NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Our NBC affiliate in Nashville, WSMV, is digging deeper into why migrant children were seen arriving at a Tennessee airport.
It’s led to responses from the governor and Tennessee’s senators.
WRCB-TV in Chattanooga shared a video it claimed was migrant children arriving late Saturday night at Chattanooga’s Wilson Air Center. The video shows them heading to board charter buses on the runway.
The content of the video has not been independently confirmed by WBIR.
The videos sparked criticism from Senator Marsha Blackburn and other members of the Tennessee congressional delegation. They are asking for transparency from the Biden administration.
"Joe Biden has created a crisis at the southern border. Biden's actions and rhetoric have caused thousands of illegal aliens to flood our borders and overwhelm our Border Patrol agents, who have been able to apprehend just half a million of them. Now his administration is secretly transporting the migrants the Border Patrol did catch to communities throughout the United States. They are doing this in the dead of night without the knowledge or permission of the communities involved. Joe Biden has put these children at risk. He is putting Tennesseans at risk. The American people deserve the truth now."
“Tennesseans deserve answers from the Biden Administration and they deserve them now. I have warned for months that President Biden’s failure at the border would result in a systematic resettling of migrants in our communities, burdening our schools, hospitals, and law enforcement agencies, and bringing an increase in drug trafficking and human smuggling. A new reality is happening in our country—every town is now a border town.”
Gov. Bill Lee tweeted about the incident.
To read the full letter from Blackburn, Hagerty, Fleischmann, click here.
"We shouldn't be using vulnerable children as a political football in this moment,” Lisa Sherman-Nikolaus, Executive Director for the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition said.
Sherman-Nikolaus spoke with WSMV on Thursday.
"For decades, Tennessee has welcomed migrant children, refugees, other folks who are seeking asylum, fleeing persecution and violence,” Sherman-Nikolaus said.
After reaching out to several federal agencies for more information, WSMV heard back.
It turns out the Office of Refugee Resettlement cares for unaccompanied children until they can be put with a vetted sponsor like a parent or close relative. The office falls under the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
The agency issued a statement to WSMV on Thursday:
“ORR’s mission is to safely care for unaccompanied children until they can be unified with a vetted sponsor, usually a parent or close relative. As part of the unification process, ORR is currently facilitating travel for the children in ORR’s custody to their sponsors to prevent any delays. Their parents and relatives are located across the United States, and ORR contractors use various transportation modes to unite unaccompanied children with their families, including air and ground transportation options, taking into account child safety and wellness, travel time, and cost-effectiveness.”
“They're being reunited with loved ones, sponsors, with people who are going to give them a home and that's the bottom line, we need to protect vulnerable children period,” Sherman-Nikolaus said.
WSMV also learned about the number of unaccompanied children released to sponsors like a parent or close relative. The latest data goes from October of 2020 through March of 2021.
The agency said they released 290 unaccompanied children during that time period in Davidson County.
As far as whether any migrant children were transported to Nashville recently, the agency did not answer that question.