Migrants from Venezuela make their way through the razor wire after crossing the Rio Grande into the United States in Eagle Pass, Texas, September 26, 2023.
Brian Snyder | Reuters
Trump administration immigration officials are planning a nationwide operation to locate and potentially deport children who came into the United States without a parent or legal guardian, according to two sources familiar with the plan. If a judge determines they have no legal basis to stay in the United States, they could then be placed on a path for deportation.
The two sources familiar with the plan told NBC News that the exact timing of the operation is not final but it could begin as soon as this week. They said Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents will search for children who entered the United States without parents and who do not have dates to immigration appear in court.
Reuters reported on Sunday that a memo had circulated among immigration agents directing them to step up enforcement on unaccompanied children.
The Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement is responsible for temporarily sheltering unaccompanied migrant children after they cross the southern border and then connecting them with sponsors in the United States. The agency contracts with groups who follow up on the child’s welfare, most frequently with a 30-day check-in by telephone.
The sources familiar with the planning of the operation said that ICE will focus on children whose sponsors did not answer the phone on the 30-day check-in as well as those who do not have court dates.
Republicans, including President Donald Trump, repeatedly criticized the Biden administration for what they said were “missing children” who crossed the border without parents and were released without notices to appear in court. To relieve overcrowding in HHS refugee resettlement facilities, the Biden and first Trump administrations sometimes released children before they were given court dates.
According to an August 2024 report from the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general, more than 291,000 children who crossed the border since fiscal year 2019, which included the first Trump administration, were not given notices to appear in court.
An NBC News review of HHS data revealed that areas of the country with large populations of migrant children who were sent to live with sponsors vetted by the Office of Refugee Resettlement include Maricopa County, Arizona; Los Angeles County, California; Miami-Dade County, Florida; and Prince George’s County, Maryland.
Mellissa Harper, a former ICE official, now heads the Office of Refugee Resettlement under the Trump administration. The office previously assured sponsors that they could come forward to claim children and that they could answer check-in calls without the fear that their information would be shared with ICE.
Under the current administration, there is no such wall barring that information sharing, the officials said.
An attorney who represents unaccompanied children in immigration court told NBC News on the condition of anonymity that the immigration system could be further overwhelmed with more children on the docket. They noted that Trump has already cut legal aid services to unaccompanied children, so adding more cases could mean more children without representation in immigration court.
“The legal services [for migrant children] is not just to be nice to kids, it’s to make sure the system works. They need to resource the system if they move more into NTA,” the attorney warned, referring to a “notice to appear” in court
