The recent reports about unaccompanied migrant children from Central America, who are brought to sponsors after entering the U.S. borders, have led the U.S. senate to slam the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), EFE reports.

After a thorough investigation, a couple of legislators announced during a congressional hearing on Thursday regarding the imminent issue that needs to be addressed immediately because of the gravity of the situation, the publication adds.

Apparently, unaccompanied children were even subjected to sexual abuse by the sponsors and the Senate have placed a spotlight on the HHS, stressing that it is the Department's responsibility, the news agency reports.

Missouri Democrat Claire McCaskill have recently shed light on the undocumented minors' situation in the US saying that they are now "vulnerable and traumatized minors abused by their sponsors, or forced to engage in backbreaking labor for little or no pay, while being housed in unsanitary and dangerous conditions," McCaskill said as quoted by FOX News Latino. 

Furthermore, there are already 13 minors who were smuggled and 15 experienced abuses, the news agency revealed. "HHS placed one 16-year-old with a sponsor who claimed to be her cousin. In fact, he was completely unrelated to her and had paid for her to come to the U.S The minor, was forced to have sex with her sponsor," McCaskill continued.

Meanwhile, Republican Senator Rob Portman of Ohio urged that the HHS made a mistake that risked the lives of the minors accusing them that they "failed to address systematic deficiencies in their placement process," Portman and McCaskill said as quoted by the news outlet.

Reuters reported that the senators during the hearing urged that the HHS was lacking procedures to protect the minors. "It is intolerable that human trafficking -- modern-day slavery -- could occur in our own backyard," Portman said as quoted by the publication.

With an average of 6,000 unaccompanied minors who come to the U.S. in a year to about 57,496 in 2014 and 33,726 in fiscal 2015, the numbers are reportedly too much for the HHS to handle.

In light of this, the news outlet speculated that the HHS had to act quickly and send these children to sponsors, even without doing their due diligence to look into the sponsors' backgrounds to ensure the safety of the unaccompanied minors.

"But what makes the Marion cases even more alarming is that a U.S. government agency was responsible for delivering some of the victims into the hands of their abusers," Portman added as quoted by the publication.