English
Spanish
French
German
Italian
Portuguese
Russian
Chinese (Simplified)
Hindi
Japanese
The US agency responsible for unaccompanied migrant children will be able to share the immigration status of the kids’ sponsors with law enforcement under the Trump administration — in a move that officials say will protect kids from trafficking and exploitation.
The Office for Refugee Resettlement (ORR) — an agency within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that cares for the migrant children until they can be released — will also be allowed to deny a sponsor based solely on their immigration status, according to a notice published in the Federal Register.
A shocking report released in August also found that the Biden-Harris administration lost track of more than 320,000 migrant children who crossed the border without parents.
The change under President Trump nixes a Biden-era regulation that prohibited the agency from sharing immigration information and comes after HHS announced it would launch an investigation into thousands of cases of migrant children who may have ended up in the hands of sexual predators and human traffickers.
The children were also found to be working in exploitative conditions in slaughterhouses and factories because of the lax vetting policies under the former president.
HHS “will no longer be complicit in endangering the lives of children by allowing adults to exploit our immigration system,” an agency official told The Post.
Border agents release migrants who cross into the US illegally alone as kids to HHS, which helps them locate their sponsor in the US — who doesn’t have to be a family member.
“For too long, individuals have arranged for children to be smuggled in the United States, knowing they will be released to an adult, often without adequate vetting, creating a dangerous incentive that puts vulnerable young children at risk,” the official added.
By May 2024, 291,000 migrant children arrived in the US as unaccompanied minors and were released into the country with a notice to appear in immigration court, but with no way to track their whereabouts in the US, according to a 14-page report that tracked a period from October 2018 to September 2023.
In several egregious cases, HHS found that migrant sponsors provided fake or doctored images in their applications, but weren’t scrutinized over the phony photos.
“Our priority is to protect children and uphold the rule of law. We are committed to closing the loophole that encourages placing children in harm’s way.”
Fraudulent sponsors of migrant children will also be targeted under the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign if they’re referred to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The Trump administration has already taken steps to reform the program, including proposing fingerprinting and mandatory DNA checks to confirm the sponsors’ identities, increasing background checks and using facial recognition and post-release monitoring, officials previously told The Post.
