Texas Representative Lance Gooden has expressed serious concerns regarding the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) oversight and accountability of unaccompanied migrant children (UAC) at the southern border.
In a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Rep. Gooden highlighted alarming statistics, noting that since President Biden took office, U.S. Customs and Border Patrol have encountered 473,145 unaccompanied minors.
He also pointed to a troubling report from the DHS Office of Inspector General (OIG), which confirmed that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has failed to complete mandatory safety checks, putting vulnerable children at risk.
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“The Biden Administration’s lackluster policies, ignorance, and direct failure to act have created a broken system that exposes UACs to human traffickers and smugglers,” Rep. Gooden said.
He emphasized that the administration, along with the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), bears direct responsibility for ensuring the safety of these children.
Rep. Gooden cited reports indicating that over 85,000 children have gone missing from HHS sponsor care, and more than 291,000 UACs under the Biden administration did not receive ICE Notices to Appear (NTAs). The OIG report found that UACs who do not attend immigration hearings are at greater risk of being trafficked or exploited, a failure Rep. Gooden attributed to the administration’s negligence.
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“Human trafficking has swollen into a multibillion-dollar industry further enabled by the current
administration’s lax border policies. Drug cartels, human traffickers, and smugglers are further
incentivized by the policies of this administration to use UACs to easily slip across the border undetected,” said Gooden. “Nearly 12% of forced labor victims are children, half of whom are in commercial sexual exploitation.6 Both DHS and HHS are vital to the protection of UACs through the vetting and proper oversight of their immigration cases, court proceedings, and placement with sponsors. Their failure to carry out these requirements raises serious safety concerns.”
Gooden’s statement outlined ICE and HHS’s shared responsibility in processing and caring for UACs. However, he criticized both agencies for losing contact with tens of thousands of these children, highlighting the failure to issue NTAs as a major contributor to this crisis. The congressman called for increased coordination between ICE and HHS to ensure proper oversight of UAC cases and safety.
Rep. Gooden posed several questions to DHS and HHS regarding the agencies’ handling of UACs, focusing on issues such as information sharing, tracking NTAs, and accountability measures when failures occur. He urged the administration to be more transparent and enforce proper procedures to protect unaccompanied children at the border.
“The Biden Administration and Democrats in Congress have neither accepted responsibility nor
taken accountability for failing to close our southern border,” Rep. Gooden stated.
He concluded by calling for greater enforcement of immigration procedures and better vetting of UAC sponsors, stressing the importance of ensuring that migrant children are safely processed and protected from harm.
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