The US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has allegedly lost track of tens of thousands of unaccompanied migrant children released from government custody.
US ICE Failed To Track Unaccompanied Migrant Children
In an interim report sent to Congress on Tuesday, an internal watchdog within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said that, between 2019 and 2023, the ICE transferred over 448,000 unaccompanied migrant kids to the custody of the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
However, the ICE later failed to monitor all of the children they transferred over to the HHS, losing track of more than 32,000 migrant kids in the five-year period that spanned both the Trump and Biden administrations. The watchdog also noted that the ICE failed to notify the HHS when migrant children failed to appear for their immigration court proceedings.
"Despite its responsibilities for overseeing UCs [unaccompanied migrant children] through the immigration process, we found ICE cannot always monitor the location and status of UCs once they were released from DHS and HHS custody," the DHS report said.
An internal ICE guidance prompts the agency to notify the HHS if a child fails to appear at their court date. However, an ICE official said they are not required to share this information with the HHS, the report said.
In addition to communication issues, the watchdog cited the lack of adequate staffing in the ICE, which could limit their ability to monitor the locations and case status of migrant children. Furthermore, their "manual, multi-step processes" of sharing information on children who fail to appear for their court dates could also be a burden to ICE staff members.
Department of Homeland Security 's Recommendations
The watchdog noted that the number of lost migrant kids could be worse than documented in the report, adding that 291,000 unaccompanied immigrant children have not yet been marked for removal proceedings. The report noted that the ICE has routinely failed to schedule immigration court dates and serve notices for the children.
To resolve the issue, the watchdog said the HHS and the ICE should improve their communication and coordination efforts.
Agency officials have agreed to the recommendations but also argued that the report failed to take into account structural challenges that make monitoring migrant children more complex, per ABC News.
Republicans in Congress, on the other hand, said the watchdog's report was evidence of the Biden administration's mismanagement of the border, according to The Hill.
