Hearing Wrap Up: Taking Action to Protect Vulnerable Children Exploited by the Biden Border Crisis

WASHINGTON—Today, the Federal Law Enforcement Subcommittee held a hearing on “Catch and Release, Lose and Forget:  Addressing the Crisis of Unaccompanied Alien Children – Part I.” At the hearing, members began a comprehensive oversight review of the findings from a March 2025 report by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Office of the Inspector General, which found that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is not always able to monitor the location and status of unaccompanied migrant children released from the custody of DHS and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

Key Takeaways:

The Biden Border Crisis created a humanitarian crisis that left over 233,000 unaccompanied alien children (UACs) without proper legal oversight and vulnerable to exploitation. 

• In March 2025, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Office of the Inspector General released a report finding that ICE is not always able to monitor the location and status of unaccompanied migrant children released from the custody of DHS and HHS.

• Inspector General Joseph Cuffari testified, “The report findings detailed in my testimony reveal significant gaps in how Immigration and Customs Enforcement monitors and manages UAC cases following release from Federal custody […] This is not simply an administrative problem; it’s a systemic breakdown that poses grave risks to UACs and the integrity of our legal immigration system and can undermine public trust in our immigration and law enforcement institutions.”

• According to the Inspector General’s report, 31,000 children were released to sponsor addresses that were blank, undeliverable, or incomplete, while more than 43,000 failed to appear for court hearings and are now effectively missing from federal monitoring. 

• Just recently, unaccompanied minors as young as 14 were rescued by DHS from exploitation at a California marijuana farm.

The Subcommittee on Federal Law Enforcement is conducting a comprehensive congressional review of this crisis to protect vulnerable children and restore accountability to our immigration system. 

• The Subcommittee will examine DHS’s failures during the Biden Administration to protect vulnerable children.

• Future hearings in this series will examine how the Trump Administration can rebuild monitoring systems, strengthen interagency cooperation, and develop comprehensive policies to locate these missing children while preventing future crises.

Member Highlights: 

Subcommittee Chairman Clay Higgins (R-La.) and Inspector General Cuffari discussed how the Trump Administration is taking action to locate unaccompanied alien children who were lost track of by the Biden Administration.

Inspector General Cuffari: “ICE has formed a team of agents, HSI investigators. It was formed in February 2025 by Secretary Noem. She designated this unit to go out and identify, locate, and provide health and welfare checks on unaccompanied alien children who had been transferred from DHS custody to HHS. So, a necessary component of that was for ICE and HHS to work together. They are also working with other federal law enforcement agencies like the FBI and U.S. Marshals Services to go out. They are selecting a group of 200,000 unaccompanied alien children and they have gone around 50,000 homes.”

Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) detailed how vulnerable unaccompanied alien children who entered during the Biden Border Crisis ended up in strip clubs. 

Rep. Biggs: “This government under Joe Biden, under Joe Biden, received hundreds of thousands of unaccompanied children is that fair to say Mr. Cuffari?”

IG Cuffari: “The number is around 448,000.”

Rep. Biggs: “And of those, do we know where all those 448,000 unaccompanied children are?”

IG Cuffari: “As of the date of the report, we did not. Like I mentioned ICE and HHS are now going out in tandem to go and identify where these children are located.”

Rep. Biggs: “Are you familiar with a case in Orlando, Florida, where 22 children of one at one time or another were placed with a strip club?”

IG Cuffari: “That’s a new one.”

Rep. Biggs: “That happened. And that’s not the only time it happened. Multiple children going to the same address which turned out to be vacant addresses.” 

Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) questioned Inspector General Cuffari about the Biden Administration’s systemic failures to protect unaccompanied alien children.  

Rep. Mace: “So my question for you this afternoon is, how many unaccompanied children were lost by the Biden administration?”

IG Cuffari: “I believe the figure is 233,000.”

Rep. Mace: “And how many unaccompanied children were registered to nonexistent addresses or had no address listed at all? 

IG Cuffari: “There were 31,000 who had invalid addresses.”

Rep. Mace: “In your review, how frequently did you find numerous children registered to the same address?”

IG Cuffari: “Frequently.”

Rep. Mace: “Do you believe there were sufficient safeguards in place to prevent this from happening?”

IG Cuffari: “No.”

Rep. Mace: “As you mentioned, in 2021 the Biden Administration removed a requirement HHS provide ICE with biographic and biometric information to vet the sponsors and adult members of the household of unaccompanied minors. They made it easier to hand out a unaccompanied children to criminals […] Was ICE able to properly able to vet sponsors of UACs for criminal history or cartel ties without biographic or biometric information from ICE?

IG Cuffari: “No, they were prohibited from doing so.”

Click here to watch the hearing.