Department of Homeland Security may have lost track of thousands of unaccompanied migrant children

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) may have lost track of thousands of children who immigrated to the country as unaccompanied minors, imperiling both the children’s safety and the effectiveness of the immigration process, an internal watchdog report found.

Between 2019 and 2023, more than 32,000 unaccompanied minors failed to show up for their immigration court hearings, and ICE was “not able to account” for all of their locations, according to a report from the ICE inspector general’s office.

During that period, more than 448,000 unaccompanied children overall immigrated to the US and were transferred from ICE custody to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the agency responsible for placing them with a sponsor or in foster care.

Once they were handed off to HHS for settlement, ICE couldn’t determine all of these children’s locations, and more than 291,000 of the kids were not placed into removal proceedings because ICE had never served them notices to appear or scheduled a court date for them.

«Without an ability to monitor the location and status of [unaccompanied migrant children], ICE has no assurance [they] are safe from trafficking, exploitation, or forced labor,» Inspector General Joseph Cuffari wrote in the report.

Failure to appear in court can also lead to the children facing deportation orders.

ICE reportedly agreed with some of the report’s recommendations to incorporate automated tracking mechanisms, but argued the watchdog had «misunderstandings about the process.” The agency said in comments on the report that it sometimes delays seeking removal orders to give children time to find legal representation, and to avoid backlogging immigration courts. It also pointed to dedicated