Former Trump refugee director to depart HHS
Scott Lloyd, whose nearly two-year tenure leading the Department of Health and Human Services refugee office sparked lawsuits and congressional inquiries, will leave the Trump administration next week, HHS announced Wednesday.
Lloyd ran the refugee office for most of 2017 and 2018 as HHS was taking custody of thousands of migrant children separated from their families under the administration’s zero-tolerance border enforcement policy. The administration struggled to reunite those families after a federal court order, and House Democrats this year have probed Lloyd’s role in the separations and whether his testimony before Congress was truthful.
Lloyd testified in February that he failed to alert HHS leaders about the health risks of separating migrant children. HHS leaders previously concluded that Lloyd mismanaged efforts to reunite families, POLITICO reported last year.
Democrats and reproductive health groups also criticized Lloyd for his efforts to block unaccompanied teenage girls in government custody from obtaining abortions, prompting an ACLU-led legal battle that reached the Supreme Court.
Lloyd was transferred in November 2018 to the HHS office for faith-based initiatives, where he has served as a liaison between the Trump administration and the religious community.
Lloyd also attracted scrutiny for his work outside the administration. He published a fictionalized memoir this year that detailed his anti-abortion beliefs.