More than 7,300 cases of suspected child trafficking were ignored by the Biden administration according to DHS whistleblowers.
Officials in the former Biden administration are facing growing criticism over a humanitarian and moral failure that resulted in the abuse, exploitation, and trafficking of thousands of unaccompanied illegal immigrant children. Despite repeated warnings and internal government reports, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) have failed to properly vet sponsors, track children, or investigate thousands of reports of mistreatment.
In a bombshell DHS press release, the agency admitted uncovering “widespread abuse” and “exploitation” of migrant children placed with unvetted sponsors across the United States. The revelations come amid a surge in the number of unaccompanied minors crossing the southern border, which skyrocketed after President Biden rolled back many of the Trump-era border enforcement policies.
Migrant kids trafficked to pedophiles under Biden are being rescued by ICE, border czar Tom Homan tells ‘Pod Force One’ https://t.co/yMQ1dcG2g8 pic.twitter.com/lugvsWNTW9
— New York Post (@nypost) June 25, 2025
The scope of the crisis is staggering. According to a May 2025 report by the New York Post, the Biden administration failed to investigate over 7,300 cases of suspected child trafficking. Internal whistleblowers revealed that HHS ignored repeated red flags and failed to perform adequate welfare checks on minors once they were released to sponsors.
Former ICE Director and current border security czar Tom Homan has blasted the administration for its gross negligence. “Children were handed over to predators because this administration refused to implement common-sense vetting,” Homan said in a recent interview. “They ended the policies that were working and replaced them with chaos.” In many cases, these children were funneled into forced labor or placed in the hands of abusers and, in some horrific instances, even pedophiles.
In a BBC report on the scandal, DHS officials described systemic failures to conduct background checks or follow up on sponsor households. HHS reportedly lost contact with over 320,000 children, a staggering number that has alarmed and outraged immigration officials in the Trump administration. However, officials with the left-wing American Immigration Council believe it is more of a “paperwork issue”, not “anything nefarious.”
The Biden administration’s decision to rapidly process and release migrant children without the infrastructure to ensure their safety has created what many are calling a government-sponsored trafficking pipeline. The Inspector General for DHS confirmed in April that federal authorities have consistently lost track of unaccompanied minors, citing poor recordkeeping, lack of follow-up, and miscommunication between agencies.
Biden officials repeatedly downplayed the scale of the crisis, deflecting blame and pointing to the complexities of the immigration system. But behind the talking points are real children—many of them fleeing danger in their home countries—who were promised protection and ended up in harm’s way. Whistleblowers from within HHS and ICE have described an administration paralyzed by ideology and unwilling to take the necessary steps to prevent this unfolding tragedy.
By contrast, the Trump administration implemented a series of stringent policies, including DNA testing, thorough vetting of sponsors, and regular welfare checks after placement.
Homan claimed the Biden administration failed to protect vulnerable children by rushed vetting to avoid the “optics” of a border crisis. Homan told a New York Post podcast that Democratic politicians “screaming and yelling” about the Trump administration’s tough border policy never spoke up during the Biden administration when he claims, “sex trafficking of women and children skyrocketed.”
