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Where are the Unaccompanied Migrant Children?
A Homeland Security Inspector General’s report released Monday, August 19, revealed a disturbing trend. Thousands of unaccompanied migrant minors might be missing. As of May, 291,000 children who arrived in the US without their families were released but never given a date to appear in immigration court, meaning there’s no way to track their location or well-being. On top of that, there are about 32,000 minors that ICE released who did have hearing dates but didn't appear in court. The report expressed concern that some of those children are at risk of being exploited by sex traffickers, forced labor, and other dangers.
Tara Rodas, who was recruited as a federal government employee to help the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) with an influx of migrant minors in 2021, told the New York Post that she was shocked to find her job involved handing children off to “traffickers, members of transnational criminal organizations, bad actors, bad, bad, bad people.”
Before children are released, there has to be a sponsor for them. However, the sponsor does not have to be a family member, and agents do not usually meet them in person. According to Rodas, a phone interview is the only vetting usually required. “At the very beginning of the Biden administration, they stripped all the vetting out of the process,” she claims. Last year, 344 released unaccompanied migrant children were living with sponsors with no familial ties who were also hosting at least three other immigrant kids, NBC News reported.
“Without an ability to monitor the location and status of [unaccompanied migrant children], ICE has no assurance [they] are safe from trafficking, exploitation, or forced labor,” Inspector General Joseph Cuffari wrote in his interim report that was sent to Congress on Tuesday.
According to the report, which covered 2019–2023, officials transferred more than 448,000 migrant minors from ICE custody to HHS. However, many of them never showed up to their immigration hearings, which is how officials check on their well-being and look for signs that the children are being exploited. Of those that did show up, only 56% have counsel representation, according to the Department of Justice.
“Immigration court hearings are often ICE’s only opportunity to observe and screen [children] for trafficking indicators or other safety concerns,” the report explains. When ICE does not deliver the notices to appear or schedule court dates, that “reduces opportunities to verify safety.” ICE officials argue they are short-staffed and do not have the manpower or resources to do all that is required of them, including finding migrant children and serving them notices to appear. The report states that only one of eight of the ICE offices that were audited “attempted to locate” the missing migrant children.
While hundreds of thousands of migrant children are still unaccounted for, there is also another disturbing danger. Rodas said officials do not vet children, and she has seen adults claiming to be minors just to get through the system. “It is fraud on the part of the adult who’s pretending to be the unaccompanied child, but it’s also fraud on the part of the sponsor attempting to sponsor them. This is very serious,” she told The Post.
Criminal Immigrant Children
And then there is the crime issue involving young immigrants, some of them with gang ties, who are released without being vetted. On Wednesday, El Salvadorian national Walter Javier Martinez was sentenced to 70 years in prison for the rape and murder of Kayla Hamilton in July 2022. Martinez was reportedly smuggled into the US just four months prior to the crime, and officials allegedly did not even check to see if he had gang tattoos or call officials in El Salvador to see if he had a criminal record.
“Had they done so, El Salvador government officials would have confirmed that the assailant was a known MS-13 gang member with a prior criminal history,” Tammy Nobles, the victim’s mother, testified to Congress in January. Furthermore, HHS “neglected and recklessly failed to verify a legitimate family member of the assailant or sponsor before allowing him to enter U.S. soil.” She said the agency “allowed the MS-13 gang member, as a minor, to rent a room in a trailer park from another individual who was also an illegal immigrant.” The same trailer park where the victim lived and was murdered.
While in jail, Martinez wrote a letter where he allegedly confessed to four murders, two rapes, and other crimes.
The report raises alarming concerns. Where are the thousands of unaccompanied migrant children who were released to sponsors? Why aren’t minors being vetted as well? There are serious flaws in the system, and as a result, children are being exposed to trafficking, child labor, and other horrors. In the Democrats’ bid to provide rapid and humane ways to immigrate to the US, they’ve loosened the very procedures set in place to protect innocent youth.
What will next week bring us in Open Borders America?
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