President Donald Trump recently highlighted the federal government’s failure to account for over 300,000 young migrants admitted through the “Unaccompanied Alien Child” (UAC) program.
Trump stated at a September 13 press conference in California, “Under this administration, 325,000 migrant children are missing. Many of them are dead, and many are sex slaves or slaves of a different nature.”
The UAC program, which has been criticized for its vulnerability to labor trafficking, has become a political liability for Vice President Kamala Harris, who, as a senator in 2018 and 2019, played a role in minimizing protections for migrant youths in the United States.
The missing youths are part of a large influx of approximately 350,000 children and youths since 2021 via the 2008 loophole for “Unaccompanied Alien Children.” Many of these children are brought to the United States border by smugglers under contracts with illegal migrant parents who want to be reunited with their left-behind children. However, at least half of the missing youths are male youths seeking jobs in the United States at pay rates far above what their parents can earn south of Mexico.
The vast majority of the missing youths and young men are missing because they refuse to contact their supposed guardians at the Department of Health and Human Services. The agency has the legal task of delivering the young migrants from the border to volunteer “sponsors” throughout the United States, pending eventual decisions on the youths’ legal status.
Many of the sponsors are labor traffickers who force young men into dangerous and abusive jobs. Some also force teenage girls and young women into prostitution. Nearly all the youths want to work, partly because they have to pay off loans to smugglers.
In August, the Inspector General for the Department of Homeland Security reported that many of the UACs are “at risk for trafficking, exploitation, or forced labor.”
