Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche listens to a reporter’s question during a press conference with U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin (L) at the Department of Justice June 11, 2026 in Washingon, DC. The press conference centered on government efforts to locate and secure unaccompanied immigrant children.

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Aliss Higham

By Aliss Higham

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Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin has said 146,000 missing migrant children who disappeared under the Biden administration have been located, but that "nearly 300,000" are still missing.

Speaking at a news conference on Thursday, Mullin said the previous administration allowed "450,000 kids to go missing throughout this country," and that "President Trump has made it a point to go find these kids."

Newsweek has contacted the office of former President Joe Biden for comment via the contact form on his website.

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On Thursday, the Department of Justice announced that three people in Ohio had been charged with conspiring to smuggle unaccompanied minors across the U.S. border. The department has charged Maritza Azucena Cahuec Coc, 38, and her brother Carlos Agustin Cahuec Coc, 33, over their alleged roles in an international migrant-smuggling scheme that operated between December 2020 and October 2023.

According to the indictment, the pair submitted multiple fraudulent sponsorship applications to the Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Refugee Resettlement to obtain custody of unaccompanied migrant children.

A third defendant, Gladys Marina Caal Chen, 20, is accused of making false statements to the government in connection with a sponsorship application for an unaccompanied minor. Prosecutors said Chen had previously been fraudulently sponsored into the United States as an unaccompanied child herself.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said the indictment highlights what he described as a wider issue involving so-called super sponsors, individuals who take responsibility for three or more unrelated unaccompanied minors. Blanche said many of those children later become victims of labor or sex trafficking.

"We will not accept half measures when it comes to securing the border, protecting American lives and saving children from exploitation," Blanche told reporters.

Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin, left, and acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche attend a news conference on government efforts to locate and secure unaccompanied immigrant children at the Department of Justice on June 11 in Washington, D.C.

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Unaccompanied Children

An "unaccompanied alien child" (UAC) is a person under the age of 18 who has arrived in the U.S. or at the border without legal status and without a parent or guardian.

During the news conference, Blanche said more than 475,000 unaccompanied children entered the U.S. under the Biden administration, and that almost 300,000 could not be accounted for at the end of 2024.

Data from the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) shows how many unaccompanied children entered the U.S. during the Biden administration, from 2021 to 2024:

In 2025, when the second Trump administration began, 22,833 unaccompanied children entered the U.S.

Data is not available from the ORR regarding the number of missing migrant children.

"The way that this happened was typically because the criminals calling themselves sponsors trafficked these children to the border, usually committing fraud to do so, and oftentimes the children were abused, assaulted, and certainly exploited," Blanche said. "In some cases individuals would sponsor multiple children, which required them to lie to government personnel and on government forms, claiming they were close relatives when in fact they were not."

While the overall number of migrant children taken into federal custody has fallen substantially under Trump, federal data shows that unaccompanied migrant children are also spending far longer in government custody. According to the ORR, the average length of care rose from 30 days in fiscal year 2024 to 117 days in FY2025, while monthly figures in FY2026 have approached 180 days.

Abuse of Migrant Children

Mullin said during the news conference that there were reports of some migrant children facing abuse.

"We're investigating reports to where some of these kids claim they were raped 6-700 times," Mullin said. "I don't care who you are. I don't care if you have kids, don't have kids. I don't care if you're liberal, you're independent, you're a Democrat, you're Republican. If you can't stand for law enforcement to go find these kids, who are you?"

Taking Aim at Democrats

Mullin blamed the Biden administration for the trafficking of migrant minors, calling the cases "horrific."

Democrats have opposed several elements of Trump's immigration policy, arguing that they expand enforcement at the expense of due process and humanitarian protections. Criticisms have focused on the use of detention for migrant families and children, the expanded use of federal detention facilities and policies that increase arrests and removals without additional procedural safeguards.

Democratic lawmakers and state attorneys general have also challenged the policies in court, particularly measures linked to mandatory detention and efforts to pressure states with sanctuary policies through funding conditions. Across Congress and state governments, Democrats have generally framed these policies as excessive enforcement measures that risk harming vulnerable migrants and undermining legal protections.

Mullin said Democrats "want to claim that Republicans, because we're enforcing the laws, it's inhumane, somehow."

He said most of the missing children had been found in sanctuary cities—municipalities in the U.S. that limit their cooperation with federal immigration authorities regarding the detention and deportation of undocumented immigrants—but he did not specify locations.

According to ORR data on releases of migrant children since 2016 to sponsor families, the top states are Texas, California, Florida and New York.

The number of children released to sponsor families ballooned during the Biden administration. In 2020, the final full year of the first Trump administration, 16,854 children were released to sponsor families. In 2021, during which the Biden administration began on January 20, 107,705 children were placed with sponsors—an increase of almost 540 percent.

"I'm not indicting past leadership right here on this podium," Blanche told reporters. "But you can also not ignore what was an incredible dereliction of duty at best."

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