EXCLUSIVE: Number of Unaccompanied Alien Children Arriving at Border Hits Record Low Under Trump

FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—The number of migrant children arriving alone at the southern border reached an all-time low in March.  

Border Patrol encountered 631 unaccompanied alien children at the southwest border last month, down 97% from the record high of 18,716 under the administration of then-President Joe Biden in March 2021, according to a senior Department of Homeland Security official.  

“March was the lowest number of unaccompanied children arriving at our southern border in recorded history,” Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, told The Daily Signal.  

President Donald Trump and DHS Secretary Kristi Noem “are stopping the exploitation and trafficking of children,” McLaughlin said. “Thanks to strong leadership, we now have the most secure border in American history.”  

On average, 11,132 unaccompanied children were encountered at the southern border monthly under the Biden administration, according to the DHS official. So far under the Trump administration, the monthly average is below 700.  

Encounters of illegal aliens at the southern border have seen a steady decline since Trump returned to office, with total Border Patrol encounters between ports of entry reaching a historic low in March.

“Border Patrol encounters for the month of March were 7,181 total,” Noem wrote on X on Tuesday, adding, “Compare that to the ~160,000 average monthly encounters under Joe Biden.”

Following extensive reporting and a number of congressional hearings on missing migrant children during the Biden administration, DHS Inspector General Joseph Cuffari conducted an audit “to determine [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s] ability to monitor the location and status of [unaccompanied alien children] once released or transferred from DHS and HHS’ custody.”  

In a report released in March, the Inspector General’s Office found that the location of thousands of illegal alien children remains unknown, and ICE cannot monitor the status of those children after they are released from government custody.   

From the start of fiscal year 2019 to 2023, “ICE transferred more than 448,000 [unaccompanied alien children] to HHS,” according to the report. Most of those minors were then transferred to sponsors, but “more than 31,000 of the 448,000 children’s release addresses were blank, undeliverable, or missing apartment numbers.”   

Children have long been some of the greatest victims of cartel smuggling schemes at the U.S. southern border with Mexico. 

In 2008, Congress voted to pass the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act. The bipartisan piece of legislation contained a glaring loophole that the criminal cartels have exploited.   

Under the bill, unaccompanied migrant children from noncontiguous nations (i.e., any countries other than Mexico and Canada) are to be screened to determine if they are trafficking victims and then released into the custody of the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement, which in turn releases the child to a sponsor in the U.S., making it much harder to find a child if they do not appear for their asylum hearing.    

A sponsor can be a distant relative the child has never met, or not related at all. Because the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection law allows for the release of unaccompanied minors into the U.S. who are not from Mexico or Canada, the cartels were given the opportunity to entice minors to cross the border, knowing they would not be turned away.  

According to the Office of Refugee Resettlement, 81% of unaccompanied alien children are between the ages of 13 and 18. The average age of a trafficking victim in the U.S. is between 12 and 15, according to Anti-Trafficking International.    

The Flores Settlement Agreement is another policy border security experts have warned is being exploited to the benefit of the cartels.  

The Flores Settlement Agreement was first implemented in the 1990s and prohibits the detention of a minor for more than 20 days. Because processing an illegal alien often takes longer than 20 days, and seeing an immigration court judge takes even longer, the unaccompanied minors are often released rapidly, again creating more incentive for the cartels to exploit minors.  

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