Kevin Roberts, President of the Heritage Foundation, said in an August 19 statement that there are 515,000 unaccompanied children in the U.S. resulting largely from human smuggling, and called the situation “horrifying.”

According to his statement, 80% of the children are smuggled into the US by cartels. 

Kevin Roberts, President of Heritage | Wikimedia Commons

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security stated in a recent report that it cannot track the whereabouts of thousands of unaccompanied children entering the country. The letter said the government has no confidence they are "safe from trafficking, exploitation, or forced labor.” 

According to the Department, it handed over 448,000 unaccompanied children into the custody of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Unaccompanied Children Program between 2019 and 2023. The children are required to be placed with sponsor families. 

According to Roberts, “these poor children speak no English and have almost no support system here.” He said that, based on the Biden Administration’s estimation, 75 to 80% of the children are suffering from the trauma of being brought into the United States by smugglers who “routinely engage in physical and sexual abuse."

Roberts also said the situation exacerbates housing problems and overwhelms schools in small communities, which he estimated is costing "millions of taxpayer dollars that already cash-strapped public-school systems must dedicate to these new students.” 

"The pure human cost is horrifying,” Roberts said. 

In a GOP Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee roundtable on July 9, Dr. Jarrod Sadulski, a criminology expert, said unaccompanied migrant children are placed by the federal government's Unaccompanied Children Program often with individuals posing as sponsors or family members. 

Sadulski explained that some of the sponsors intend to exploit the children. He attributed these circumstances to a "history of inadequately vetted staff having access to children without background checks and security clearances.” 

According to Sadulski, “there is an urgent need to reform the UC program to mitigate further exploitation and trafficking of children."

According to a House Homeland Security press release, cartel-run human smuggling and sex trafficking operations generated $13 billion in 2021. The cartel activities cause violence and death from fentanyl, dangerous conditions, and often sexual exploitation, especially of migrant children.

As many as 32,000 unaccompanied children did not appear for their immigration court hearings and remain unaccounted for, according to the Department of Homeland Security.