Tom Homan says Trump administration has located 23,000 of the 300,000 migrant children lost under Biden administration

The Trump administration's border czar announced Friday that federal officials have found tens of thousands of the missing children lost under the Biden administration.

Tom Homan made the comments on Fox News as the administration released some data about President Donald Trump's mass deportation efforts.

"Out of the 300,000 children — I looked at the numbers just yesterday — we've located over 23,000 of them," Homan said.

'That's a big plus for the administration because the last administration wasn't even looking for them.'

"So 23,000 locations of 300,000. President Trump's committed. We're not going to stop until we find every one of them or at least run every lead down on those 300,000 children. That's a big plus for the administration because the last administration wasn't even looking for them."

The 300,000 figure is taken from a government report in 2024 about unaccompanied migrant children who had been released to sponsors or family members within the U.S. The report said that 32,000 of those children failed to show up to immigration court between 2019 and 2023, but another 291,000 of those children didn't receive court notices at all.

Critics say the children aren't actually missing but that it is more of a bureaucratic "paperwork issue" of the government.

"That doesn't mean something bad happened to them," said Aaron Reichlin-Melnick of the American Immigration Council to the BBC. "It means you missed a court hearing."

However, Reichlin-Melnick admitted that some of those children are at higher risk for trafficking and abuse, a finding included in the 2024 report.

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A Department of Homeland Security official told Fox News that total deportations had reached 350,000 removals under Trump.

"President Trump and Secretary Noem have jump-started an agency that was vilified and barred from doings its job for the last four years," the official said. "In the face of a historic number of injunctions from activist judges, ICE, CBP, and the U.S. Coast Guard have made historic progress to carry out President Trump's promise of arresting and deporting illegal aliens who have invaded our country."

The spokesperson added that migration through the Darien Gap in Panama is down 99.99%.

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