Trump administration takes hundreds of migrant children into government custody

Hind Al Soulia - Riyadh - WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is taking hundreds of migrant children already residing in the United States out of their homes and into government custody, at times separating them from their families and making it more difficult for them to be released, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter.

President Donald Trump and his top aides have repeatedly cited the influx of children who arrived at the US southern border under the Biden administration without a parent or guardian as a critique of his predecessor and his handling of border security. Trump officials argue that hundreds of thousands of those children went unaccounted for — and are in potentially dangerous situations.

While former Biden officials contend that the surge of kids in 2021 placed tremendous pressure on the federal system, they and several experts in the field refute claims that there are large numbers of children missing from the system.

Still, the notion that there are thousands of such children has served as the impetus for a major campaign by the Trump administration to set up a makeshift “war room” to pore over sensitive data and deploy federal authorities to children’s homes nationwide.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement has taken around 500 children into government custody following so-called welfare checks since Trump returned to the White House, according to three sources familiar with the matter, either because their situations were deemed unsafe or because of immigration enforcement actions against sponsors, the majority of whom are the kids’ parents or other family members. That number is more than previously known and an unprecedented departure from previous years when such occurrences were rare.

The FBI has been involved in some of the welfare checks, frustrating some at the bureau who expressed concerns that the effort is more targeted at finding children’s relatives who law enforcement otherwise has no pretext to investigate or arrest, according to a law enforcement official.

An FBI spokesperson confirmed in a statement that the agency is assisting other agencies in conducting welfare checks on migrant children. “Protecting children is a critical mission for the FBI and we will continue to work with our federal, state, and local partners to secure their safety and well-being,” the spokesperson said.

The administration has also put in place additional vetting procedures that have made it all-but-impossible for some parents and guardians to retrieve children in government custody, according to advocates, experts and former Health and Human Services officials.

“They’re trying to suffocate the program, which only hurts the children we’re statutorily and legally mandated to serve,” one source familiar with the discussions told CNN.

Migrant children who arrive in the US alone are placed into the care of a federal agency within the Health and Human Services Department, known as the Office of Refugee Resettlement, which operates shelters nationwide to house kids until they can be released to a parent or guardian sponsor already residing in the United States.

Currently, there are more than 2,500 children in the custody of ORR, according to federal data. Migrant children are also staying in government custody much longer on average than they were previously.

Internally, agency officials have acknowledged that children may languish in facilities amid new policy guidelines making it harder to release kids to people in the US. They’ve also discussed the toll it’s taking on children in custody, some of whom are reporting that they’re depressed, according to a source familiar with discussions.

In Trump’s first term, his administration sparked controversy by separating families at the US southern border as part of its “zero tolerance” policy. In this term, children are being removed from sponsors, many of whom are family members, over potential wellbeing concerns.

But advocates, experts and former Health and Human Services officials point to post-release services and programs already in place to check in on children. They warn the latest actions by the administration stand to hurt, not help, children.

Trump officials maintain the steps they’ve taken are for the safety of the children and are necessary ones, casting the Biden administration’s handling of migrant children as scrambled and mishandled.

“DHS is leading efforts to conduct welfare checks on these children to ensure they are safe and not being exploited. These welfare checks have resulted in arrests of some sponsors of these unaccompanied minors and as a result the children have been placed in the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) custody,” Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement.

The Department of Homeland Security cited two examples in a statement, including a Guatemalan migrant with a criminal record who was approved to care for a 14-year-old family member in 2023, and a man who arranged for a child to be smuggled into the US and transported to Virginia at a steep cost. DHS didn’t provide additional details on the cases.

Health and Human Services Department spokesperson Andrew Nixon told CNN in a statement that ORR is “restoring” the agency’s mission, claiming that it was “abandoned” under the previous administration.

“Let’s be clear: no child should ever be placed with someone who can’t meet basic safety standards. If it’s ‘impossible’ for a sponsor to clear those standards, then they have no business caring for a child,” Nixon said.

A 2024 Health and Human Services inspector general report identified some vulnerabilities in the ORR release process, finding that while ORR “generally conducted all steps for sponsor screening for most children” in their sample, 16 percent of cases lacked documentation that safety checks were done.

Dozens of children who were released to sponsors have been visited at their homes by immigration enforcement officers who, upon arriving, have asked the kids a range of questions, according to legal service providers who work with them. Topics have included their journey to the US southern border, school attendance and immigration hearings.

While there have been cases of trafficking and extortion of unaccompanied children that have been documented, the approach — sending an immigration enforcement officer, instead of a child welfare expert — to check in on kids is concerning to providers who work with children.

“It’s scaring people, and it’s unnecessary,” said Laura Nally, program director of the Amica Center for Immigrant Rights Children’s Program, referring to the way the administration was conducting it’s check ins.

Migrant children already go through multiple steps before being released to a person, like a parent or relative in the United States, who has been thoroughly vetted. In recent years, the agency charged with their care has expanded post-release services to check on children after they leave government custody.

“What the post release services do is provide help when children and their sponsors need help with school enrollment, health needs, links to other services in the community,” said Mark Greenberg, a former senior HHS official who served multiple administrations. The post-release service provider is also directed to alert any concerns to child welfare authorities or law enforcement authorities as appropriate, Greenberg said.

“To the extent the goal is to determine children are in danger or in need of help, this isn’t a good way to go about doing that because it places children in a situation where they have to be fearful that anything they say could be used against their parent or family member,” he added, referring to the ICE welfare checks.

A family who went to a US Citizenship and Immigration Services office for a routine appointment was picked up by ICE—the parents were taken into ICE custody, while their three young children were taken into ORR custody, according to a source familiar with the incident. In another instance, a child was in the passenger seat of a vehicle during a traffic stop and was sent back into ORR custody, the source said.

“We’re seeing the warning signs right now,” Nally said. “There’s a concern that these welfare check ins could turn into the mass detention of sponsors and mass return of kids to ORR.”

Experts say it’s unusual for children to be swiftly sent back into ORR custody, but their concerns extend beyond that, arguing that additional guidelines for releases make it more difficult for those kids to leave custody again and fast-track deportation proceedings could put them at risk of removal. The average length of care for children in custody has jumped from 67 days in December 2024 to 170 days in April 2025 as guidelines to release kids have become more stringent.

Under Trump, the agency has placed additional checks on sponsors that include income requirements, stringent ID requirements and DNA tests. Those steps, which are layered on top of already-existing background checks, are particularly chilling for sponsors who are undocumented, which is often the case, former HHS officials say.

A recent lawsuit argued that “collectively, these policy changes have resulted in children across the country being separated from their loving families, while the government denies their release, unnecessarily prolonging their detention.”

The guidelines have halted reunifications that were already set to take place for children in government custody.

Two brothers, ages 7 and 14, were detained at a transitional foster care program in California. They have not been able to be released “to their mother because she’s been is unable to provide documents required” as part of the new policy guidance, according to the lawsuit.

“The steps that they have taken are ones that are not about child safety but rather about making it more difficult or impossible for undocumented parents and relatives to be able to be united or reunited with a child,” Greenberg told CNN.

Within days of Trump taking office, a conference room in the Health and Human Services Department’s Washington, DC, headquarters was transformed into a “war room” for the purpose of tracking down migrant children, according to multiple sources.

That room has become the centralized place where multiple federal agencies have gathered to pore over sensitive data about children who crossed the US southern border alone and share that information with the Department of Homeland Security. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. visited the war room last month to get briefed on the work there, according to one of the sources.

According to multiple sources, Immigration and Customs Enforcement now has access to the Office of Refugee Resettlement portal, which contains sensitive information about children, including the basis for their immigration relief, like asylum, details about their sponsor placement and protected medical information.

ORR has been responsible for unaccompanied migrant children for more than two decades, since former President George W. Bush signed legislation moving the care of kids out of an immigration enforcement agency. The agency’s mandate is to place children “in the least restrictive setting that is in the best interest of the child,” usually with a family member.

In the early days of the Trump administration, the White House moved a senior ICE official, Melissa Harper, to oversee ORR, sending a message that, like his first term, immigration enforcement would be folded into an agency primarily focused on child welfare, according to three sources familiar with the matter.

“The message was clear that this was going to be a very enforcement-oriented regime and almost immediately people were being questioned and prodded on what was being done to protect children from traffickers, what was done to ensure children weren’t released to dangerous sponsors,” said Mary Giovagnoli, who led ORR’s ombudsman’s office before she was terminated last month.

Harper’s short tenure — the outcome of internal disagreements, sources familiar said—later paved the way for Angie Salazar to take the helm. According to sources, Salazar, who also came from ICE, talks to White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller frequently and has directed agency officials to quickly approve policy changes.

Trump officials haven’t provided evidence for their contention that hundreds of thousands of children are unaccounted for but appear to be basing that on a Homeland Security inspector general report stating that nearly 300,000 unaccompanied migrant children were not given notices to appear in court. That, however, doesn’t mean they’re missing, according to former officials.

The DHS IG last August found that ICE didn’t serve notices to appear, a document that instructs people to appear before an immigration judge, to more than 291,000 children. But it didn’t explain whether that was, for example, a capacity issue or because addresses were missing.

In a House panel hearing in May, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem told lawmakers, “President Trump has made it a priority of every Cabinet secretary and agency to make sure those children are located, that they’re returned to safety. ... The refugee program and sponsors were greatly abused in the previous administrations. The department of HHS is bringing some integrity back to the program.”

Jen Smyers, a former ORR deputy director who served under Biden, told CNN that rushing is never appropriate, but that there are multiple checks sponsors have to go through to ensure quality control.

“There was rigorous vetting of all sponsors,” Smyers said, adding that sponsors went through Justice Department public records checks and sex offender registry checks. “There’s a difference between the vetting and what happens afterward. No amount of vetting is a predictor of the future.” — CNN