The Department of Homeland Security's internal watchdog has raised an alarm over the handling of unaccompanied migrant children by immigration officials.
In a recent report, the watchdog warned that the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency has been struggling to keep track of all unaccompanied minors released from government custody, terming it an "urgent issue."
The interim report, which was presented to Congress on Tuesday, revealed that over the past five years, more than 32,000 unaccompanied migrant children failed to appear for their immigration court hearings. The ICE was "not able to account" for all of their locations, according to the report obtained by ABC News.
Inspector General Joseph Cuffari, in his interim report, expressed deep concern over the situation. "Without an ability to monitor the location and status of [unaccompanied migrant children], ICE has no assurance [they] are safe from trafficking, exploitation, or forced labor," Cuffari wrote. He called on ICE to "take immediate action to ensure the safety of [unaccompanied children] residing in the United States."
The report is part of a larger audit of ICE's capacity to track unaccompanied migrant children who have been released or transferred from U.S. custody after entering the country. As reported by ABC News, the interim report disclosed that immigration officials transferred more than 448,000 unaccompanied migrant children from 2019 to 2023, covering both the Trump and Biden administrations.
The inspector general, after interviewing over 100 officials and visiting ten ICE field offices, found that immigration officials "cannot always monitor the location and status of unaccompanied migrant children who are released ... and [then] did not appear as scheduled in immigration court."
When these children fail to show up in court, federal judges often issue several continuances, delaying the hearings for months, until they are compelled to issue deportation orders. ABC News reported earlier this year that federal judges were forced to issue removal orders for unaccompanied migrant children who did not appear for their scheduled hearings at an immigration court in Hyattsville, Maryland. Furthermore, only 56% of those who do appear are represented by counsel, according to the Department of Justice.
Cuffari's interim report also highlighted that as of May 2024, over 291,000 unaccompanied children had not been placed into removal proceedings because ICE had not served them notices to appear or scheduled a court date for them. This implies that the number of unaccompanied children who failed to appear for their court dates "may have been much larger" than 32,000 had ICE issued notices or scheduled court dates for those 291,000 children.
The report underscored that "immigration court hearings are often ICE's only opportunity to observe and screen [children] for trafficking indicators or other safety concerns." Therefore, when ICE fails to service notices to appear, or schedule court dates, it "reduces opportunities to verify their safety."
The report identified several challenges for ICE, including inadequate staffing, which can limit officers' time and ability to check the location or immigration case status of migrants. "Resource constraints also impact [their] ability to issue [notices] to all [unaccompanied children] after their release from HHS' custody," the report added.
The report also pointed out that ICE is burdened by "manual, multi-step processes to share information on [children] who do not appear in court." To address this, the watchdog recommended that Homeland Security officials "develop and implement an automated system to document court appearances and maintain address information of unaccompanied migrant children."
While agency officials agreed with the watchdog's recommendation to incorporate an automated tracking mechanism, they also suggested that the assessments in the watchdog's interim report failed to articulate some structural challenges that complicate their ability to track migrant children and "therefore lead to misunderstandings about the process."
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