services released Thursday found that HHS estimates “thousands” of children may have been separated from their parents since summer 2017, and that the exact number was still “unknown.” (The full report is at the end of this article.)

“OIG found that more children over a longer period of time were separated than is commonly discussed,” Ann Maxwell, an assistant inspector general for evaluation and inspections said Thursday.



HHS is responsible for caring for unaccompanied immigrant children, but did not have specific policies or infrastructure in place to track separated children or procedures to help reunify them.



“In sum, the total number of children separated and transferred to HHS for care is unknown,” continued Maxwell. “Why is it unknown? Because HHS faced significant challenges identifying which children in its care had been separated by [the Department of Homeland Security].”

Katie Waldman, DHS spokesperson, said in a statement that DHS bore no responsibility for the failings that the OIG report identified. “For more than a decade it was and continues to be standard for apprehended minors to be separated when the adult is not the parent or legal guardian, the child’s safety is at risk, or serious criminal activity by the adult,” she said.

But she did not respond to a question about whether DHS has changed any procedures in light of the problems it had tracking separated families.

Waldman also said that the office who published the report, OIG HHS, claiming it did not know that DHS separated children and sent them to HHS custody, casts doubt on their credibility on the topic.

OIG HHS pushed back and said that's not what they said in the report, but did find that staff for HHS observed a significant increase in the number of children separated by DHS and referred to HHS for care beginning in summer 2017.

“OIG’s report accurately reflects a lack of transparency about the number of separated children referred to and released from HHS care prior to the June 26, 2018 Court order, as well as the reasons for those separations. Further, HHS reviewed our work and did not contest these findings," the office said in a statement to BuzzFeed News."

"Because there was no comprehensive system in place to identify and track separated children at that time, neither HHS nor OIG can determine the exact number of children, the reasons they were separated, or the circumstances of their release from HHS care. With respect to separations done after the court order, OIG’s report found that DHS frequently provides HHS with a reason for the separations but sometimes with little detail or explanation.”