Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley blasted the Obama administration for not telling state officials about dozens of Central American children being placed in Iowa after entering the U-S illegally. Grassley, a Republican, says the feds were wrong to put the 139 children in Iowa homes without giving the state a heads-up to provide health care, mental health care and other state services. Iowa Senator Tom Harkin, a Democrat, disagrees.

Harkin says the operation was kept secret for a reason as there have been angry protests in other U-S cities along the Mexican border which likely traumatized the already-frightened children.

Reports say as many as 57-thousand children from Central American nations have entered the U-S, undocumented and unaccompanied, since last fall.

The children deserve due process, Harkin says, and it needs to be determined if they qualify for asylum.