Catch and Release, Lose and Forget: Addressing the Crisis of Unaccompanied Alien Children – Part I
House Subcommittee on Federal Law Enforcement
2025-07-23
Loading video...
Source: Congress.gov
Summary
No summary available.
Participants
Transcript
?
Unknown
Today, Mr. Joe Kofari, today the subcommittee convenes to hear the Inspector General of the Department of Homeland Security regarding his office's alarming report detailing the Department's and the Department of Health and Human Services' failures to properly track, process, and safeguard nearly 448,000 unaccompanied alien children who entered the United States illegally over the last four years. The Biden administration's open border policies led to severe ramifications in which unaccompanied alien children were destined to be trafficked and exploited. President Trump has taken decisive action to close our southern border. virtually eliminating the flood of illegal immigrants entering our country. The executive has taken action, and now it's up to us, the sitting members of Congress, to conduct essential oversight and codify security of our border that cannot be exploited by future administrations. Yet the ramifications of the past four years continue to unfold with lasting consequences and impact on hundreds of thousands of young lives. The failures of the previous administration led to unaccompanied children who have been lost in the system, the system that was established to protect them and to protect the citizens of our country. I've been meeting with Inspector General Khafari for years, and I've always been incensed at the failures and the prior administration's attitude towards ignoring the responsibility to track and properly process tender age, illegal, unaccompanied minors.
We're talking about children of God that have been waved into our country who are 14 years and younger. improperly processed into virtually unvetted sponsors destined to be trafficked into some horror. The findings of the report we're going to discuss today are a double-edged sword. While some vulnerable children have likely been trafficked, exploited, and subjected to forced labor, The report also found that older teens had been, in some cases, convicted of crimes in their country of origin and were gang members. While the hardworking men and women of ICE may want to do their best, the sheer volume of cases enabled the prior administration's open border policies to simply overwhelm the system. Inspector General's report states that as of September 2024, I says just over 1000 staff to monitor over seven and a half million non detained cases. It's literally impossible for ice with 1000 member staff to personally interact with these millions of tender age illegal unaccompanied minors. The inspector general shared with my staff that almost 300,000 kids have unserved notices to appear for their court date. Of that number, 58,000 are aged 12 and under. I say again, for Americans listening, 300,000 kids have failed to appear for court, 58,000 are 12 and under.
We have no idea, in many cases, where those kids are. We're going to talk about that today with IG Kafari. I'm glad that ICE under the Trump administration has accepted all of the IG's recommendations contained in their report. Inspector General Kafari is an honorable man, and I know him personally to be incredibly focused on identifying, locating, and rescuing these children. I look forward to his testimony as we continue to examine this issue to ensure these children are properly identified, cared for, and protected. I recognize my colleague, Ms. Lee, the ranking member, for five minutes or the time she may consume for our opening statement.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Over the last six months, President Trump, Kristi Noem, and Stephen Miller have unleashed a brutal, reckless, and lawless regime that targets innocent members of our communities, parents dropping off their kids at the school or attending church, legal immigrants who have been welcome in this country for decades, international students, and even children who are U.S. citizens. They are behaving without humanity, justice, or decency. Children are increasingly the target of President Trump's anti-immigrant crusades. DHS has failed to be transparent and publish any data since January, but looking at the court cases has shown that children have been increasingly and disproportionately marked for deportation by Donald Trump. Over 53,000 children have been ordered for deportation since the start of this administration. These are mostly elementary school kids or younger. How often the court cases end in deportations has also climbed under Trump, especially for kids. Over 75% of children 11 or younger are now being ordered for deportation as a result of their immigration court proceedings. Are these little kids the dangerous criminals Trump vowed to go after? President Trump is also kidnapping and illegally removing U.S. citizens, including multiple children with cancer. We're talking about unprecedented actions without due process against U.S. citizens. The Trump administration removed one 10-year-old girl, a U.S. citizen, who was recovering from brain cancer with her parents, even though she needed medical care.
Sign up for free to see the full transcript
Accounts help us prevent bots from abusing our site. Accounts are free and will allow you to access the full transcript.