(NewsNation) — More than 13,000 migrant children who arrived at the U.S.-Mexico border unaccompanied by an adult have now been located, a Department of Health and Human Services official confirmed to NewsNation.
President Donald Trump had pledged both before and after the 2024 election that his administration would locate the hundreds of thousands of minors who entered the country illegally without adults during the Biden administration.
Under the Biden administration, 320,000 unaccompanied children crossed the border, the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General has previously said.
On Wednesday, CNN reported the Trump administration is moving to quickly deport some of the children who arrived at the border without adult supervision during the Biden presidency. The report, citing DHS officials, said that federal agents are asking the minors who are located whether they want to leave the United States voluntarily.
The report said that the practice is a departure from a long-standing protocol where officials would not ask minors if they wanted to leave the U.S. voluntarily and instead were handed over to HHS.
“The safety of children and ensuring they are reunited with their parents or safe guardian is (the) top priority of the Trump Administration, which stands in stark contrast to the nearly 300,000 migrant children that were lost under the Biden Administration,” Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement in response to the CNN report.
In addition to the 13,061 migrant minors that have now been accounted for, a HHS source told NewsNation this week that Immigration and Customs Enforcement has arrested 422 sponsors who are accused of abusing the minors in their care or of other crimes.
The source said that “multi-faceted investigations” are taking place regarding the abuse allegations. In addition to local police, Child and Protective Services and federal agencies are all investigating the abuse claims, the source confirmed.
Minors who agreed to leave the country voluntarily are being turned over to ICE for deportation, CNN reported. If ICE did not take the minors into custody within 72 hours, however, Customs and Border Protection would turn the minors over to HHS.
NewsNation reported earlier this year that the DHS Office of Inspector General found that ICE officials are unable to effectively monitor the more than 600,000 unaccompanied minors who entered the country without supervision since 2019.
The report said that hundreds of thousands of unaccompanied migrant children entered the country and were transferred from ICE to the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement. Of those children, however, 233,000 have not yet been served notices to appear in immigration court by ICE as of this week, the report said.
As of last October, more than 43,000 unaccompanied children who were served with court orders did not show up for scheduled court dates. In addition, 31,000 of those who were released to sponsors had release forms that did not include addresses, had missing apartment numbers or were undeliverable, the inspector general’s office said in its report.
In February, ICE was tasked with locating the unaccounted-for migrant minors who the agency said were likely spread across several U.S. states. Roughly 61% of those being sought by federal agents are young men between the ages of 14 and 17, data shows, the majority of whom are from Guatemala (32%), Honduras (20%), Mexico (20%) and El Salvador (8%), NewsNation previously reported.
Trump told reporters earlier this month that 10,000 previously unaccounted-for migrant minors had been “gotten back” and that “we have a lot more planned to come back.” Trump said that federal agencies were getting minors “back by the thousands” and pledged that the administration would continue to locate more of those who were previously reported unaccounted for.
McLaughlin said that offering migrants the chance to voluntarily leave is accredited in the Trafficking Victims Prevention and Protection Reauthorization Act of 2022. She said that the administration has expanded the provision to allow migrant minors to be returned to countries other than Mexico and Canada as part of funding that was part of Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill.”
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