President Donald Trump has drawn attention to the federal government’s failure to protect over 300,000 young migrants admitted through the “Unaccompanied Alien Child” (UAC) program. In a press conference held on September 13 on the California coast, Trump stated that 325,000 migrant children are missing under his administration’s watch. Many of these children have likely fallen victim to sex trafficking and slavery.
This issue poses a political risk for Kamala Harris, who played a role as a senator in minimizing protections for migrant youths in the United States in 2018 and 2019. The UAC program has also provided the Republican party with a powerful response to accusations from Democrats that Trump had placed a small number of “kids in cages” and “separated families.
The missing youths are part of an influx of approximately 350,000 children and young people since 2021 through the loophole for “Unaccompanied Alien Children.” Many of these children were brought to the United States border by smugglers under contracts with undocumented migrant parents who wanted to reunite with their left-behind children. However, at least half the migrants are male youths seeking work in the United States at pay rates significantly higher than what they could earn south of Mexico.
The vast majority of the missing young people and men have refused contact with their supposed guardians at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS. This agency is legally responsible for delivering the young migrants from the border to volunteer “sponsors” throughout the United States, pending court decisions on the youths’ legal status.
Many of these 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 of the youths are eager to work, in part because they need to pay off loans taken out with smugglers. The New York Times reported that many young migrants have been abused in workplaces, some of whom were killed.
This situation implicates Vice President Kamala Harris, who shut down federal checks on people serving as “sponsors” for the young migrants when they cross the border. This action took place while Trump was president and Harris served as a senator from California. In 2018, Trump’s deputies arrested more than 150 would-be sponsors, many of whom were undocumented immigrants. Harris considered these arrests “outrageous.
She then inserted a rider in the spending bill that barred HHS from sharing sponsor-related information with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency. This rule made it easy for labor brokers to import young migrants into the United States via the UAC program. The New York Times revealed that many young migrants were abused in workplaces, some of whom were killed.
Despite this scandal, Democrats largely ignored it, as the UAC program is designed to help children who come to the United States without their parents. Republican legislators in the House have been investigating the child labor business, but the Democratic party and its allies in the media have tried to ignore, downplay, or hide the child trafficking scandal since it began to worsen in 2014.