Trump toughens rules to protect child migrants from trafficking

Attorney Jennifer Podkul represented unaccompanied children in immigration court for five years. “There were kids who had been forced to work on farms. There had been kids that I worked with who had been victims of sex trafficking,” she told WORLD. “There had been kids who had been forced to do domestic labor by family members.”

Many of the children opened up to Podkul about their situations, and she connected them with the help they needed. In some cases, law enforcement prosecuted the trafficker.

Podkul is now the chief of global policy and advocacy at Kids in Need of Defense, an organization that receives government money through the Acacia Center for Justice to provide legal representation for unaccompanied immigrant children. She said KIND currently manages more than 5,000 cases.

“This isn’t theoretical,” she said. “This is real. I imagine the kids’ faces as I tell these stories.”

Last week, the U.S. agency responsible for caring for children who cross the border alone bolstered vetting requirements for the U.S.-based sponsors of unaccompanied migrant children. In a memo, the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement said the new guidelines, which were effective immediately, aim to “enhance the safety of releases to sponsors, prevent fraud, and combat trafficking.”

Immigrant child welfare advocates agree that some of the Trump administration’s heightened vetting measures are essential for shielding children from exploitation and ensuring they end up in stable homes. But some argue authorities should prioritize increasing post-release services and following up with more than a phone call. They also worry the administration’s push to deport unaccompanied children who have no legal basis to stay in the country could send thousands back to dangerous situations.

The Trump administration’s new guidelines require the fingerprinting of all sponsors, adult caregivers, and household members ages 18 and older. Officials must receive legible and unexpired high-resolution photocopies of both the front and back of a sponsor’s ID before a child’s release. Then, the sponsor or adult caregiver must present the original ID when they show up for fingerprinting at an Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) site.

“The fact that they need to spell out all of these basic procedures and protocols for turning a minor over to an adult means that these things were not happening,” said Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies for the Center for Immigration Studies. “It means that they didn’t have even the most basic controls or vetting for the kids that they were turning over to people.”

In August, the inspector general’s office for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security released a scathing report showing Immigration and Customs Enforcement had not provided more than 291,000 children with a date or time to appear in immigration court. That finding, coupled with whistleblowers’ testimony that the Department of Health and Human Services had failed to maintain contact with 85,000 children, fueled outrage over human trafficking concerns and flawed vetting procedures.

“Based on our audit work and according to ICE officials, [unaccompanied children] who do not appear for court are considered at higher risk for trafficking, exploitation, or forced labor,” the report continued.

When Border Patrol agents apprehend an illegal immigrant under the age of 18 at the U.S.-Mexico border, U.S. Customs and Border Protection transfers the child into the custody of the Department of Health and Human Services. The department holds them in federally funded shelters until an eligible sponsor steps forward to claim them. Some of the children end up in foster care. Officials are required to follow up with the child over the phone one month later.

Under President Joe Biden, unaccompanied children spent an average of 30 days in federal custody. Critics of the process argue that, in an effort to minimize children’s time in congregate shelters, Biden administration officials rushed the release process without properly vetting the adult taking responsibility for the child.

ORR classifies sponsors into four categories. Category 1 includes parents or legal guardians. Category 2A consists of brothers, sisters, grandparents, or other immediate relatives who acted as the child’s primary caregiver, while Category 2B includes the same close family members who did not previously serve as the primary caregiver. Distant family members or non-relatives fall into Category 3. And Category 4 includes sponsors with no prior connection to the child.

In March 2023, ORR conducted an audit of 2021-2022 cases in which three or more children were released to the same non-relative sponsor. During those two years, the agency placed 263,698 children with sponsors. Most children went to Category 1 or Category 2 sponsors, but 34,460 were released to distant relatives or non-family members. Of those, officials released 344 children to unrelated sponsors hosting three or more immigrant children.

Vaughan noted the number of unaccompanied children ticked up after Congress reauthorized the Trafficking Victims and Protection Act in 2008. That version of the law changed the way the federal government dealt with minors at the border, directing Border Patrol to turn them over to HHS for placement rather than immediately processing them for deportation. Then, under the Biden administration, the numbers exploded.

ORR released 449,372 children to sponsors between 2021 and 2024—more than half of the nearly 750,000 unaccompanied children placed with sponsors since 2012. “So under the Biden administration, the numbers went to historic heights,” said Vaughan. “At the same time, they relaxed the vetting of sponsors in order to keep up with these huge numbers and deliberately adopted policies that would release minors as quickly as possible.”

Government data show that 61% of the unaccompanied children who crossed the border last year were male; 24% were between the ages of 0 and 12. The largest proportion, 33% of the 98,356 children CBP referred to ORR, were at least 17 years old. It’s unclear how many of these children became victims of forced labor or sex trafficking or other exploitative situations.

Unaccompanied children with no legal status are usually put into deportation proceedings, but many of them claim asylum in a bid to stay. The Trump administration halted funding for KIND and other organizations providing legal representation last week, but reversed the order three days later.

Podkul with KIND said that, in addition to presenting children’s cases, lawyers also act as another pair of eyes ensuring a child’s overall safety.

“There’s not enough that you can tell what’s really happening through that one phone call,” she added, referring to the phone call ORR makes to the child’s place of residence 30 days after they’re released. “Those touches from the attorneys and social workers that provide the post-release services are crucial.”

Podkul also worries that many of the children KIND defends are at risk of being sent back to dangerous situations in their home countries. Reuters obtained an internal ICE memo earlier this week showing the agency is launching new efforts to ensure unaccompanied immigrant children with no legal status are put in removal proceedings and those with final orders of removal are promptly deported. On a Tuesday press call, Podkul told reporters that KIND has not seen the memo but said she could confirm that ICE has been “instructed to surge resources.”

Vaughan with the Center for Immigration Studies noted that deporting individuals who crossed the border as older teenagers and are now adults will be relatively simple. It’s more complicated for those who are still minors. “We’ve got to identify their parents, whether they’re here or in their home country,” she said. “And reunite them with their parents, if possible.”

While the Trump administration’s new vetting requirements are essential, Vaughan said, she argued President Donald Trump’s executive orders shutting down the border will make the most difference in the long run.

“The government is no longer facilitating the crossing of these kids,” she said. “These parents and families are no longer being enticed to send their kids with criminal smuggling organizations into the United States, thinking that they’re going to go to school or get a job and be able to help the family, when in fact, they ended up being trafficked into labor arrangements.”