By Shaina Cole | Contributing Writer, Rocky Mountain Voice
Each year, children continue to arrive at the southern border without anyone to look after them. They’re officially called unaccompanied alien children—or UACs—but behind that label are thousands of kids trying to navigate an immigration system meant for adults.
Many are handed off to sponsors with little vetting, and some end up trafficked, working illegal jobs, or worse.
The surge in vulnerable children
Back in the early 2000s, the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) was handling fewer than 8,000 unaccompanied kids a year. But that’s changed dramatically.
By 2022, that figure had climbed to over 128,000. The following year saw more than 113,000 children placed with sponsors across the U.S.
As of July 2025, ORR had released more than 99,000 children in fiscal year 2024. The agency operates about 240 shelters across 27 states to house these children until they are placed with sponsors during their prolonged immigration process.
While these facilities provide basic care, the system contains multiple vulnerabilities.
Systematically missing: A failure to track vulnerable children
According to a 2024 report from the DHS Office of Inspector General, over 291,000 children transferred from DHS to ORR between 2019 and 2023 were never issued immigration court dates.
Another 32,000 skipped their hearings entirely.
When government agencies lose contact with children or their sponsors, watchdogs and investigators have described them as systematically missing. Minimal post-placement follow-up requirements adopted during the Obama and early Trump years contributed to this outcome and were not substantially improved under the Biden administration.
The inability to track children has left many exposed to exploitation by bad actors, highlighting a critical oversight gap.
Exploitation in plain sight
In 2023, the New York Times documented cases where unaccompanied children were placed in grueling and dangerous jobs—jobs that violated child labor laws and put their well-being at risk.
One of them was Carolina Yoc, who worked the graveyard shift at a factory in Grand Rapids, Michigan—packing Cheerios near dangerous equipment at just 15 years old. “Sometimes I get tired and feel sick, but I’m getting used to it,” she told the Times.
More recently, a July 2025 ICE raid at Glass House Farms in California led to the rescue of 14 children from potential forced labor. One of the children’s sponsors was linked to attempted child exploitation.
In April 2025, two Honduran sisters, ages 16 and 18, were rescued from sex trafficking in West Covina after being placed with an unvetted sponsor, according to the New York Post.
What these stories make painfully clear is that some children end up in the hands of sponsors who don’t protect them—they exploit them. HHS whistleblower Tara Rodas testified in 2023 about her 2021 deployment to a California intake site. “I witnessed first-hand children being handed over to unvetted adults, some with criminal histories, including MS-13 gang members.”
She described children in debt bondage, forced to work to pay off smugglers, and housed in locations with dozens of other minors. Rodas said that after raising concerns, she was removed from the facility.
Her experience was later cited by the Government Accountability Project as an example of how reporting wrongdoing had become risky for staff on the inside.
Systemic failures in vetting and oversight under Biden
Under the Biden administration, ORR’s flawed sponsor vetting process left countless children vulnerable. A 2024 HHS OIG report stated that 16 percent of case files lacked documentation of sponsor safety checks, and 19 percent of background checks were missing results when children were discharged.
Senator Charles Grassley issued a letter that same year to The Providencia Group, a major ORR contractor, stating, “Whistleblower allegations suggest ORR placed children with sponsors involved in human trafficking, including known criminals.”
During a 2024 House Oversight hearing, ORR Director Robin Dunn Marcos struggled to answer even the most basic questions about how children are vetted or tracked. She acknowledged that only about a third of these children end up with their parents.
The breakdown at the federal level isn’t contained to D.C.—it’s echoing through statehouses.
In 2023, Iowa opened the door for 14-year-olds to take on work in industrial laundries—a change that didn’t sit well with those focused on child safety.
More than a dozen states have since introduced similar measures, often pushed by groups like the Foundation for Government Accountability.
Colorado’s clash over ICE subpoenas raises alarms
In Colorado, tensions flared this spring when ICE subpoenaed the state’s labor department for personal details about 35 people sponsoring unaccompanied migrant children. At first, Governor Jared Polis resisted turning over the records.
But weeks later, he changed course and ordered state staff to comply—a decision that prompted whistleblower Scott Moss to file suit.
Moss argued the move would violate two state laws designed to prevent cooperation with ICE unless there’s a criminal investigation. A Denver judge sided with him, issuing an injunction that blocked enforcement of the subpoena and drew support from civil rights groups and several Democratic lawmakers.
Polis defended his decision by claiming the subpoena targeted child trafficking cases. But court records show the form left blank the section designating it as part of a criminal probe.
The case has since revealed that ICE issued at least four subpoenas to Colorado in 2025 alone.
We still don’t know the full scope of the state’s response. But for those tracking immigrant rights, it’s a troubling reminder that privacy laws can weaken quickly—even when the people in charge helped write them.
Recent response under Trump
Early in 2025, the Trump administration launched new efforts to respond to the crisis. One DHS program sent teams out to check on children in the system.
According to internal records, those visits led to the reunification of around 5,000 children with safe guardians—and exposed dozens of new cases of abuse and trafficking.
A March 25 ORR rule change rescinded a prior restriction, permitting the agency to share sponsor information with immigration enforcement. According to internal reports, ICE launched a February initiative prioritizing deportation of UACs considered flight risks, such as those missing hearings or placed with non-blood-relative sponsors.
The policy expanded fingerprinting and DNA vetting. We reached out to new ORR senior advisor and former ICE field office director John Fabbricatore, who could not be reached for comment.
Public backlash questions ICE’s motives
Even as ICE emphasizes its focus on protecting unaccompanied minors, critics have raised alarms about the agency’s real intentions. After the July 2025 raid at Glass House Farms, immigration policy analyst Aaron Reichlin-Melnick accused ICE of using child rescues as a cover for mass deportations. “Just to be clear, their plan with the ‘rescued’ children is to detain and deport them,” he wrote in a Twitter/X post.
The National Immigration Center for Enforcement fired back, calling the operation an effort to “safely return” minors to vetted family members. “If your outrage is at ICE, not the system enabling this, you’ve lost the plot,” the group wrote.
Fabbricatore reposted the message—lending weight to the idea that child safety, not removal, is the administration’s priority.
The exchange reflects a broader divide: are these raids designed to protect children, or are they just another front in the federal deportation machine?
For many watching from the outside, the answer depends entirely on who’s holding the microphone.
A call for accountability
The vulnerability of unaccompanied children demands urgent reform. Enhanced sponsor vetting, including mandatory background checks and home studies, is critical.
ORR must prioritize child safety over speedy releases. As Rodas stated in her 2023 testimony, “We must stop treating these children as commodities and put their safety first.”
Protecting whistleblowers who expose systemic failures is equally vital, as is reversing state-level child labor rollbacks.
In West Covina, it took an ICE investigation to expose a local official exploiting children.
That conviction didn’t just reflect one bad actor—it exposed a system willing to look away. And for the kids in the middle of it all, fear is routine, and protection isn’t guaranteed. The system won’t fix itself. Lawmakers have a decision to make. As whistleblower Tara Rodas said in 2023, silence multiplies the problem.
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