ICE Unable to Account for 32,000 Unaccompanied Illegal Immigrant Children, Watchdog Warns

The Department of Homeland Security’s Office of the Inspector General (DHS OIG) stated in the Aug. 19 report sent to Congress that it uncovered an urgent issue regarding how immigration cases involving illegal immigrant minors have been handled.
According to the report, ICE has been unable to keep track of unaccompanied minors released from government custody in the past five years.
Between the Trump and Biden administrations, from 2019 to 2023, immigration authorities transferred more than 448,000 unaccompanied minors from ICE custody to the Department of Health and Human Services, according to the interim assessment.
The inspector general’s findings, based on more than 100 interviews and site visits to 11 ICE field offices, indicate that immigration officers “cannot always monitor the location and status of unaccompanied migrant children who are released … and [then] did not appear as scheduled in immigration court.”
Without an ability to monitor the location and status of unaccompanied illegal immigrant children, ICE has no assurance they are safe from trafficking, exploitation, or forced labor, Inspector General Joseph Cuffari wrote in his interim report.
Cuffari said ICE must “take immediate action to ensure the safety of [unaccompanied children] residing in the United States” and to improve oversight and monitoring of facilities where they are held.
He stated in his initial assessment that the failure of ICE to deliver notices to appear or schedule court dates for more than 291,000 unaccompanied illegal immigrant children meant that they were not subject to removal proceedings as of May 2024.
Consequently, if ICE had sent warnings or set court dates for those 291,000 youngsters, the number of children who did not show up for their hearings “may have been much larger” than 32,000.
When ICE fails to serve notices to appear or schedule court dates, it “reduces opportunities to verify their safety,” according to the watchdog.
“Immigration court hearings are often ICE’s only opportunity to observe and screen [children] for trafficking indicators or other safety concerns,” the report said.
The inspector recommended that Homeland Security officials work to develop “an automated system to document court appearances and maintain address information of unaccompanied migrant children.”
The rule applies to the spouses of U.S. citizens who had resided in the United States for a minimum of 10 years as of June 17.
The parole authority is estimated to be eligible for extension for approximately 500,000 of the 765,000 noncitizens who are in the United States, married to U.S. citizens, and lack lawful immigration status.
Secretary Xavier Becerra appeared before the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations to address these issues, including why the ORR would send 100 children to the same address for settlement.
Becerra contested the claim, stating that these children were not sent to the same house addresses but rather the same general geographic area.
The Epoch Times reached out to ICE and the DHS for comment but received no reply by publication time.