by Frank Holmes, reporter
Anyone who has ever seen Hunter Biden knows that former President Joe Biden doesn’t keep too close on an eye on children. But things got so bad during his four years in office that human traffickers managed to smuggle a small army of children across the wide-open southern border and place them with pimps, drug lords, or forced labor slave-drivers.
Thanks got an official report and multiple leaks, we now have confirmation of how many children Biden released and a specific breakdown of what happened to them…and a tiny glimmer of good news about some of the children Biden lost but President Donald Trump rescued.
All in all, the government released 448,000 unaccompanied minors, or “UACs,” to the Department of Health and Human Services between 2019 and 2023, DHS Inspector General Joseph Cuffari told a hearing of the House Oversight Committee last Wednesday.
The number of illegal border crossings show that illegal immigration remained low almost all of President Trump’s first term…until the last year, when the media began reporting that Biden and Kamala Harris might get elected.
Illegal border crossing surged—and so did the number of exploited children, thanks in part to Biden and Harris policies.
The new Democratic administration’s catch-and-release policy sent children to “sponsors” throughout thte country with a date to appear in court, sometimes years in the future.
Those hearings are where agents would make sure the children were cared for and fed—but government officials disclosed that 320,00 children could not be reached, according to NewsNation reporter Ali Bradley.
On Wednesday, Cuffari backed up those numbers. Almost 300,000 of those UACs failed to appear for their immigration court proceedings as of September.
“ICE did not issue more than 233,000” illegal alien children any notice to appear in court whatsoever. Another 43,000 didn’t show up to court on time and “are considered at higher risk for trafficking, exploitation, or forced labor,” since the court hearing is “ICE’s only opportunity to check on UACs’ welfare.”
And they were the youngest and most vulnerable: Virtually 58,000 of the lost children were under the age of 12.
That reason was Biden’s lack of oversight, making the government effectively a partner of the traffickers.
“More than 31,000, or 7 percent, of the 448,000 children’s release addresses were blank, undeliverable, or missing apartment numbers,” Cuffari testified. His team of investigators found that 34 children had been released to these alleged sponsors” at “two addresses that did not exist.”
And instead of address the problem, Cuffari said, for some reason the Biden-Harris administration kept the whole child trafficking issue shrouded in darkness. Cuffari blasted the Democratic-run administration for “the opacity surrounding the whereabouts of such a large number of UACs,” flagging it as one of the “urgent problems” of the last four years in an August 19, 2024, government document.
His words reinforce the startling findings of an official government report released on March 25.
UPDATE: An HHS official just confirmed to me that 13,061 unaccompanied minors have actually been located.
ICE has also arrested 422 sponsors for involvement in suspected child abuse or other crimes are discovered.
The abuse is determined through a multi-faceted… https://t.co/o5IqKQQ7Z6
— Ali Bradley (@AliBradleyTV) July 24, 2025
HHS “released more than 14,500 UACs in (fiscal year) 2023 and more than 9,600 UACs in (fiscal year) 2024 to unrelated sponsors or other distant relative.” In one week alone in November 2023, the Biden administration “released approximately 300 UACs to unrelated sponsors or distant family members,” even though “one (Enforcement and Removal Operations) officer noted the UACs most at risk for trafficking or forced labor are those released to an unrelated sponsor.”
That’s why in February, federal agents were able to recover only 12,000 illegal alien children after inspecting the addresses of 50,000 UAC sponsors.
Bradley reported the Trump administration located 13,061 unaccompanied minors—but a separate House hearing earlier this month put the number closer to 35,000.
Conservative Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., said she felt “thankful to all of those involved, but it’s incredibly sad how many more children have not been found.”
Bradley reported on the Trump administration’s triumph but mentioned sadly that Trump could rescue “only a fraction” of the children put at risk by his Democratic predecessor.
In addition, there have been some major arrests,
I’m happy to see they have located 13,061 unaccompanied minors and thankful to all of those involved, but it’s incredibly sad how many more children have not been found.
4 years under Democrat’s wide open borders made the most innocent border crossers the biggest victims. https://t.co/snQp2denIe
— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 (@RepMTG) July 24, 2025
ICE arrested 442 “sponsors” for their crimes, Bradley reported…but it wasn’t all good news: Some of the illegals that agents found had become crooks and gangsters themselves.
“While some vulnerable children have likely been trafficked, exploited and subject to forced labor, the report also found other older teens that were convicted criminals and gang members,” revealed Rep. Clay Higgins, R-La.
Incredible as this is, the fake news media spent months rating any Republican criticism of Biden’s lost children as false in a series of “fact-checks.”
“Claims” that hundreds of thousands of “migrant children are missing lack context,” declared The Associated Press in a “fact focus” released a month before the election.
Even more than a month after the election, the legacy media kept hammering away at the claim that open borders threaten children’s safety. CBS News claimed that “immigration experts” said President-elect Trump’s claims are “misleading and misrepresent government data.”
They claimed the real issue is just missing paperwork, not missing kids—a lie Cuffari blew a hole through at the hearing.
“This is not simply an administrative problem,” Cuffari testified on July 23. “It’s a systemic breakdown that poses grave risks to unaccompanied alien children (UACs) and the integrity of our legal immigration system.”
But the media just keep the charade going. Glenn Kessler just took a company buyout after spending years disgracing himself as The Washington Post’s “fact-checker,” —and he decided to go out with a bang.
Last Friday, he used one of his last columns to call President Trump’s rescue of these children “an example of how government initiatives can begin with falsehoods.”
But if the children had never been missing, how did President Trump and DHS agents find tens of thousands of them?
The Left will go to any lengths to keep Americans from believing that open borders benefit human traffickers and harm children—but Republicans know…and now, they’re talking about slapping Biden officials prison time.
“What would it take to investigate (former DHS) Secretary (Alejandro) Mayorkas for child endangerment?” asked Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa.
How much would it take to prosecute him for 13,061 counts?