As of July, around 330,000 of such children remained missing, according to government data.
By Catholics for Catholics
The Department of Homeland Security has located 148,000 unaccounted-for children who came into the United States illegally, according to Secretary Markwayne Mullin
“We are taking historic action to protect one of the most vulnerable victims of the Biden Administration’s open border crisis—migrant children,” Mullin wrote on Monday. “We have already located over 148,000 of these children, and we will not stop fighting until every last one is rescued.”
Earlier this week, Mullin linked to a post made by President Donald Trump showing a graph citing DHS figures that showed around 12,000 missing children were located between February and July, according to a story by the Epoch Times.
According to the story, as of July, about 330,000 such children continued missing, according to the DHS figures posted by the president.
Last year the DHS’s Office of Inspector General released a report, where it found that from fiscal years 2019 to 2023, around 448,000 unaccompanied minors crossed into the United States from Mexico and were transferred from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
Nevertheless, according to the report, there were major shortfalls in the data around the children who were released into HHS custody. It observed that in some cases, addresses were “blank, undeliverable, or missing apartment numbers,” while adding that ICE failed to issue around 233,000 notice-to-appear forms to minors that would assign them immigration court dates with the Justice Department.
In the midst of it all, illegal immigrant children traveling alone are normally handed over to U.S. government care, and there are several legal protections that apply to them once they’re in the United States and navigating the immigration system, including those afforded by the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008.
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