Trump Admin Says It's Found 62K Undocumented Children in US

Outlets on the left and right of the political spectrum published conflicting reports about undocumented children in the US this week.

From The Right: Border czar Tom Homan reported that the Trump administration has found 62,000 undocumented children in the US. The Daily Signal (Right bias) wrote, "Under the Biden administration, hundreds of thousands of illegal alien minors arrived at the southern border alone and were released into the care of sponsors, but the Biden administration did not track the location or status of each child after placement." Many outlets on the right prominently quoted Homan, who said in an interview, "Some of these children were in sex trafficking – we found them. Some were in forced labor, some were being mistreated – I can't even discuss some of the mistreatment we found out about." Daily Signal highlighted Trump's June 2018 executive order to prevent family separation at the border. The outlet said, "The Trump administration is now working to safely return unaccompanied migrant children to their home countries." Conservative outlets largely omitted details of immigration officials' alleged mistreatments of minors. 

From The Left: Several major outlets on the left focused significantly more on the alleged cases of mistreatments by immigration officials, and omitted any mention of rescue operations. Associated Press (Left) cited court filings that "alarmed legal advocates who say the government is failing to safeguard children." The filings reported that "Hundreds of immigrant children lingered in federal detention beyond a court-mandated limit, including some who were held more than five months." AP highlighted reports of "custody times for immigrant children, contaminated food, a lack of access to medical care or sufficient legal counsel" and stated, "Advocates documented injuries suffered by children and a lack of access to sufficient medical care. One child bleeding from an eye injury wasn't seen by medical staff for two days." 

RELATED: Are Migrants Being Abused In ICE Detention Centers? | AllSides

Written by the AllSides staff (of humans). Learn more. Support our mission. Suggest an improvement to this summary.