"More than 475k children trafficked to US under Biden, 300k unaccounted for, DOJ says "
https://justthenews.com/nation/states/center-square/doj-more-475k-children-trafficked-us-under-biden-300k-unaccounted
unaccompanied alien children (UACs)...More than 475,000 UACs were trafficked to the U.S. during the Biden administration. More than 300,000 were unaccounted as of the end of 2024, [Acting AG] Blanche said at a press conference in Washington, D.C.
“The way that this happened is criminals trafficked these children to the border usually committing fraud to do so,” he said. “Oftentimes the children were abused, assaulted and certainly exploited.”
Once UACs arrive in the U.S., federal law requires that their oversight and care be administered by the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Administration for Children and Families. The ORR has historically sent the majority of children to live with so-called sponsors.
Under the Biden administration, ORR often placed UACs with unvetted sponsors, background checks weren’t performed, UACs were released to alleged gang members, human traffickers, non-family members and sent to non-residential addresses, federal inspector general audits and a Florida grand jury found...
“In some cases, individuals would sponsor multiple children, which required them to lie to government personnel and on government forms claiming they were close relatives when in fact they were not,” Blanche said. “They would use fake or stolen identities and make other false claims during the application process in order to obtain custody of the children.”
There are more than 15,500 super-sponsor cases the DOJ has identified along with the Department of Homeland Security, Blanche said. Super-sponsor cases involve individuals who sponsor more than three unrelated UACs. The cases involve sexual assault of children, “the stuff of nightmares,” he said.
So far, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, DHS, the DOJ and other agencies have found 146,000 UACs, [Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne] Mullin said. “We still have nearly 300,000 missing.”
Mullin also said federal agents have found the majority of UACs in so-called sanctuary cities run by Democrats. He criticized New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who’s opposed ICE operations. “He knows what's happening in the streets. He knows who he's harboring, and at this point, abetting, by saying that we can't go operate,” Mullin said.
“We're going to go find the worst of the worst” in New York City, he said. “We're going to rescue as many kids as we possibly can. We're going to enforce our nation's laws and we're going to right the wrongs that the Biden administration turned a blind eye to.”
“Four years of a blind eye allowed unvetted sponsors to come pick up 450,000 kids on our borders knowing … it was reported that over a third of the females regardless of age were sexually assaulted before they made it to the border,” he said. The Biden administration “knew it was human traffickers who were trafficking these young kids to the border. Then they didn’t vet the so-called sponsors. There were zero wellness checks.”
ICE officers are finding the children, “the same individuals that the Democrats want to demonize. Every single day it is our law enforcement out there doing that job,” Mullin said.
