Speaking on Fox News, Tom Homan said: “The third rail is we got over 300,000 missing children. Over half a million children have been trafficked into the United States. This administration released them to unvetted sponsors, and they can’t find 300,000. And based on three-and-a-half decades, some of these children are in forced labor.”
A report issued by the Department of Homeland Security's Inspector General earlier this year revealed that there were 323,000 illegal immigrant children who were unaccounted for at the time within the country. As of May this year, more than 32,000 children who had been served notices to appear in court failed to appear. In addition, the safety of a further 291,000 illegal immigrant children couldn't be verified because they had not been placed into removal proceedings. This made it complicated to monitor their status.
Although we don’t know exactly what happened to these children, if the past is any indication, they could be experiencing a living hell in our country.
He said: “We already found some in forced labor, some of them are in sex trafficking, some of them are with pedophiles. We need to save these children. That’s going to be the third rail.”
Rails are the terms being used for Homan’s priorities when he takes over the role. The other two rails are securing the border between the U.S. and Mexico, and deporting illegal immigrants who are criminals or posing a threat to our national security and still living in our country.
Homan intends to put a broad mass deportation plan into motion as soon as Trump takes office, and the incoming president said this week that he would consider declaring a national emergency to help facilitate the plan if necessary.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has come under fire for its failure to monitor unaccompanied migrant children once they have been released from the custody of the federal government. These are individuals under the age of 18 who do not have lawful immigration status, nor do they have any parents or guardians in the U.S. who can take custody of them.
From October 2018 to September 2023, more than 448,000 unaccompanied children were released by ICE to the Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Refugee Resettlement.
The fact that the government has lost track of so many children and has put them at risk of exploitation is extremely unsettling and yet another example of the extreme incompetence of the Biden-Harris administration.
Homan has said the incoming administration will “take the handcuffs off” ICE so they can work to secure the nation. He also pointed out that we saw a 45-year low in illegal border crossings the last time Trump was in office. In addition, Trump intends to complete the construction of the border wall.
Representative Claudia Tenney (R-New York) applauded Homan for his proactive stance in an interview with Newsmax’s Wake Up America.
“I can't emphasize how compassionate and how important it is that Tom Homan wants to focus on those children. All of us care about these children that were trafficked all over our communities," she said.
Sources for this article include: