Noem: 129,000 Missing Migrant Children Have Been Found

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) say they have located more than 129,143 unaccompanied children who were previously unaccounted for after crossing the Southwest border.

DHS Secretary Kristi Noem shared the update on social media on Friday, Dec. 19, saying the effort to find these children remains ongoing. “Too many of these children were exploited, trafficked, and abused,” Noem said in a lengthy statement. “We will continue to ramp up efforts and will not stop until every last child is found.”

The push to locate and reconnect missing children with family, sponsors, or safe care comes amid increased public focus on the treatment and tracking of unaccompanied minors who arrive in the United States without a parent or guardian.

This announcement follows earlier findings by the DHS Office of the Inspector General showing tens of thousands of unaccompanied children were unaccounted for in previous years. The Agencies say expanded tracking and interagency coordination under the current administration has improved their ability to locate missing children.

Advocates and lawmakers have highlighted concerns over children released to sponsors without thorough vetting in past years. Data given to Congress earlier this year shows tens of thousands of children were placed with sponsors without required background checks or home studies during the Biden-Harris administration.

Noem’s announcement is part of a broader initiative called Operation Relentless Justice, aimed at identifying missing children and arresting individuals who target minors for exploitation and trafficking.

The government defines “unaccompanied children” as minors who enter the United States without a parent or legal guardian and without lawful immigration status. Once identified, these children are typically transferred to the Office of Refugee Resettlement, a division of HHS, which is responsible for their care and placement.

The struggle to track unaccompanied migrant children in the United States stems in part from the sheer volume of minors who have crossed the southern border without a parent or guardian in recent years. According to data compiled by federal agencies and oversight bodies, more than 448,000 unaccompanied alien children were processed into U.S. systems between 2019 and 2023. Of those, a DHS Office of Inspector General report found that immigration authorities had not served Notices to Appear in court to over 291,000 children, and an additional 32,000 who were issued notices never showed up for their scheduled immigration hearings—a situation that leaves their locations and status unknown to authorities.

In addition to court notices, oversight reports highlighted problems with sponsor information that has made locating children more difficult. More than 31,000 of the release addresses listed for unaccompanied minors were blank, undeliverable, or incomplete, meaning federal law enforcement has limited information to confirm whether the children remain safe after release from government custody.

The large numbers of unaccompanied arrivals represent a sharp increase compared with earlier years. Customs and Border Protection encountered well over 137,000 unaccompanied minors at the southern border in fiscal year 2023 alone, a dramatic rise that outpaced systems designed to care for and place them with vetted sponsors.

Advocates and child welfare groups have also raised concerns about the well-being of unaccompanied children after they leave federal custody. Independent reporting has documented cases where minors do not appear at scheduled immigration hearings, sometimes because they lack legal representation, transportation, or clear information about their court dates. Critics say this gap in access increases the chances that vulnerable children may fall through the cracks.

Beyond missing court appearances, separate investigations and oversight accounts have drawn attention to the potential for exploitation. Reports from labor and immigration oversight panels discussed circumstances in which unaccompanied youths—once released into communities—became subject to dangerous work conditions or fell into labor outside legal protections, i.e., child labor laws. In some cases, advocates said that the breakdown in follow-up and monitoring exposed children to risks that child welfare systems were not structured to address—or blatantly ignored.

Together, these findings underscore the scope of the challenge facing federal agencies: tens of thousands of unaccompanied children who arrived in recent years lack complete federal tracking records, some are overdue for court proceedings, and many have uncertain living situations after release to sponsors. Efforts such as the DHS initiative to locate and verify the safety of these minors reflect a broader response to concerns raised by watchdogs and policymakers about the system’s ability to protect the nation’s most vulnerable migrants.

A full breakdown of the locations or circumstances of the newly found children has not been released, nor has a timeline for when they were initially lost to tracking. However, the latest figures mark the largest number of reconciled cases since the beginning of the current Trump administration.