A House panel is requesting additional documents from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) related to the Trump administration’s family separation policy at the border, after the agency failed to deliver on an earlier request.
“We had hoped the agency would promptly cooperate with our committee as we fulfill our oversight responsibility — but, unfortunately, it appears that’s not going to be the case,” Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.) said in a statement.
{mosads}“HHS’s refusal to comply with this routine request is just the latest in what seems to be a new trend that’s emerging across the board under this administration. And I hope the Trump administration understands that we will not simply sit back and tolerate this kind of behavior,” DeGette said.
DeGette, the chairwoman of the House Energy and Commerce oversight subcommittee, first asked HHS in January to turn over documents relating to the administration’s “zero tolerance” border policy, which resulted in separating children from their parents.
The letter followed the release of an HHS inspector general report that found the Trump administration separated thousands more migrant children from their parents than was previously known.
HHS is the agency responsible for the care of unaccompanied children who cross into the country.
According to DeGette spokesman Ryan Brown, HHS provided hundreds of documents to the committee, but “only a few of those documents were even minimally relevant to the family separation issue DeGette’s subcommittee is investigating.”
HHS told the committee more information will be provided by Friday — the day after an HHS official will testify before the committee about the family separation policy.
In a statement to The Hill, HHS spokeswoman Evelyn Stauffer said the agency provided an initial 792 documents to the committee.
Stauffer confirmed Feb. 8 as the next deadline, and said the agency is working to produce the additional documents requested on a rolling basis.