After an estimated 233,000 children who crossed the US-Mexico border alone during President Joe Biden’s tenure were lost, law enforcement has started to locate them – only to learn of the horrors they have faced.
Since March, the Trump administration has tracked down 22,638 kids, finding some in ‘deplorable’ conditions, dead and others being used as sex slaves, officials told Fox News.
‘We found children who have been raped,’ John Fabbricatore, HHS Office of Refugee Resettlement senior advisor told the network.
‘We’re talking about debt bondage, where children are being made to work off debt, trafficking debt. We’re talking about children that were brought into situations and then treated like sexual slaves.’
At least 27 of those lost children have been confirmed dead, with causes of death ranging from murder, suicide, car accidents or drug overdoses.
‘Children are in horrific environments, just environments that they should not be in, where the sponsor is a heroin dealer and that child winds up dying of a heroin overdose,’ explained Fabbricatore.
These children are classified by the government as ‘unaccompanied minors’ -underaged migrants who crossed the US border without a parent or legal guardian.
An unaccompanied two-year-old girl from El Salvador explains she arrived in the US by herself and that her parents are in the US, Texas Department of Public Safety posted in November. The child had a piece of paper with a phone number & name
An uncle, older sibling, or other relative might be traveling with the child, however, the minor would be considered unaccompanied because they are not with a legal parent.
Often times, the parents were already in the US and had saved up money to pay smugglers to bring their children in.
In a heartbreaking video, a two-year-old girl from El Salvador told Texas Department of Safety troopers who found her in November that she was on her way to reunite with her mom and dad.
While kids have sometimes crossed the border alone, during Presidency of Joe Biden, the number exploded, alongside overall illegal immigration.
Often, children were arriving at the border completely alone, pushed over the border wall by smugglers who abandoned them.
In another shocking case, a 2-month-old baby was found in Rio Grande City, Texas by Border Patrol agents.
‘This is a chilling reminder of how children are being exploited by human smugglers & criminal organizations every day,’ the agency shared on its Instagram account in Sept. 2023
In one instance, two brothers were found at the Texas-Mexico border with handwriting on their t-shirts with the child’s name or the contact information of a relative in the US.
Someone had written the contact information of family members in the US on their clothing in marker.
In September 2023, Border Patrol agents in Rio Grande City, Texas found a 2-month-old child left abandoned at the border, the agency said. ‘This is a chilling reminder of how children are being exploited by human smugglers & criminal organizations every day.’
Two Guatemalan unaccompanied brothers, ages 6 & 2, were found by Border Patrol in Texas in September 2022. Their shirts were scribbled with the names and phone numbers of their U.S. contact, officials explained
Wilto Gutiérrez, a 10-year-old Nicaraguan migrant, was found alone on the border. He was reunited with his mother in Florida in May 28, 2021 after almost two months in federal custody
Two unaccompanied children, ages 2 and 4, entered the US alone near the Rio Grande River in Texas in July 2024. Agents determined that the siblings were from Honduras
470,000 children without parents or guardians crossed into the US illegally between 2021 and 2024, according to government statistics.
After an unaccompanied minor enters the US, the government’s policy is to let the minor stay in the country.
The government holds them in special shelters for children until they can be reunited with relatives in the US, however, these children are not deported.
Biden officials were supposed to be vetting the adults were were claiming the kids, to make sure they were actually related.
Somehow, children were lost in the system, with the officials unable to verify the kids’ whereabouts.
‘There wasn’t very good record-keeping’ under the Biden administration, Fabbricatore added.
‘It’s drawing that data back in, being able to identify addresses, where these children went, who these sponsors actually were. In many cases, that data is, is horrible. What the Biden administration was taking in and putting into our computer systems was not the right information. So now we have to draw that all back in and deeply investigate into where some of these children went.’
In some cases, the adults the kids were released to– called sponsors– were not DNA tested ensure they were actually related.
In other cases, the addresses where the kids were being taken to were not verified to make sure the child was actually living there.
Under the current administration, DNA testing is a requirement, as is proof of income, criminal background checks, fingerprinting and identification verification.
