Trump Admin Finds 13,000 Unaccompanied Minors Says Report
Now this is one of those stories that sounds like it came straight out of a political thriller — but it’s real, and it’s happening. According to new reports, the Trump administration has tracked down more than 13,000 children who entered the U.S. illegally and were effectively lost in the labyrinth of government systems.
Let that number sink in. These are kids — thousands of them — who vanished into the cracks of a broken immigration system, many under the watch of sponsors who, it turns out, were not exactly the safe havens they were supposed to be.
An official from Health and Human Services told NewsNation that Immigration and Customs Enforcement under Trump has arrested more than 400 of these sponsors for crimes tied to mistreatment of children or other offenses. That’s more than 400 adults who were entrusted with these minors and instead wound up in handcuffs. And it puts into sharp focus just how messy — and dangerous — this situation has been.
.@POTUS: Something you haven’t reported — 300,000 migrant children went missing under Biden. We’ve already gotten back 10,000 — and we have a lot more planned to get back. pic.twitter.com/W6bM7Tfymq
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) July 11, 2025
Here’s the backdrop: Under Joe Biden, more than 300,000 unaccompanied minors have poured across the border, and according to the Department of Homeland Security’s Inspector General, a staggering number of them have gone untracked.
Now, Trump’s team says it’s aggressively working to change that. Trump himself claimed earlier this month that his administration has already located 10,000 of these missing kids and is working to bring back thousands more.
And then there’s the self-deportation angle. Border officials have reportedly started offering unaccompanied teens ages 14 to 17 the option to voluntarily return to their home countries — a practice that existed before but was limited to Mexico and Canada.
Now? It’s been expanded to other countries as well. According to a Homeland Security official, the idea is to “prioritize getting children back to the safety of a parent or legal guardian in their home country.”
Oh, and if you thought the CBP One app was just a tool for asylum-seekers, think again. The Trump administration has rebranded it as the CBP Home app — this time aimed at helping illegal aliens self-deport. There’s even a twist: a $1,000 incentive for leaving, paired with fines of up to $1,000 a day for those who refuse.