you've got the us department of health and human services, which is responsible for placing migrate children with sponsored. you're also, they also supposed to provide care and protect him from exploitation. then there's a department of labor. they have a duty to stop child labor violations to there's a lot of blame to go around and we've talked about the brokers who talked about the cooperation, but on the government side of things. who should we be looking at? yeah, it's a great question. so there are failures of protection, especially at the state and local level that i think haven't got as much attention through this reporting and through the outcry as they really deserve. so states like ohio and iowa and our arkansas as well have been reducing the standards for child labor made it easier for people to exploit child labor to profit from child labor, reducing the protections, reducing the need for children to have appropriate safety equipment. that's all political choices and those folks should be held accountable for those. in addition, state has really stepped back their enforcement of

director of the office of refugee resettlement or orr as we refer to them today in the administration for children and families at the us department of health and han -- human services, position she's held since september of 2022. i look forward to hearing from director marcos today. pursuant to committee rule nine g, the witness will please stand and raise your right hand. do you solemnly swear and affirm that the testimony that you're about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? so help you god. let the record show the witness answered in the affirmative. ok. now i'll open things up for myself to ask a few questions. dn grothman, ranking member garcia, members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today on behalf of the department of health and human services. since assuming my position as orr director in september 2022, i have led a dedicated team of career staff who are committed to ensuring the safety and well-being of every child in our care. i have also visited 18 care provider programs and shelter facilities. i have met children we serve and some of the dedicated professionals who serve them, and i

of last year, asking him to use hipaa in this way. could this have been done sooner? jennifer: initially the department of health and human servicesguidance very early on to make clear what the protections are under hipaa, and we were waiting to see that if this continue to happen and if we saw states passing laws that would criminalize health care, lawful health care, we were ready to take action, and that's what the department of health and human services did today. amna: i know we are awaiting the next step from the appeals court, but there are all ready some advocates and some democrats even saying the ruling was unfounded and the administration should just ignore it. do you think we should do that? jennifer: this decision in texas is dangerous, but the department of justice feels that it is also dangerous to ignore a binding legal decision. but what is really at issue here is that we now have two cases. we have the case in texas, which it would be a nationwide injunction that would prevent mifepristone from being available across the country, but we also have a case in washington that is proceeding. the department of justice

of foreign children. >> lucas tomlinson joins us on the growing border crisis. >> interim report released by florida's attorney general, the grand jury raising concerns about the dhs and department of health and human services officer refugee resettlement, known by oor. the grant jury ground orr's forced migration, sale and abuse of foreign children. let's take a look at key findings. more than 70 flights arrive at jacksonville international airport with children, airport police got very little notice the flight the were arriving and who was on board. most passengers were older teenagers, shuttled to shelters and nonprofits with little more than a suitcase. including stories, videos of migrant children who are getting to the u.s. southern border, other criminal elements. attorney general wants congress to act. she is calling upon congress to investigate and consider federal law to stop these misguided programs. on capitol hill, ted cruz said president biden's dhs secretary will not last the year. even democrats stopped supporting him. >> i am going to make a prediction. within six months ms mayorkis will be out a job. i think the democrats have decided to make mayorkis the scapegoat, even sending him out on

department of health and human services has appealed that rolling and asked the higher court to block it. >> we have a strong case because the fda had followed all of the rules and used evidence to make a decision. we feel very confident that ultimately we will prevail in court. >> governor newsom also responding tonight announcing that california has secured a stockpile of 2 million doses of a similar abortion pill. >>> it is over, president biden signed a bill today that immediately ended the national emergency over the covid pandemic. the declaration of national emergency which former president trump signed created federal funding for vaccination centers and testing sites, now previously, president biden had set a date of may 11th for ending both the national emergency and the public health emergency, the public health emergency is still in effect, it is set to end may 11th. >>> back in 60 seconds, ahead, back on the job after four days, bay area native, reinstated as a tennessee lawmaker after being kicked off the house floor last week. >>> watch where you plug in, the warning from the app vi. why you should be careful about where you charge your phone. >>> and s

of maryland and throughout the country. i heard what you said about asking the department of health and human services to list them. where is -- so there are legal uses to this, but where is it being diverted to the best of our knowledge, who is diverting it to these bad purposes? >> thank you for the question center. i should clarify, as i should have clarified with senator she had, there are no lawful uses for humans. there are lawful uses for veterinarians, and it is called trike because it is a horse track laser. -- tranquilizer. what we are doing right now is we are looking internally at every authority which would potentially have to address this issue, -- >> have you been i didn't -- able to identify where it has been diverted, you said there are legal purposes for this, but it is opposite big diverted for other uses. do you have any leads us to who is doing that? i cannot talk about investigations. but we are working actively on this issue. >> we are having a hearing on countering illegal fentanyl trafficking. a lot of my colleagues have been focusing on the real substantive challenges that we have at the border, i think it was suggested earl

and mental health services. if we keep failing healthy -- we can keep children safe. [applause] >> secondly i am directing the department of human services to embed a clinical expert substance use disorder in every welfare district in maine to better recognize the influence of substance use and navigate the risks posed to children. and to steer parents into treatment and make sure they get there. >> to help caseworkers identify abuse in the home and come back to his profound effects on children in particular. thirdly, i have directed the department of health and human services to reengage recovery coaches to assist parents who are dealing with substitute disorder. remember that the opposite of addiction is not necessarily sobriety but connection. these people can share their own experiences with parents and walk them along the road to recovery while also making sure that children are protected. lastly, i want to expand the number of family recovery records in maine. these specialty courses work with families whose children are at risk because the parents are dealing with substance abuse disorder. i plan to engage with the attorney general and others to expand these courses and

of speech, and that the teacher has a wrong opinion, you have your own concept of a criminal term and a ban on professions they have with children. it's just us here at the department of health human servicesd to help the biden administration deal with the crisis on the southern border as part of operation artemis. i was assigned to the california refugee reception center to assist the refugee resettlement office in the ministry of health and human services. reunite children with sponsors in the united states i thought i would help reunite children with loving families. instead. i have found that child trafficking is carried out through a complex network that starts with recruitment in the smuggling homeland to the us border and ends when the refugee settling disaster puts the child on sponsorship, some of the sponsors are criminal traffickers and members of transnational criminal organizations. some sponsors consider children as goods and assets that can be used to generate income. that is why we are seeing explosive growth. labor trafficking , intentional or not, it can be argued that the us government has become an intermediary in a large-scale, multi-billion dollar child trafficking op

also this morning, the head of the health and human services department is now slamming a federal judge's decision to suspend the fda approval for what is a widely used abortion pill in an interview yesterday on cnn's state of the union secretary javier becerra said that everything is on the table and the fight to protect access to the pill known as mifid. preston. when you turn upside down the entire fda approval process you're not talking about just never. presto you're talking about every kind of drug you're talking about our vaccines. you're talking about insulin. you're talking about the new alzheimer's drugs that may come on if a judge decides to substitute his preferences, personal opinion for that of scientists and medical professionals. what drug isn't subject to some kind of legal challenge. we should note that a spokesman for his department later walked back comments after he said everything was on the table when it came to whether or not hhs will ignore that ruling within an hour of the texas ruling on friday, though, a separate one came from a federal judge in washington state. there was a competing decision. that decision blocked the fd

of the mos widely used abortion medications in this country. the justice department immediately filed an appea today. health and human services -- said - for the millions who need it >> well, they certainly have access today and we intend to do everything to make sure it is because o viewable to them not just in a week but moving forward. we have already filed an appea of this court's ruling one judge and one quarter an one state turned upside down the fda's approval process for safe and effective medications we have to go to court and see an appeal. this is not america. what we saw by that one judg in that one court in that on state. that is not america. >> adding to the uncertainty and to the confusion, federa judge in washington stat issued a conflicting rulin friday ordering the fda to keep the drug available in 17 states an washington, d.c. the dueling decisions -- directly to the supreme court. setting up the most contentiou fight over reproductive care since last - that reversed row. here's how mark joseph sti pitch -- why this is a moment of trut to the supreme court quote, they do not put a sto to cause merrick's mad

elena late this afternoon, spokesperson for the department of health and human services did they walk back what the secretary was saying there? can you tell us a bit more about that? they did. a spokesperson on twitter said that they understand there's a lot of frustration around this and the sentiment but that essentially they think that this needs to be reversed. and here's a tweet now from them, saying people are rightly frustrated about this decision, but as dangerous a precedent it sets for a court to disregard the f jas expert judgment regarding a drug safety and efficacy. it would also set a dangerous precedent for the administration to disregard a binding decision. now that's something as well that i think other people in congress democrats in congress to like senator patty murray, she said the same thing when people like senators ron wyden and congresswoman alexandria ocasio cortez came out and said that they think president biden should just ignore the ruling out altogether and that the fda has that authority. but murray said that she thinks the first step in this is really reversing this decision in court and having it be appealed

us everything after all of this has been dragged out a couple weeks. a florida grand jury wrapped up a 5 month long investigation into trump administration migrant children into florida. concluded that the biden department of health and human servicesforced migration sale and abuse of foreign children. and some of our fellow florida residents in some way funding and incent siding it for primarily economic reasons. the findings in this investigation, they are very troubling. >> shocking. as a mother, the circumstances and horrific threats that these children are exposed to. mayorkas, biden, this is on them at the time we he will only knew about the middle of the night flights across the country. now a grand jury has found that these children are being encouraged to come here because of biden's policy and mayorkas and when they are, the administration rapidly processes them, they don't do much of any investigation they have been sent to live with people they don't know. they have been sold for sex. they have been abused and in some cases these people have listed strip clubs as places where they are intending to go this is indeed trafficking. there is no other word for it. and it is shocking to me that we are talking about such a flim

who crossed the us mexico border alone after they are arrested and taken into custody by border patrol. they are then turned over to the custody of health and human services departmentwhich then tries to locate a sponsor that could be a relative at times or family friend that they have vetted to then turn them over. to those sponsors as they continue their immigration proceedings now what they have found and what media reports have shown is that during the 2021 surge that stress the systems for all of this, some of these kids were released to people who then funnel them into dangerous jobs. but keith, it's important to know that this is a complicated issue. and often time after i've spoken with immigrant advocates and case managers. some of these kids feel tremendous pressure to contribute to the homes that they're going to, and also to pay off smugglers. so all of this is part of what the white house is focused on as they to crack down with the department of labor and with the health and human services to avoid any of this happening in the future, kate priscilla. thank you for continuing this great reporting really appreciate it, sara. alright minutes from now the

department of justice appealed the decision hours later. that pill is one of the most common methods of abortion in the country used in 40% of us clinics, health and human servicesecretary and former california attorney general sought of javier bezerra believes this move is unconstitutional. what you saw by that one judge in that one court in that one state that's not america. america goes by the evidence america does what's fair? the ruling is paused for seven days, while the federal government makes an appeal. if the suspension is approved, the drug would be banned nationwide. still to come on abc seven news at 11 the new science of your dreams, some good research before you go to bed, plus see how spring has officially sprung in san francisco, the bright, beautiful festival today in some perfectly sunny weather. i'm spencer christian with a wave of windy weather coming our way by midweek, i'll have the accuweather forecast coming up in just a moment when abc seven news at 11 continues. reimagine repurpose and renovate these vehicles, and i wanted to do it for communities in need. i hope this demonstrates how to make a giant difference in other people's lives.

finance committee about the department of health and human services budget request, he be-- pore taked the same disregard for basic human decency as secretary mayorkas had. he usedthe opportunity to push his woke agenda items rather than focus on core operations of the agency. frankly, it's sad that even a question about whether a senate-confirmed secretary is familiar with his own job description, especially when he can't answer basic questions about what's happening at the agency he supposedly controls. at the end of february, "the new york times" reported that over the course of joe biden's presidency, his administration has lost -- that's right, lost more than 85,000 children who were under the care of the office of refugee resettlement. you heard me right. this administration has lost 85,000 children who were under the care of the office of refugee resettlement. to be clear, this is the office within the department of health and human services that is directly responsible for unaccompanied children who come across the border. and now we know that this agency has lost immediate contact with one-third of the children they're responsible for. the "times" also