Ex-Biden Admin Official In Charge Of Unaccompanied Children Says She Doesn’t Believe In Deportation

Former Ombuds for Unaccompanied Children (UCOO) at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Mary Giovagnoli told Republican Texas Sen. John Cornyn during a Wednesday hearing that she does not believe illegal household members of unaccompanied alien children (UACs) should be deported.

Giovagnoli, appointed under the Biden administration in October 2024 to lead the newly created Unaccompanied Children Office of the Ombuds at HHS, assumed the role after whistleblowers and experts raised alarms about missing UACs in the U.S. During a Senate Judiciary hearing on UACs and the administration’s failures in vetting their sponsors, Cornyn asked Giovagnoli if she supported deporting illegal migrant sponsors of UACs.

“So, Ms. Giovagnoli, do you agree with Chief Clem that if, in fact, a member of the household where these children are placed with a sponsor, if they, in fact, are illegally present in the United States, that they should be deported?” Cornyn asked.

“I think it depends on the situation, but they shouldn’t be. You know what? Let me say it a different way,” Giovagnoli responded.

Before questioning Giovagnoli, retired Chief Patrol Agent and former HHS senior advisor Chris Clem testified to lawmakers about concerns over sponsors under the Biden administration. Clem said that if children were living with illegal immigrants, both should be deported together so the family could remain intact. (RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: The Border Is Quiet, But Sex Traffickers Are Thriving — And One Group Is Fighting To Stop Them)

Cornyn pressed Giovagnoli to answer his question directly, telling her he wanted a clear response. She replied that she was trying.

“Oh, I’m trying to. I’m just trying to think about the best way to do it. The mere fact that someone is here unlawfully, without authorization, doesn’t necessarily mean that they should be deported,” Giovagnoli said.

“It’s a crime,” Cornyn said.

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Giovagnoli then pushed back, asking Cornyn if crossing the border illegally was actually a crime. When he responded “yes,” the former Biden administration official argued she did not believe it was criminal, but rather a “civil matter.”

“So, you don’t think that people illegally present should be deported?” Cornyn asked.

“It depends on the situation,” Giovagnoli said.

Concerns about migrant children under the leadership of former President Joe Biden ramped up in the summer of 2024 after whistleblowers like Tara Rodas testified against Biden’s HHS, calling attention to the Office of Refugee Resettlement and their concerns over the vetting of sponsors for migrant children.

In September 2024, Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General released its August report stating U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement could not “monitor all unaccompanied migrant children” released from the custody of the Department of Homeland Security and HHS, as the U.S. struggled with its border crisis.

Among the most crucial policies Biden had scrapped from President Donald Trump’s first term had been the DNA collection program used to verify the identities of migrants as well as waiving background checks for specific household members in order to expedite the placement of migrant children with sponsors.

Cornyn pressed Giovagnoli on her time leading HHS’ UCOO, asking if her stance on deportations explained why she “did not seek to vet the other members of the household where these children were placed.”

Giovagnoli responded that many concerns about HHS and ORR’s handling of UAC sponsors predated her tenure, but Cornyn followed up by asking if she had seen “children placed with sponsors in households where the other members of the household were unvetted.”

“Sir, my job was to receive reports from all stakeholders and investigate those reports. I did not get reports of that. So I don’t have an answer for you because I wasn’t involved in that part of the process,” Giovagnoli said.

“Well, don’t you think it would be a good idea to vet the other members of the household to see if maybe, let’s say, one of them is not a sex offender?” Cornyn asked.

Giovagnoli defended the Biden administration’s post-release services, claiming vetting standards had improved. Cornyn pushed back, later citing a 2023 New York Times report that found migrant children were exploited in brutal labor jobs.

According to the report, caseworkers admitted sponsor vetting had been rushed, with HHS often conducting checks only by phone. Data obtained by the outlet showed HHS failed to reach more than 85,000 children and lost immediate contact with a third of migrant minors.

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