The hunt for supposedly “lost” children is being used to resume and expand DHS efforts to intimidate and arrest immigrants around the country.
The Trump administration’s ceaseless attacks on immigrant communities continue to bring tragedy and death to people simply in the wrong place at the wrong time: After ICE agents shot into the cars of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston and Joan Sebastián Durán Guerrero in Biddeford, Maine, killing both men—neither of whom was even a target of that day’s raid—the Department of Homeland Security agreed to pause its use of traffic stops.
The pause lasted only a few hours: President Trump took to social media to rant against the DHS decision, and it was reversed—signaling that another round of violent deportation efforts are going to be pushed and applauded by this White House.
Trump’s insistence that traffic stops by ICE agents are a vital mechanism for fighting crime shows how seamlessly he has blurred the lines between being in the country without authorization and committing crimes.
The same thing is happening in the world of unaccompanied children—and I suspect one of the next waves of deportation efforts will be aimed at the sponsors of those children. The Trump administration has spun an elaborate web of lies to paint parents and family members as criminals, participating in trafficking and child exploitation.
Understanding and combatting this myth of lost, unaccompanied children is critical to preventing more enforcement actions—many of which could lead to needless deportations and even death.
Casting doubt on every decision to release a child reveals the true agenda: using the hunt for lost children as an excuse to resume and expand DHS’ efforts to intimidate and arrest immigrants around the country.
During the 2024 presidential race, the Trump campaign falsely claimed the Biden administration had lost more than 300,000 unaccompanied children, handing them over to smugglers who came forward to sponsor their release from custody. This myth has been repeatedly debunked, but it persists and has grown into the unfathomable suggestion that DHS must “find” 446,000 children—or virtually all the unaccompanied children who entered the country during the Biden administration.
When Congress created the Department of Homeland Security, it placed the care of unaccompanied minors—children under the age of 18 who enter the country without authorization and without a parent or guardian accompanying them—into the hands of the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR).
ORR, part of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), cares for children until an appropriate sponsor can be found, with an expectation that release to properly vetted parents, family members or guardians already in the U.S. is in a child’s best interests. When no sponsor is available, children remain within the ORR system.
Following President Trump’s election, the myth that ORR was releasing children without vetting sponsors became the lynchpin for an ICE takeover of ORR.
Because many sponsors are present in the U.S. without authorization, tapping into ORR’s confidential database was a goldmine of opportunity. The administration installed ICE officials to head ORR who quickly tightened vetting and documentation requirements, making it impossible for some parents to be sponsor their children.
Last fall, HHS cooperated in a failed DHS effort to deport unaccompanied Guatemalan children in the middle of the night, without notice or due process.
The average length of time a child remains in custody has grown from one month in January 2025, to more than six months today. Legal services have been slashed.
Some children become so depressed, they give up their claims. Others are coerced to withdraw, threatened with the possibility that their parents might be deported.
ICE officers have talked to children without an attorney present, participated in sponsor interviews and arrested parents at those interviews. ICE has taken over home visits and wellness checks, subcontracting the job to private companies. Internal documents indicate the search is more about potential deportations than wellness.
During a recent press conference, DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin reported DHS has already found 146,000 children through these tactics.
We don’t know what “found” means. The myth of the lost children is a mashup of reports of poor follow through on wellness checks after children are released, a failure to place children in immigration proceedings and the failure of some children to appear in court.
None of the reports declared that the children had been lost—so how, exactly, are they found? Calling back until someone answered the phone? Knocking on 146,000 doors? Cross-checking addresses and phone numbers with other government agencies?
How many of the children ICE found were in danger? How many sponsors have been arrested?
We don’t know. But the secretary insists 300,000 more children must be found.
The math doesn’t add up—unless the administration intends to “find” virtually every child released during the Biden administration. Thousands of unaccompanied children are represented by counsel, enrolled in school and have applications pending before USCIS. Thousands more have participated in post-release services that help children adjust to their lives in the U.S. and help them process the significant trauma many of them have experienced in their long migration journey. Others have started new lives as lawful residents in the U.S. They are not lost.
Casting doubt on every decision to release a child reveals the true agenda: using the hunt for lost children as an excuse to resume and expand DHS’ efforts to intimidate and arrest immigrants around the country.
Mullin said as much, noting that DHS had found most of the children in sanctuary cities, because smugglers knew they were safe there. He accused New York City’s mayor of harboring and abetting child smugglers. He said he didn’t care if DHS is unwelcome in sanctuary cities, his agents would go there and rescue children.
Mullin asked how anyone can oppose law enforcement finding these children. If you can’t accept this narrative, he asked in a voice dripping with disdain, then, “who are you?” He implies that we must be monsters to oppose DHS’s actions. Yet genuine efforts to protect children will receive most people’s support.
Sincere concern for children, however, doesn’t justify outrageous acts or cynical exaggeration of a problem. This makes it harder to find common ground in addressing the needs of unaccompanied children.
Such myths also allow the administration to make even wilder claims about public safety, about the criminality of immigrants living in the country without a legal status, and about the need to swiftly and ruthlessly go after people who have lived peacefully in this country for decades.
As the American Civil Liberties Union notes in its new report, “Agents of Chaos and Cruelty,” during the past year ICE agents have engaged in hundreds of incidents involving use of force, harassment, riot control weapons, and intimidation, resulting in 169 reported or confirmed injuries and 16 deaths. The deaths of Salgado Araujo and Guerrero are a sad reminder that the supposedly more restrained enforcement efforts underway at DHS can be just as vicious and deadly. Those efforts are fueled by myths and lies which grow bigger and bolder as the days go on.
The administration claims that it must find unaccompanied children to protect them, but it is clear that protection is not the priority in any of its deportation efforts. Scaring the public, creating false villains and justifying murder in the name of public safety does not protect any of us.
And to use children, as the Trump administration is clearly doing, to further justify its cruel behavior will only result in more tragic deaths, separations and deportations.
We cannot let this continue.
