US admits losing track of 32,000 unaccompanied migrant children | US

The U.S. government is losing track of more than 32,000 unaccompanied children (UCs) who have arrived in the country. They don’t know where they are, what their status is, and worse, they could be exposed to dangers such as human trafficking for sexual or labor exploitation. This has been acknowledged in a report by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that found these minors have failed to comply with their immigration court appointments.

“Based on our audit work and according to ICE officials, UCs who fail to appear in court are considered to be at increased risk of trafficking, exploitation, or forced labor,” DHS Inspector General Joseph V. Cuffari warned. In addition, the risk of deportation is also increased when minors fail to appear for their hearings. Cuffari described the situation as “urgent” and called on ICE to take immediate action to ensure the safety of these minors.

Between 2019 and 2023, a total of 448,000 unaccompanied children were taken into government custody and released. The Department of Homeland Security warns that the number of minors whose whereabouts are unknown could be much higher, with approximately 290,000 still not facing a court date.

Ineffectiveness of the Immigration Service

Sources close to the immigration processes of these minors explain that the problem stems from a lack of communication between the agencies involved, and that ICE does not update the data and does not communicate the agreements with the court to follow up on their immigration processes to the correct addresses. They say that many agents inherited from the Donald Trump administration work in border control and do not support granting rights to these migrants, thus hindering the process of guaranteeing their stay in the United States.

“This report clearly shows that ICE has not effectively coordinated with other agencies or followed up to verify children’s locations and knowledge of hearing dates after children are released from the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement,” said Shaina Aber, executive director of Acacia, an organization dedicated to providing legal support to minors. “ICE has a history of acting in ways that undermine migrants’ rights and due process, including through paperwork errors that create problems for immigration courts and for people trying to understand their hearing dates and appearance obligations,” she added.

The DHS report acknowledges the lack of coordination and communication between government agencies and criticizes the work of ICE, which is responsible for processing these minors, for failing to initiate proceedings in most cases. As an example, the report states that 84 percent of the 41,000 minors who corresponded with one of the ICE offices reviewed did not receive appointments.

When crossing the border unaccompanied, minors are met by border agents who turn them over to the Office of Refugee Resettlement. Minors spend an average of 27 days in the custody of U.S. authorities before being transferred to their new destination, usually with family members, often distant relatives, who live in the country and care for them. Those who do not have relatives in the United States are picked up by “sponsors” such as foster families or shelters. Previous reports have shown that foster families’ records are not always checked, raising fears for the minors’ well-being and the risk that they could end up in human trafficking networks or be subjected to some form of exploitation, whether sexual or labor-intensive.

For their part, ICE officials said during the investigation that even if they find that foster families are not meeting minimum safety standards for the children, they have no authority to take action. One agent expressed concern that he could do nothing in one of the monitored cases, in which the woman reported that her husband was having inappropriate relations with the foster child.

Fear of deportation

Immigration lawyer Álex Gálvez says that sometimes the reason these minors don’t show up to court isn’t because they don’t know the date of their hearing, but because they’re afraid. “They don’t show up because the family members don’t have the resources to hire lawyers, or simply because they’re afraid that if they show up to court, they’ll deport the minor and the guardian, since those who take the children in are usually undocumented as well,” he explains.

An unaccompanied migrant child is defined as a child under the age of 18 who does not have legal immigration status in the United States and does not have a parent or legal guardian in the country. Statistics show that 70% of unaccompanied minors are between the ages of 15 and 17, but the percentage of children between the ages of 0 and 12 has increased by 4% since 2018. “Many of these children have experienced severe trauma and have been subjected to horrific exploitation on their way to the border,” Save the Children notes.

Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador are the countries of origin for the majority of unaccompanied migrant children crossing the border. These countries have some of the highest infanticide rates in the world. For years, a crisis of violence, gang warfare and corruption has driven children and families to flee the Northern Triangle of Central America and seek safety and protection in the United States.

The law offers these minors the opportunity to seek asylum in the United States, but their failure to appear in court on their hearing dates jeopardizes their ability to obtain a green card. Whether out of fear or because they did not receive the notice, their absence also increases their risk of deportation.

“It is critical that the administration hold ICE accountable for this serious failure and focus on protecting the well-being of young people seeking safety, not respond by using a systemic failure in administration management as an excuse to pressure children into deportation,” Aber argued.

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