Former Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf told CNN host Jim Acosta Tuesday that the incoming Trump administration would “initiate a pretty large program” to locate children the Biden-Harris administration lost track of.
At least 85,000 children placed into the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) are unaccounted for, according to a February 2023 report by The New York Times. Wolf brought up the missing children when Acosta questioned him about the Trump administration’s family separation policy.
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“The Washington Post reported earlier this year that about 1,400 children are still separated from their parents after the family separation policy that was pursued by the first Trump administration,” Acosta said. “I mean, shouldn’t these crackdowns avoid hurting children?”
“Well, absolutely,” Wolf responded. “And I would say the Trump administration is probably going to have to initiate a pretty large program to find the over 330,000 children that the Biden and Harris administration has lost in the immigration system,” Wolf responded. “We have a child smuggling and trafficking crisis because of the policies of this administration. Over 500,000 children, you’ve got to take steps to reduce that and disencourage those children to come across the border, to put their lives in the hands of cartel members. You can’t sit back and say we’re going to do business as usual and have these children trafficked across the border. There has to be a different way.”
Illegal immigration became a prominent issue in the 2024 presidential race after a series of crimes involving illegal immigrants, including the murders of Rachel Morin, Laken Riley and Jocelyn Nungaray, and the struggles experienced by the city of Springfield, Ohio after an influx of over 20,000 Haitian migrants.
The Border Patrol encountered over 7.4 million illegal immigrants since the start of fiscal year 2021, according to figures released by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
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