HHS official testifies he sounded alarm over Trump’s family-separation policy months before it was announced

WASHINGTON, D.C. – A senior Department of Health and Human Services official testified before Congress Thursday that he started sounding alarms that the Trump administration's family-separation policy would "pose an unacceptable danger to the child" 14 months before it was put in place.

"My consistent recommendation – and that of the entire career ORR team – was that separation of children from family units would pose an unacceptable danger to the child and moreover would pose a set of capacity problems that would overwhelm the program operation," HHS Commander Johnathan White told members of the House Energy and Commerce Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee Thursday, referring to concerns he said he started raising in February 2017 about the administration's plan to sperate migrant children from their parents at the border.

White, an HHS career civil servant who had previously served as deputy director of the department responsible for caring for migrant children, told lawmakers that a scathing new report released earlier this month by the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General – detailing the widespread trauma caused to thousands of children as a result of the administration's policy – matched what he and others in the agency had warned senior HHS officials would happen if the administration's family-separation policy was put in place.

"The findings of the HHS OIG's report are absolutely consistent with what all the best available evidence and science would tell us that we should have anticipated," White said in response to questions from the panel's chair, U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette (D-CO). "We have extensive scientific research that would allow us to know what we would expect – that the consequences of this for the child's health and behavioral health are severe, the risks are profound and the effects are often lifelong."

White's comments come just months after HHS Secretary Alex Azar told the same panel in March – under oath – that he was never aware such a policy was being considered by the administration until it was announced publicly by the Attorney General in April of last year.

"I was not aware that that policy was under consideration until the Attorney General announced it on April 7," Azar testified on March 12.

While Azar contends he never knew the policy was being considered, in part, to explain why his agency failed to take steps necessary to prepare for the sudden influx of children that would be transferred into his agency's care, new documents released today as part of the oversight panel's ongoing investigation show that several senior HHS officials were actively involved in discussions about the administration's family-separation plan months before it was announced.

In fact, a string of redacted emails show that at least two senior HHS officials had prepared a briefing book and scheduled a time in November 2017 to brief then Acting Secretary Eric Hargan on the plan.

While that briefing was scheduled for Nov. 22, 2017 – just one week after Azar was nominated by President Trump to take over as secretary at HHS – Hargan, who served as acting head of the agency until Azar was sworn in on January 28, 2018, has stayed on with the agency and is currently serving as its deputy secretary.

The documents further support White's testimony that senior officers within HHS were aware of the administration's plan to separate families at the border before it was formally announced, and that they had actively raised concerns to the agency's senior leaders that such a policy – if enacted – would be detrimental to the children's health and wellbeing.

"I elevated my concerns, and those of my team, to three levels above me in hierarchy," White said, "that would be to my immediate supervisor, then-director of ORR Scott Lloyd, to his supervisor, my agency head, then-Acting Assistant Secretary for Administration of Children and Families, Stephen Wagner, and to his managerial POC in the immediate office of the secretary, Maggie Wynn, the Counselor for Human Services to the Secretary."

As chair of the subcommittee charged with directly overseeing HHS, DeGette has been leading a months-long investigation into why the agency was ill-prepared to care for the thousands of migrant children that were transferred into its care under the administration's family-separation policy – and why it raised no formal objections, on behalf the children, over the administration's proposed plan when it was being discussed.

"It's clear that HHS was not prepared to care for the sudden influx of migrant children that were suddenly transferred into its care as a result of the Trump administration's zero-tolerance policy," DeGette said after Thursday's hearing. "We want to know why?"

"The fact that HHS failed to speak up for these children when this plan was being discussed, and failed to take any meaningful steps to ensure it was prepared to care for the thousands of kids that would soon be transferred into their care as a result of this policy is inexcusable," DeGette said. "If HHS leaders were told that this policy was being considered and did nothing to protect these kids, we will hold them accountable."