HHS Inspector General Reveals Thousands More Children Separated Than Disclosed

A damning report from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General revealed on January 17, 2019 that the Trump administration had separated thousands more children from their parents than previously disclosed, beginning as early as summer 2017—nearly a year before the official “zero tolerance” policy announcement. Most shockingly, the government maintained no tracking system to identify or reunite these families, leaving an unknown number of children permanently lost in the system.

The Scope of Hidden Separations

As of December 2018, HHS had identified 2,737 children separated from their parents who fell under the June 2018 court order in Ms. L v. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement requiring reunification. However, the Inspector General found this represented only a fraction of total separations.

The report revealed that thousands of additional children were separated during an influx beginning in summer 2017, before any court-ordered accounting. HHS officials estimated that the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) “received and released thousands of separated children” before the court’s order, but could not provide a precise number due to fundamental failures in their data systems.

No Tracking System: Children Lost in Bureaucracy

The most alarming finding was that ORR was not legally required to identify or track separated children released before the court order, and because of limitations in its data systems, ORR was unable to provide specific information about these children’s sponsor placements.

The report documented “significant challenges in identifying separated children” with no effort underway to identify those children. The government had forcibly taken thousands of children from their parents with no mechanism to ever reunite them.

As the Inspector General stated: “The lack of an existing, integrated data system to track separated families across HHS and DHS” fundamentally hindered accurate identification and reunification efforts. Revisions to the certified list of separated children continued through December 2018, over five months after the court’s effective date.

Separations Continued Despite Court Order

Even more troubling, the report found that separations continued after Trump’s June 20, 2018 executive order supposedly ending the practice. Between July 1 and November 7, 2018, ORR received at least 118 additional separated children that DHS identified as separated when referring them to ORR care.

This contradicted the Trump administration’s claims that family separation had ended, revealing that separations continued for months after the policy was ostensibly rescinded.

The Pilot Program Cover-Up

The revelation that separations began in summer 2017 exposed that the Trump administration had been running a pilot program for systematic family separation nearly a year before Sessions’ April 2018 public announcement. This meant:

• The administration deliberately tested family separation as deterrence in secret
• Thousands of families were separated during this pilot phase with no public disclosure
• The government intentionally avoided creating tracking systems that would reveal the scope
• The “zero tolerance” announcement was the expansion of an already-running program

Implications for Accountability

The Inspector General’s findings demonstrated that the Trump administration:

1. Lied about the timeline: Separations began at least a year earlier than publicly claimed
2. Lied about the numbers: Thousands more children were separated than disclosed
3. Deliberately avoided tracking: No system was created to reunite families because reunification was never the goal
4. Continued separations secretly: Even after the supposed policy reversal, separations continued

The report revealed family separation was not a hasty policy error but a carefully planned program of systematic child removal implemented with deliberate disregard for reunification. The lack of tracking systems was not bureaucratic incompetence—it was intentional design to make reunification impossible and maximize deterrent effect.

International Law Violations

The Inspector General’s findings provided further evidence that the Trump administration’s family separation policy violated:

• The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child
• International prohibitions on torture (as psychological trauma to children constituted)
• The Flores Settlement Agreement limiting child detention
• Basic due process requirements under U.S. constitutional law

Medical professionals documented that separated children suffered psychological trauma equivalent to torture, including lasting developmental damage, PTSD, and attachment disorders. The intentional creation of this trauma without any system for remediation constituted what human rights organizations called “crimes against humanity.”

The Lost Children

Years after the policy’s official end, hundreds of children remained separated because the Trump administration had deliberately implemented the program without creating tracking systems. Volunteer attorneys and non-profit organizations worked to reunite families, but the government provided little assistance.

The Inspector General’s report confirmed that the actual number of separated children may never be known, as the government destroyed or never collected the data necessary to identify them. This represented one of the most severe violations of human rights in modern U.S. history—a deliberate program of child abduction executed by the federal government with no plan or intention to reunite families.