(NewsNation) — More than 600 migrant children who entered the United States illegally and unaccompanied by an adult have been placed into government shelters this year — more kids than the previous four years combined — federal officials confirmed to NewsNation.
Since President Donald Trump took office on Jan. 20, the Office of Refugee Resettlement has received 651 referrals from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which took children who arrived at the U.S.-Mexico border unaccompanied by an adult, the agency said.
As of Monday, more than 62,000 minors who crossed into the United States illegally, unaccompanied by an adult, had been located since Trump began his second term, NewsNation confirmed. That’s a sharp increase since July, when the Department of Homeland Security reported 24,000 minors had been located.
How do migrant children end up in federal care?
ProPublica, citing government data, reported that at least 160 of this year’s cases involved child welfare concerns of children who were separated at the border. The outlet reported an additional 150 cases involved children who were sent to government shelters after their parents were detained in traffic stops in places like Florida, where state and local police partner with federal immigration agents and officers, the report indicated.
An ICE spokesperson told NewsNation this week that the federal agency does not separate families, a practice that began during Trump’s first term. Instead, the spokesperson said that the parents of the minors, who are often teenagers, are given the choice to be removed from their children or for ICE to place minors with a “safe person,” who is designated by the parents.
The ICE spokesperson deferred specific questions about the placement of children into federal shelters to the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees ORR. An ORR spokesperson told NewsNation that the agency is legally responsible for providing care and custody for all unaccompanied children until they can be placed with a vetted sponsor.
Those sponsors are typically a parent or relative who cares for the children while their immigration case proceeds through the legal system. ORR’s policies for placing children into provider facilities are based on child welfare best practices “to provide a safe environment that is appropriate for the child’s needs,” an ORR spokesperson told NewsNation.
But the spokesperson said that the agency is not a party to immigration proceedings and does not conduct immigration enforcement activities.
A 2023 court settlement barred the federal government from continuing immigration policies that separated families at the border for eight years. The settlement between the Biden administration and the American Civil Liberties Union, if approved by a judge, would at least temporarily prohibit the type of “zero-tolerance” policy on illegal immigration under which President Donald Trump separated thousands of families at the border with Mexico during his first term, NewsNation previously reported.
ICE officials said under the Trump administration, ORR has “dramatically strengthened” the vetting process of sponsors with whom migrant children are placed. The agency blamed President Joe Biden’s administration for losing track of 450,000 children who arrived at the U.S.-Mexico border unaccompanied by a parent or adult guardian.
Many of those unaccounted-for children were handed over to sponsors who were unvetted, ICE officials said, and were therefore exposed to being sex trafficked, abused or exploited.
The Office of Refugee Resettlement recently changed the way that sponsors are vetted, including how they verify their identity, NewsNation reported this fall. An HHS source told NewsNation in July that ICE has arrested 422 sponsors who are accused of abusing the minors in their care or of other crimes.
The source said that “multifaceted investigations” are taking place regarding the abuse allegations. In addition to local police, Child and Protective Services and federal agencies are all investigating the abuse claims.
According to the ORR website, the agency’s Unaccompanied Alien Children Bureau provides care and services to all unaccompanied migrant children referred by other federal agencies. ORR operates a network of 171 shelters and services in 24 states. Children placed in these shelters remain under adult supervision at all times, and HHS closely coordinates with local officials to ensure the children’s safety and security.
Efforts to find more unaccounted-for children
To help locate more of the children who remain unaccounted for, ICE is seeking to open a national 24-hour call center that is capable of receiving and processing between 6,000 and 7,000 calls a day. That call center would partner with states with cooperative agreements between the federal government and state and local law enforcement agencies to locate those minors.
In February, ICE was tasked with locating the unaccounted-for migrant minors who the agency said were likely spread across several U.S. states. Roughly 61% of those being sought by federal agents are teen boys between the ages of 14 and 17, data shows, the majority of whom are from Guatemala (32%), Honduras (20%), Mexico (20%) and El Salvador (8%), NewsNation previously reported.
The ProPublica report indicated that in many of the cases that the media outlet investigated, the children who were placed in federal shelters would not have been sent there previously. Data cited in the report shows that the average stay in the ORR facilities is six months under Trump, as opposed to one month under the Biden administration.
However, ICE officials said that although the agency is not responsible for maintaining custody of unaccompanied minor children, the Trump administration has helped to ensure the safety of children who are being housed in ORR facilities. The ICE spokesman said that federal officials have made thousands of physical visits to locate and check the well-being of unaccompanied children who entered the country under the Biden administration.
Federal officials told NewsNation that as many as 600,000 unaccompanied minors have crossed the U.S.-Mexico border illegally since 2019.
“We’ve jump-started our efforts to rescue children who were victims of sex and labor trafficking by working with our state and local law enforcement partners to locate these children,” the ICE spokesperson told NewsNation. “President Trump and (Homeland Security) Secretary (Kristi) Noem are laser-focused on protecting children and will continue to work with federal, state, and local law enforcement to reunite children with their families.”