Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas raised eyebrows over the weekend telling CBS his agency bears no responsibility for the thousands of missing illegal alien children suspected of being trafficked.
In an interview with Face The Nation‘s Margaret Brennan, Mayorkas dismissed President-elect Donald Trump’s border czar pick Tom Homan’s claims the missing children are being exploited, going on to say the issue is “outside of” DHS’ responsibility and that details are being misrepresented.
“The incoming border czar, Tom Homan, says these children are being exploited and trafficked. Is that true?” Brennan asked Mayorkas, who went on to admit the children are missing and that DHS knows where some are.
“Margaret, we certainly have received reports of children being trafficked, even those as to whom we know where they are. That is outside the responsibility of the Department of Homeland Security,” Mayorkas replied. “What we do is we turn children over within 72 hours, as the law requires, to the Department of Health and Human Services, and then HHS places those children.”
“Of course, we investigate cases of trafficking, but there are children who are reunited with a parent here in the United States or a legal guardian, and they move, and sometimes the government loses track…Individuals do not comply with the reporting obligations, or otherwise.”
Mayorkas went on to say, “I think it is inaccurate to say that all of them are trafficked or victimized.”
“There are a number of reasons why we might lose track of an individual that is not necessarily specific to this administration,” he continued.
“That has been a long-standing challenge in the immigration system, one example of why that system is so broken, why the duration of time in proceedings is unacceptably long and has to be remedied. Remember, we’re dealing with a system that was last reformed in 1996.”
The DHS Secretary’s defensive posture comes as an audit released by Office of Inspector General in August 2024, found that ICE had transferred to DHS close to half a million children, who subsequently went missing.
“…ICE was not able to account for the location of all UCs [unaccompanied children] who were released by HHS and did not appear as scheduled in immigration court. ICE reported more than 32,000 UCs failed to appear for their immigration court hearings from FYs 2019 to 2023,” the OIG audit stated.
Aside from deporting criminal illegal aliens, Homan has made locating the missing children a central priority of his upcoming border czar appointment.
“…[W]e’ve got to find over 300,000 missing children that were released into this country to so-called sponsors that the government can’t find,” Homan told Fox News last month.
Democrat New York City Mayor Eric Adams has gotten on board with helping Homan clean up his city, explaining to the press earlier this month following a meeting with Trump’s border czar that he also intends to help find the children.
“What I’ve learned also from sitting down with [Homan]…we have 500,000 children who have sponsors in this country that we can’t find. We can’t find them. We don’t know if they’re doing child labor. We don’t know if they’re doing sex crimes. We don’t know if they’ve been exploited. 500,000 children,” Adams remarked at a press conference earlier this month.
“I want to support and protect children and innocent people that are victims of crime. And those who don’t understand that, it’s not up to me to try to convince them. I know what my job is, my goal is, and I was clear of that while running and when I became mayor. Safety means everything to me. 500,000 children. We don’t know where they are right now in this country.”
As the embattled Biden admin nears its exit, Mayorkas seems intent on deflecting liability for DHS’s monumental failures, despite the agency facilitating the influx of millions of third-world illegals via the open southern border.