Hutchinson Critical of Vetting Process of Arkansas Homes for 672 Unaccompanied Immigrant Minors

Governor Hutchinson wants to see the federal vetting process of sponsor homes of unaccompanied minors improved.

On Monday Governor Asa Hutchinson criticized the Federal Government’s handling of vetting homes for unaccompanied minors crossing the southern border and coming into Arkansas. The Governor said in the last fiscal year, which ended September 30^th, there were 672 of these minors that were placed with sponsors in Arkansas and many of them were not suitable homes.

Hutchinson said that the Department of Health and Human Services should be vetting these homes but, “…what we are seeing is that the sponsors are not properly vetted and that in many instances we’re [Arkansas Department of Human Services] having to take custody of those unaccompanied minors that are housed with sponsors that are really not properly vetted, qualified, and responsible enough to care for these unaccompanied minors.

Hutchinson said the number of calls the state has seen to the child abuse hotline in reference to these unaccompanied minors has increased and the state is taking more of them into custody. “In fact in the last month we’ve had seven unaccompanied minors who were … in the house of a sponsor being brought into DHS custody because of the conditions in which they were living and the lack of care of the sponsor,” Hutchinson said. He continued to say that “Some of these children had been abandoned and others were living in conditions that were deplorable.”

When a minor is removed from the custody of the sponsor Arkansas DHS takes custody and gets information about them from the federal government but the federal government does not take custody or responsibility for them at that point. The Governor said that means that they are not eligible for Medicaid or other federal health programs and therefore, “the taxpayers pickup the tab for medical, behavioral health, trauma care, shelter and care cost, and the cost of placing a minor in an appropriate setting.”

Hutchinson said this concerns him greatly and so he has sent a letter to the director of HHS in Washington D.C. outlining his concerns about minors being placed in, “the homes of sponsors that are not being responsible.”

In the letter the governor asks for a meeting with HHS as well as clarification and improvement of their vetting process. “We want to do our responsibility, but we want the federal government to do its responsibility as well,” he said.