United States admits to having lost track of 32,000 unaccompanied migrant minors

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

“Based on our audit work and according to ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] officials, UCs who do not appear for court are considered at higher risk for trafficking, exploitation or forced labor,” warned DHS Inspector General Joseph V. Cuffari. In addition, if minors do not show up for their hearings, the risk of being deported is also higher. 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 custody and released by the administration. The Department of Homeland Security warns that the number of minors whose whereabouts are unknown may be much higher, with some 290,000 still not having a court date.

Ineffectiveness of the Immigration Agency

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 court appointments to follow up on their immigration processes to the correct addresses. They state 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 to guarantee them residency in the United States.

“It is clear from this report that ICE has not coordinated with other agencies effectively or completed any follow-up to verify children’s location and knowledge of hearing dates after children are released from Office of Refugee Resettlement custody,” says 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 the rights and due process of migrants, including through paperwork errors that create difficulties for immigration courts and for people trying to understand their hearing dates and appearance obligations,” she adds.

The DHS report acknowledges the lack of coordination and communication between government agencies and criticizes the work of ICE — which is responsible for the immigration processing of these minors — for failing to initiate proceedings in most cases. As one example, the brief states that 84% of the 41,000 minors that corresponded to one of the ICE offices reviewed had not been given appointments.

When crossing the border unaccompanied, minors are met by border agents who transfer them 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, in many cases distant relatives, who reside in the country and take care of 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 already shown that the data of the foster families is not always checked, which raises fears for the welfare of the minors and the danger that they may end up in human trafficking networks or be subjected to some type of exploitation, whether sexual or labor.

For their part, ICE officials stated during the investigation that even if they discover that foster homes do not meet the minimum safety conditions for the children, they lack the authority to act. One of the agents expressed concern that he was unable to do anything 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 attorney Álex Gálvez says that sometimes the reason these minors do not attend court is not because they do not know the date of their hearing, but because they are afraid. “They don’t show up because the family members don’t have the resources to hire lawyers, or simply because they are scared that if they show up in court they will deport the minor and the guardian, because generally those who take in the children are also undocumented,” he explains.

An unaccompanied migrant minor 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 aged between 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 horrible exploitation on the way to the border,” notes Save the Children.

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

Legislation grants these minors the possibility of receiving asylum in the United States, but their failure to appear in court on their hearing days jeopardizes their ability to obtain a green card. Whether out of fear, or because they did not receive the notice, their absence also increases the risk of deportation.

“It is critical that the government hold ICE accountable for this significant error and focus on protecting the welfare of young people seeking safety, not respond by turning a systemic error in paperwork management into an excuse to rush children into deportation proceedings,” Aber argues.

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