Commentary

Biden’s Border Chaos Handed Children to Traffickers

Posted on by Bill McCarthy

Mullin’s Rescue Effort Exposes the Scale of the Betrayal

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin has announced that 146,000 unaccompanied migrant children released during the Biden years have now been located. Nearly 300,000 more remain unaccounted for. Many of the children found describe horrific abuse—repeated rape, forced labor, and exploitation by cartels and criminal sponsors. This was not an accident. It was the predictable result of deliberate policy choices that prioritized rapid processing and release over basic child safety. The Biden administration created the conditions for this catastrophe. The current administration is cleaning it up.

How the Children Were Put in Jeopardy

Record numbers of unaccompanied minors crossed the southern border after Biden took office. Cartels and smugglers quickly recognized the opportunity. Children were used as tickets into the United States because the system treated them differently from adults. Once in custody, the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Refugee Resettlement was responsible for placing them with sponsors. Under intense pressure to clear overcrowded facilities, the process was accelerated.

Home studies were skipped for tens of thousands of placements. Sponsors who were not blood relatives received children with minimal vetting. Background checks were incomplete or ignored. In documented cases, children were sent to addresses linked to MS-13, to multiple unrelated minors at the same location, and to individuals later identified as traffickers. Follow-up calls went unanswered. Notices to appear in immigration court were never issued or never enforced for hundreds of thousands. The system lost track of the children.

Whistleblowers and internal records later confirmed the pattern: speed over safety. Case managers described pressure to place children “no matter what.” Reports of potential trafficking were backlogged by the thousands and left uninvestigated. Hotels and temporary sites saw additional failures of oversight. The result was a pipeline from the border to exploitation.

Biden Administration Responsibility

The open-border incentives were set at the top. Ending effective Remain in Mexico policies, restricting interior enforcement, and broadcasting leniency triggered the surge. Facilities filled. Political leadership demanded faster releases. Vetting standards that existed on paper were not enforced in practice. Congressional oversight requests were stonewalled. When children disappeared into the interior, the response was bureaucratic indifference rather than urgency.

This was not a hidden failure. Inspectors general, Senate investigators, and internal HHS documents raised alarms for years. The administration continued the same approach. The numbers—hundreds of thousands of children released with inadequate safeguards—were the direct product of policy. Cartels exploited the rules. Sponsors exploited the gaps. Children paid the price.

The Ongoing Recovery

Locating 146,000 children is progress, not victory. Many were found in sanctuary jurisdictions that resisted cooperation. The remaining hundreds of thousands represent an enormous unfinished task. Every recovered child who reports repeated sexual abuse or forced labor is evidence of what the previous system allowed. The current effort treats these cases as the priority they always should have been: find the children, prosecute the exploiters, and end the policies that made the trafficking profitable.

American citizens expect their government to protect the most vulnerable, not create the conditions for their abuse. The Biden-era handling of unaccompanied minors failed that basic test on a historic scale. The 146,000 located so far are living proof. The rest are still waiting.

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