The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) have located more than 129,143 unaccompanied migrant children during 2025, according to an official.
Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem wrote on X that, under the Trump administration, the agencies had identified these children—many of whom had previously been lost or untracked—and said the effort would continue until every child was accounted for.
“Too many of these children were exploited, trafficked and abused,” Noem wrote.
A source familiar with the matter said the Biden administration did not prioritize follow-up after the children entered the country.
The source added that multiple federal agencies are involved in ongoing efforts to locate the children, including daily attempts to verify addresses and in-person visits conducted by partner agencies and HHS field specialists.
According to the source, the higher figure reflects newly received court data from the Executive Office for Immigration Review and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, rather than a sudden shift in enforcement activity.
Why It Matters
During the 2024 presidential campaign, Donald Trump frequently highlighted unaccompanied immigrant children he said had been lost by the Biden administration, promising to locate them and return them home.
Children who cross the border without parents or legal guardians are typically transferred from DHS custody to HHS’s Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), which places them with vetted sponsors or guardians.
What To Know
In a March audit, the DHS Office of Inspector General found that after consulting with more than 140 officials from DHS and other federal agencies, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was unable to effectively track the whereabouts and status of all unaccompanied migrant children after they were released from federal custody.
The audit noted that from fiscal years 2019 through 2023, ICE transferred more than 448,000 unaccompanied migrant children to HHS, most of whom were released to sponsors. However, more than 31,000 of those children had release addresses that were blank, undeliverable, or missing apartment numbers—making it difficult for ICE to locate them.
The report also found that ICE was not consistently aware of the whereabouts of unaccompanied migrant children who fled HHS custody.
DHS announced on November 14 that ICE had started a program, in coordination with state and local law enforcement, to conduct welfare checks on unaccompanied children who entered the U.S. without legal guardians and were placed with sponsors.
According to DHS, the initiative is intended to help ensure the children’s safety and well-being.
In September, immigrant rights advocates Al Otro Lado said it received a leaked ICE memo describing collaboration between the agency and ORR.
According to the memo, Homeland Security Investigations agents were authorized to question children in ORR custody without their attorneys or Miranda warnings, with the stated aim of facilitating family reunification.
What People Are Saying
Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem wrote on X on Friday: “We will continue to ramp up efforts and will not stop until every last child is found.”
DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a news release in November: “Many of the children who came across the border unaccompanied were allowed to be placed with sponsors who were smugglers and sex traffickers.”
Cassandra Lopez, the litigation director at Al Otro Lado, wrote in a news release: “Children currently face increasingly long stays in immigration custody, which negatively impacts their health and well-being. Given the new obstacles for children seeking to reunify with their vetted sponsors while their immigration cases are ongoing, ICE interrogating prospective sponsors and children at ORR field staff visits will have a chilling effect on sponsors coming forward, and may interfere with children’s right to be released from custody while their immigration cases are pending.”
What Happens Next
The administration says it will continue efforts to locate unaccompanied migrant children who remain unaccounted for, including those previously released to sponsors whose whereabouts were unclear.
