Biden’s Open Border Nightmare Continues For Migrant Children

New details are emerging about the horrific abuse of migrant children under former President Joe Biden’s open border – and how little the administration did to stop the abuse of unaccompanied minors. Now, the Trump administration is calling attention to the crisis and taking steps to address the injustice.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) reported in June that its regular welfare checks on migrant children “have uncovered alarming instances of abuse and exploitation.” The initiative, launched in February, is part of the Trump administration’s goal to ensure the safety of children who were previously placed with sponsors “without proper vetting” under the Biden administration.

“Special agents discovered sponsors in possession of child sexual abuse material, those who had forced minors into labor, and those who subjected them to living conditions that constituted neglect,” DHS reported.

“Numerous sponsors” also had a record of “serious crime,” which included “hit-and-run, aggravated assault, larceny, counterfeiting, drug trafficking, prostitution, and even attempted murder.”

Agents also found girls who were the victims of rape, pregnant by “their alleged sponsors.” DHS said this “highlights the grave failures of previous vetting procedures and the dangerous consequences of placing minors in unsafe environments.”

A 2023 Florida grand jury report confirmed similar issues, noting unaccompanied minors were transported into the state by the Biden administration, often at night. That report concluded the Biden administration facilitated “the forced migration, sale, and abuse of foreign children, and some of our fellow Florida residents are (in some cases unwittingly) funding and incentivizing it for primarily economic reasons.”

The goal of protecting exploited children is now being carried out by the Office of Refugee Resettlement, under the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). “ORR is digging through nearly 65,000 reports of concern about unaccompanied alien children — most ignored, many dismissed — each one a missed chance to protect a child,” the office announced in April. “This isn’t just paperwork. This is a systemic failure of the Biden administration. It is children’s lives put at risk.”

HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. sounded the alarm about the abusive situations unaccompanied children were being put in under the Biden administration.

During a May hearing, Kennedy said the previous administration prioritized “speed over safety” and “waived all of the identification requirements for sponsors.”

“I’ve watched horror stories of the same person picking up child after child after child using different names and different addresses,” Kennedy continued. “One of the addresses was a strip club. One of the addresses was a parking lot. One of the addresses was an empty lot that was filled with shipping containers. This character was getting all these kids. One person got 42 kids to one address.”

“What we’re doing now is DNA testing on every sponsor, we’re doing personal identification, we’re doing background checks, and we’re doing income verification,” Kennedy said.

Later that month, the HHS announced Biden “failed to investigate more than 7,300 reports of human trafficking involving child migrants and tens of thousands of other concerning leads,” according to the New York Post.

Even before Trump took office for the second time, officials in the Biden administration were sounding the alarm about ongoing abuse of unaccompanied migrant children. An August 2024 Homeland Security Inspector General report warned that there were around 300,000 children the federal government had entirely lost track of.

Because of the Biden administration’s utter failure to protect children, the Trump administration is doing what it can to process the backlog. According to the New York Post, there were still nearly 1,700 allegations of “fraudulent sponsors” along with “46,311 other tips from grantees, staff, and unaccompanied minors themselves to vet.”

HHS also told Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) earlier this year that the department has “referred 528 leads” to federal law enforcement, which so far has resulted in 36 prosecutions, “seven indictments, eleven arrests, and three convictions.” Grassley called this news a “great first step in protecting these children,” but said more work must be done. “Not a single child should continue to suffer because of the previous administration’s failures,” Grassley wrote in a May 27 letter to Secretary Kennedy.

While there should be unanimous support for protecting minors from being trafficked, abused, and exploited, supporters of open borders have been critical of the Trump administration’s efforts, fearing that it might lead to illegal aliens being deported.

“Migrant advocates,” according to Newsday, fear agents checking in on children “may use the review to deport any sponsors or children who are not living in the country legally.”

“They’re not helping kids. They’re going after sponsors to try to find more people to put on their deportation list,” an anonymous former HHS official told NOTUS.

The idea that migrant children should continue to be left with criminals and abusers merely to avoid deportation is a twisted and deeply unserious argument. If so-called “advocates” are more worried about shielding illegal aliens from consequences than stopping children from being raped, trafficked, or enslaved, they’ve made their priorities shamefully clear.

Democrats claim their open borders agenda is driven by compassion – but for hundreds of thousands of children, it has been a living hell. These minors weren’t welcomed into a better life. They were used, discarded, and forgotten by a government that prioritized politics over protection.

President Trump is right to shine a spotlight on this humanitarian disaster and take aggressive steps to clean it up. The question now is whether those who created this nightmare will finally be held accountable.

Matt Lamb is a contributor for AMAC Newsline and an associate editor for The College Fix. He previously worked for Students for Life of America, Students for Life Action, and Turning Point USA. He previously interned for Open the Books. His writing has also appeared in the Washington Examiner, The Federalist, LifeSiteNews, Human Life Review, Headline USA, and other outlets. The opinions expressed are his own. Follow him @mattlamb22 on X.