DHS Locates Nearly 130,000 Unaccompanied Missing Children, Says Noem
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Department of Health and Human Services have located over 129,143 unaccompanied illegal immigrant children whom the prior administration had lost track of, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said in a Dec. 19 post on X.
“Too many of these children were exploited, trafficked, and abused,” Noem wrote. “We will continue to ramp up efforts and will not stop until every last child is found.”
In August 2024, the DHS Office of Inspector General published a report revealing that 323,000 illegal immigrant children were unaccounted for in the United States.
As of May 2024, over 32,000 of these children had been served notices to appear in court but failed to do so. In addition, the safety of 291,000 children could not be verified.
In a Nov. 14 statement, DHS announced that the Immigration and Customs Enforcement had launched an initiative with local and state law enforcement partners to conduct welfare checks on the hundreds of thousands of illegal, unaccompanied children smuggled across the border and placed with unvetted sponsors under the Biden administration.
The main aim of the initiative is to ensure they are not being exploited, DHS said.
“Many of the children who came across the border unaccompanied were allowed to be placed with sponsors who were smugglers and sex traffickers,” DHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin said.
“We’ve jump-started our efforts to rescue children who were victims of sex and labor trafficking,” she said.
“President [Donald] Trump and Secretary Noem are laser-focused on protecting children and will continue to work with federal, state, and local law enforcement to reunite children with their families.”
Crackdown on Child Predators
The Trump administration recently launched Operation Relentless Justice to identify, track, and arrest child sex predators, according to a Dec. 19 statement from the Department of Justice (DOJ).
The two-week enforcement operation led to a nationwide crackdown that resulted in the arrest of more than 293 child sexual abuse offenders, with over 205 child victims located.
“Operation Relentless Justice shows no child will be forgotten and that all predators targeting the most vulnerable amongst us will be held accountable,” FBI Director Kash Patel said.
“This year, the FBI has led multiple nationwide surges across the U.S. to find and arrest hundreds of child predators. We will not stop until every child can live a life free of exploitation. We will utilize the strength of all our field offices and our federal, state, and local partners to protect communities across the nation from such horrific crimes.”
Prior to Operation Relentless Justice, the Trump administration had implemented Operation Restore Justice in May, which led to 205 child sex abuse offenders being arrested and 115 children being rescued.
Later in August, Operation Enduring Justice resulted in the arrests of 234 offenders and the rescue of 133 children.
Commenting on Operation Relentless Justice, FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino said in a Dec. 19 post on X that this was “one of many successful” operations conducted to crack down on violent crimes against children this year.
“The Director and I have prioritized their life-saving work from the moment we swore in. And we assured them an agency-wide effort to punish the demons who violate the sacred trust of children,” Bongino wrote.
On Dec. 19, the DOJ announced that a member of the Nihilistic Violent Extremist group “764” pleaded guilty to multiple acts involving the sexual exploitation of children.
The group is an online criminal network that methodically targets and exploits minors. The perpetrator, who pleaded guilty, is alleged to have coerced minors into engaging in sexual acts and committing self-harm.
The perpetrator “led a group of online predators whose ultimate purpose is to destroy our society,” said Sue J. Bai, principal deputy assistant attorney general for National Security.
“They tried to achieve that heinous goal by desensitizing innocent children to violence—coercing them to perform gruesome and harmful acts against themselves and animals—with the hope of encouraging further violence and spreading chaos.”
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