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BreakPoint: The real problem of 1,500 ‘missing’ children

FILE - In this June 18, 2014, file photo, young boys sleep in a holding cell where hundreds of mostly Central American immigrant children are being processed and held at the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Nogales Placement Center in Nogales, Ariz. CPB provided media tours Wednesday of two locations in Brownsville, Texas, and Nogales, that have been central to processing the more than 47,000 unaccompanied children who have entered the country since Oct. 1. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin, Pool)
FILE - In this June 18, 2014, file photo, young boys sleep in a holding cell where hundreds of mostly Central American immigrant children are being processed and held at the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Nogales Placement Center in Nogales, Ariz. CPB provided media tours Wednesday of two locations in Brownsville, Texas, and Nogales, that have been central to processing the more than 47,000 unaccompanied children who have entered the country since Oct. 1. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin, Pool) FILE - In this June 18, 2014, file photo, young boys sleep in a holding cell where hundreds of mostly Central American immigrant children are being processed and held at the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Nogales Placement Center in Nogales, Ariz. CPB provided media tours Wednesday of two locations in Brownsville, Texas, and Nogales, that have been central to processing the more than 47,000 unaccompanied children who have entered the country since Oct. 1. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin, Pool)

By John Stonestreet and David Carlson 4 min read

You may have heard the government has lost 1,500 kids who crossed the border illegally. That’s not really the case, and it misses the real outrage.

The most-discussed story in the news recently has been about the 1,500 “missing” children. Twitter hashtags such as “#WhereAreTheChildren” and “#MissingChildren” were created and used by the right and the left to express outrage. There’s only two problems. First, many have misunderstood what’s going on. And second, that confusion has obscured the real outrage: how our government is treating vulnerable families.

The 1,500 missing-children story comes from the Senate testimony of HHS official Steven Wagner. He told senators that the Office of Refugee Resettlement “had lost track of 1,475 children who had crossed the U.S.-Mexico border on their own and subsequently were placed with adult sponsors in the United States.”

It was a startling admission. But then, the story was conflated with an announcement by Attorney General Jeff Sessions that, in the case of families crossing the border illegally, children would be separated from their parents.

Here are Sessions exact words, “If you don’t want your child separated, then don’t bring them across the border illegally. It’s not our fault that somebody does that.”