Top Republican probes how Biden admin lost track of over 291,000 illegal migrant KIDS who are now being sex trafficked

Senator Josh Hawley is demanding answers from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) about the nearly 300,000 unaccompanied migrant children it “may have lost track of” in the US.

The agency’s internal watchdog has warned of an “urgent problem” in the way immigration officials are handling cases involving migrant minors. The watchdog found that more than 32,000 children had failed to show up for immigration summonses and that ICE “could not determine” their whereabouts.

According to the watchdog, ICE has failed to issue court dates for more than 291,000 unaccompanied immigrant minors. Two-thirds of the migrant children who have entered the U.S.,

“Unaccompanied migrant children are among the most vulnerable individuals in America. They are routinely trafficked for sex, forced into illegal labor, burned with chemicals, and subjected to countless other cruelties at the hands of cartels,” wrote Hawley, R-Mo.

“Not only did your agency lose track of these children, it didn’t even bother to tell anyone. That’s unconscionable.”

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is responsible for placing immigrant children with sponsors, but lost track of tens of thousands of them after the children and their sponsors stopped responding. ICE, which is responsible for referring the children to immigration hearings, also failed to contact them.

“ICE must take immediate action to ensure the safety of UCs residing in the United States,” Inspector General Joseph Cuffari said in a warning. “Based on our audit work and ICE officials’ observations, UCs who fail to appear in court are considered to be at greater risk of trafficking, exploitation, or forced labor.”

“By not issuing NTAs to all UCs, ICE limits the opportunity for contact with UCs when they are released from HHS custody, thereby reducing the opportunity to verify their safety,” Cuffari said.

Without the ability to supervise the children, there is “no guarantee they will be safe from trafficking, exploitation and forced labor.”

Hawley recalled Mayorkas’ October 2023 testimony before the Senate, in which he claimed, “We have prioritized rescuing children who have been victims of human trafficking.”

“But according to your Inspector General, your policies actually increase the risk of trafficking for migrant children,” Hawley wrote.

He demanded that Homeland Security Sec. Alejandro Mayorkas provide answers about where his agency believes these children are, why they have not been served with court notices, what his agency is doing to track them down and what led to the breakdown in communication between HHS and DHS.

ICE does not alert HHS when a child fails to appear, and has no procedural code for following up on such cases. HHS did set up an email inbox for ICE to alert it when a child fails to appear for a deportation hearing. But ICE officials could not tell the inspector general how often, if ever, deportation officials used it.

ICE responded to the report, saying it would send out an alert asking agents to start using the system.

Mexican migrant Veronica Marquez, 36, comforts her son Mariano, 5, as she waits to be apprehended by U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials after crossing the U.S. border on June 25, 2024.

These immigrant children are often sent north by human traffickers in the hope that they will have a greater chance of not being turned away at the border without their parents.

About 68,000 were captured and released in fiscal year 2019, and only 15,128 were captured and released in 2020, the last full year under President Trump. Nearly 366,000 were captured and went to HHS during Biden’s first three years.

For ICE, children are just the tip of the iceberg of the agency’s problems tracking migrants.

According to ICE’s record, there are more than 7 million migrants at large, unmonitored.

Children who do appear and go through the immigration court process have little chance of being deported.

Of those who arrived in 2018, nearly a quarter were granted some kind of legal status within three years, and only 5 percent were sent back to their home countries. About 14 percent were supposed to leave but ignored those orders, and the rest, 57 percent, had made no progress with their legal status three years later.