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JD Vance's claim of 320,000 “lost” children distorts the report

Posted on by Vanessa
JD Vance's claim of 320,000 “lost” children distorts the report

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JD Vance Claims Homeland Security “Effectively Lost” 320,000 Children

“Right now in this country we have… 320,000 children that the Department of Homeland Security has essentially lost.”

This distorts a key finding in an August 2024 report from the Department of Homeland Security's inspector general. It found that Immigration and Customs Enforcement was unable to keep track of all unaccompanied minors released from government custody .

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The claim combines two numbers in the report. According to the report, more than 32,000 unaccompanied migrant children failed to show up for their immigration court hearings between 2019 and 2023 – a period that spanned the presidencies of Donald Trump and Joe Biden. It said: “ICE was unable to determine the location of all (unaccompanied migrant children) released by HHS who did not appear in immigration court as scheduled.”

The report also found more than 291,000 unaccompanied children who had not been served with a notice to appear in court by ICE or had no court dates scheduled as of May 2024.

The report found that if ICE had issued notices or scheduled court dates for these children, the number of unaccompanied children who missed their court dates may have been higher than 32,000. But it does not mean that these children were “lost.”

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