The Trump administration has located approximately 25,000 migrant children who had gone missing after entering the United States during the Biden-Harris administration, Border Czar Tom Homan said Thursday.
Homan, appearing on Fox News, explained that these minors were part of a much larger group of roughly 320,000 migrant children who went unaccounted for under Joe Biden’s tenure after being released into the country with poorly vetted sponsors.
The figure was first documented in an inspector general’s report released in 2023.
While some of the children were ultimately found with their parents, who were attempting to avoid deportation, others were discovered in dangerous and exploitative conditions.
“Many others were in sex trafficking” and placed into “forced labor” where they were “enslaved to work ungodly hours, not going to school … not being paid, being abused,” Homan said.
Homan added that 27 of the children who were located had already died.
“We’ve rescued thousands of children and President Trump is committed, I’m committed that we’re not gonna stop looking for these children ’til we find every single one of them or run down the leads on them,” he said.
“So we’re not giving up. This is a major priority for the Trump administration, we’re gonna keep going at it.”
BREAKING: Tom Homan just revealed that they have now found over 25,000 unaccompanied migrant minors that were “lost” under Biden!
This is HUGE!
“Many were found in forced labor… slavery. I mean forced to work ungodly hours, not going to school.”pic.twitter.com/YEMlIiAgbk
— Gunther Eagleman™ (@GuntherEagleman) September 18, 2025
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The inspector general’s report detailed the scope of the problem.
As of May 2024, 291,000 migrant children who crossed the border unaccompanied were never given court dates, leaving immigration authorities with no way to track their status or location.
Another 32,000 who were assigned court dates later failed to appear, according to the report, which covered cases from October 2018 through September 2023.
Multiple federal whistleblowers came forward during the Biden-Harris administration to raise concerns about the vetting process used to place migrant children with sponsors.
They alleged that children were routinely released into unsafe situations and sometimes into the hands of traffickers.
One whistleblower testified to the Senate in July 2024 that officials in the Department of Health and Human Services retaliated against her after she warned superiors that children were being placed with unrelated adults under suspicious circumstances and that there were signs of severe abuse.
The oversight system in place at the time amounted to a single follow-up phone call 30 days after a child’s release, according to her testimony. Often, the minors could not be reached.
Another whistleblower, Deborah White, also described what she witnessed at HHS.
She said officials failed to act on clear warning signs and deliberately avoided confronting problems.
“Children were not going to their parents. Children were being trafficked with billions of taxpayer dollars by a contractor failing to vet sponsors and process children safely, with government officials complicit in it,” she said.
White added that the experience “will haunt me for the rest of my life.”
White testified that staff members were not permitted to verify documents, even when they appeared fraudulent.
“We never saw sponsors face-to-face and fake documents were rampant. When we questioned documents, ORR [Office of Refugee Resettlement] leadership said, ‘You’re not a fake ID expert, and your job is not to investigate the sponsor. Your job is to reunify the child with the sponsor,’” she recalled.
She also stated that her attempts to provide trafficking-awareness training were blocked.
When she contacted the Guatemalan consulate to verify documents, she said she was reprimanded.
In another instance, she was told not to check on a child’s welfare once the child had left federal custody.
“Once these children leave here … they’re gone and they are no longer your responsibility,” she testified.
The revelations have reinforced the Trump administration’s focus on recovering the missing children.
Homan emphasized that the effort to locate and safeguard migrant minors remains one of the administration’s highest priorities.