The Biden administration ignored tens of thousands of concerning reports involving unaccompanied migrant children, according to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA).

Grassley looked into Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) records at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and found over 65,000 ignored or dismissed reports concerning migrant children. Nearly 7,000 of those reports were cases of suspected human trafficking and nearly 2,000 others were related to fraud.

Since President Donald Trump assumed office on January 20, HHS has worked through over a quarter of those cases left over from the Biden administration and made dozens of arrests, according to Grassley.

“My oversight exposed the Biden-Harris administration for placing unaccompanied migrant children with dangerous sponsors and actively obstructing law enforcement and Congress’ efforts to rescue vulnerable kids. I applaud the Trump administration for its swift action to protect unaccompanied migrant children by addressing the concerning reports the Biden-Harris administration shelved,” said Grassley in a statement. “I look forward to working with Secretary Kennedy to ensure justice is served.”

Back in April, HHS confirmed that tens of thousands of cases had been ignored and that it was working to clear the “backlog” left by the previous administration.

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“ORR is digging through nearly 65,000 reports of concern about unaccompanied alien children — most ignored, many dismissed — each one a missed chance to protect a child. This isn’t just paperwork. This is a systemic failure of the Biden administration. It is children’s lives put at risk,” HHS said in a statement posted to social media.

ORR is digging through nearly 65,000 reports of concern about unaccompanied alien children — most ignored, many dismissed — each one a missed chance to protect a child. This isn’t just paperwork. This is a systemic failure of the Biden administration. It is children's lives put…

— HHS.gov (@HHSGov) April 22, 2025

At least 500,000 children entered the United States during former President Joe Biden’s tenure. Those children were often flown in or bused to the homes of strangers after the Biden administration relaxed rules on background checks for sponsors of the children.

At least 85,000 of those children who crossed as unaccompanied minors were lost by the administration. HHS officials under the Biden administration failed to locate the children again after leaving them with sponsors.

Grassley wrote a letter to HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. ripping the previous administration for stonewalling the senator’s demands for information on unaccompanied alien minors (UAC).

“The purpose of my inquiry is clear: to determine the scope and severity of child trafficking and exploitation through the UAC program nationwide. After I made this urgent inquiry, HHS under Secretary Becerra obstructed my investigation and instructed contractors and grantees not to answer, and to instead send my inquiry to the Assistant Secretary for Legislation, who of course also failed to provide any requested information,” Grassley wrote in a Tuesday letter.

The Justice Department, led by Attorney General Pam Bondi, pointed out the leftist bias of the American Bar Association (ABA) and ordered that it will bo longer have access to non-public information, including bar records.

The ABA uses a ratings process in which their Standing Committee rates each nominee “Well Qualified,” “Qualified” or “Not Qualified.” “Unanimous committee ratings appear as a single rating. In other situations, the rating from the majority or substantial majority (2/3 or more of those voting) of the Committee is recorded first, followed by the rating or ratings of a minority of the Committee. The majority rating is the rating of the committee,” the ABA notes on its website.

“The ABA has a history of taking liberal positions on issues including abortion, the death penalty, same-sex marriage, affirmative action, and the Second Amendment,” National Review stated in 2019. “The organization’s ideological bias has long tainted its ratings of judicial nominees. An entire book on the subject was written as early as 1965, Joel B. Grossman’s Lawyers and Judges: The ABA and the Politics of Judicial Selection.”

Of the 15 members on the ABA’s Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary in 2019, five donated to Barack Obama’s campaign, three to that of Hillary Clinton, and none to the three Republican nominees between 2008-2016. Incredibly, the ABA gave a minority “Not Qualified” rating to iconic Judge Robert Bork and other conservative legal scholars, including Richard A. Posner, Edith H. Jones, and William H. Pryor, among others.

“For several decades, the American Bar Association has received special treatment and enjoyed special access to judicial nominees,” Bondi wrote in a letter to ABA President William Bay. “In some administrations, the ABA received notice of nominees before a nomination was announced to the public. Some administrations would even decide whether to nominate an individual based on a rating assigned by the ABA.”

She continued:

Unfortunately, the ABA no longer functions as a fair arbiter of nominees’ qualifications, and its ratings invariably and demonstrably favor nominees put forth by Democratic administrations. The ABA’s steadfast refusal to fix the bias in its ratings process, despite criticism from Congress, the Administration, and the academy, is disquieting. Accordingly, while the ABA is free to comment on judicial nominations along with other activist organizations, there is no justification for treating the ABA differently from such other activist organizations and the Department of Justice will not do so. Specifically, the Office of Legal Policy will no longer direct nominees to provide waivers allowing the ABA access to non-public information, including bar records. Nominees will also not respond to questionnaires prepared by the ABA and will not sit for interviews with the ABA.

The American Bar Association has lost its way, and we do not believe it serves as a fair arbiter of judicial nominees.@TheJusticeDept will no longer give the ABA the access they’ve taken for granted. pic.twitter.com/ViqX9IRa7w

— Attorney General Pamela Bondi (@AGPamBondi) May 29, 2025