Report: Over 32,000 confirmed illegal immigrant children lost by DHS, that number could be in the hundreds of thousands

WASHINGTON, D.C. - An interim report released by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) revealed Tuesday that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has lost tens of thousands of unaccompanied illegal immigrant children over the last five years.

As reported by Fox News, the interim report entitled, "Management Alert - ICE Cannot Monitor All Unaccompanied Migrant Children Released from DHS and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Custody," warned that over 32,000 of the unaccompanied minors could not be accounted for.

According to the report, "U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) could not monitor the location and status of all unaccompanied migrant children (UCs) or initiate removal proceedings as needed.(...) ICE transferred more than 448,000 UCs to HHS from fiscal years 2019 to 2023. However, ICE was not able to account for the location of all UCs who were released by HHS and did not appear as scheduled in immigration court. ICE reported more than 32,000 UCs failed to appear for their immigration court hearings from FYs 2019 to 2023."

The report outlined that a partial cause for this failure is the lack of "an automated process for sharing information internally between the Office of the Principal Legal Advisor (OPLA) and ERO, and externally with stakeholders, such as HHS and the Department of Justice (DOJ), regarding UCs who do not appear in immigration court."

"Despite its responsibilities for overseeing UCs [unaccompanied migrant children] through the immigration process, we found ICE cannot always monitor the location and status of UCs once they were released from DHS and HHS custody," the report added.

Startlingly, the OIC noted that "UCs who do not appear for court are considered at higher risk for trafficking, exploitation, or forced labor. Although we identified more than 32,000 UCs who did not appear for their immigration court dates, that number may have been much larger had ICE issued NTAs to the more than 291,000 UCs who were not placed into removal proceedings," establishing that there could indeed be hundreds of thousands of unaccounted children.
 

Remember in 2020 when Kamala called 545 migrant children missing parents a “stain on our national character”?

A new DHS report out today says HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of migrant kids are missing under the Biden-Harris admin when Kamala was the border czar. pic.twitter.com/lVryNn2QuK

— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) August 21, 2024