
The campaign against irregular migration undertaken by the Trump administration has never set aside children. Deportations without the consent of their parents, family separation, obstacles to be welcomed in the homes of sponsors and the elimination of legal representation in court to children who arrived alone in the United States are some initiatives aimed at minors. Now, the “well -being” of children is the objective of the campaign of the National Security Department in which several agencies are involved, including the FBI, and that consists of visiting without prior notice the households of undocumented children to verify that they are not suffering abuse or exploitation. Generally, between four and six agents, sometimes without uniform and armed, they knock on the door of households to interview minors and their relatives.
“These well -being controls are sowing fear, panic and confusion between children and family members throughout the country. Numerous minors have been submitted to deportation procedures after these verifications, which by definition constitute a measure of immigration control,” says Jason Boid, vice president of federal policy in the Kids in Need of Defense (Kind) organization.
The defenders of minors denounce that the authentic end of the “well -being controls” is none other than to locate more undocumented, children and adults, to deport. In two months, a hundred children have been taken from their homes and put into federal custody because the relatives with whom they lived have been arrested or deported, according to a federal official who wanted to keep anonymity to AP.
“I have no peace,” he recently declared Honolulu Civil Beat, Juan, a Honduran immigrant who appeared as a sponsor of his teenage niece, who crossed the southern border of the United States alone a few years ago.
Last month, when returning from work, his neighbors informed him that Immigration and Customs Service agents (ICE) had gone to look for him and his niece. Now Juan and his family – their three children born in the United States attend schools in South Kona, Hawaii – leave home at dawn and stay out until night. His niece no longer goes to school.
Boyd argues that several Kind clients who have gone through well -being controls fear going to school and presenting their audiences in court because they are worried that their participation in the immigration system or in other forums can lead to consequences such as deportation or that of their relatives.
In Hawaii there have been several cases of deported families as a result of the visit of the well -being control. The questions to minors include how they arrived in the United States; if they attend school and where; If they work, where they work and what kind of work they do, in addition to asking for information about their parents and who they currently live.
When they arrive in the United States alone, minors are aimed at the refugee resettlement office (ORR), where they remain until a sponsor takes care of them. They can be the parents themselves, who were already in the United States, other relatives or, ultimately, people who do not belong to their family. In any case, verifications are made to determine if children will be in safe homes, although they are not always so rigorous to ensure their well -being, experts say.
Until March, 23,784 children who arrived alone to their sponsors have been delivered. Throughout the past year there were 99,381, which meant a decrease in the preceding three years.
The tactic of fear
In addition to contributing to the greatest deportation in history, which Trump intends to make, critics ensure that well -being controls serve to extend fear among potential sponsors. “They want to infuse fear for the community to be distressed and say: Oh, my God, if we sponsor a minor, they will come to our house and will find the people who are undocumented and will deport us!” Says Gladis Molina, executive director of The Young Center. Their organization offers support to minors who crossed the border alone and have to initiate the procedures to request asylum.
Molina says that one of the children who attend (the name is not given by protection), was transferred to the detention center for migrants in California from Hawaii, after his older brother, who was the one who took care of him, was deported after one of the unexpected control visits. The minor, who is Honduran, has returned to a detention center, which came out more than a year ago, from where his migratory process will continue.

Molina criticizes that many of the children whose sponsors are arrested are being transferred to migrant detention centers, instead of being transferred to local authorities and their centers for minors.
The HHS declared on the social network X last month: “The ORR is analyzing almost 65,000 reports on concern for unaccompanied migrant children – the majority ignored, many dismissed. And he added: “The Trump administration will not turn a blind eye. The system may have failed before, but not under our supervision. We are rebuilding trust, restoring accountability and prioritizing children, just where they must be.”
Sexual exploitation
A senior official gave AP the example of a man in Cleveland, who pretended to be the brother of a 14 -year -old girl and coordinated his trip from Guatemala to the United States. No fingerprints were taken or DNA tests were performed to verify his statement. The man declared himself guilty of sexual aggression against the minor in a state court in Ohio in 2024 and was sentenced to eight years in prison.
The trafficking of minors and labor and sexual exploitation are risks facing minors, both during their trip and at their final destination, United States. Their defenders criticize, however, that the discovered cases justify the visits of well -being. “I am not going to say that these cases cannot be given, but if they occur it is like 0.1% of the situations. It is not in most cases, that is the point number one. The number two is that these situations have to be identified before giving a minor to a sponsor. And number three, what we are seeing is that people think that federal officers will come to their homes to deport them. That makes them hide and cause more situations Vulnerable, ”says Molina.
Offensive against children
The offensive against unaccompanied migrants has been undertaken from several fronts. The government has already canceled the funds so that the organizations that defend them will stop providing them with lawyers, leaving some 26,000 children without legal representation. Once again, the administration’s performance was erratic, recovering and canceling the program. A judge imposed financing to prevent children from being presented alone in court. But anxiety and fear of facing a trial already caused damage to minors.

“Children lose hope of meeting their loved ones in the United States or receiving a fair opportunity to seek legal protection in the country. This hopelessness has led, in many cases, for children to voluntarily abandon the United States and return to their countries of origin, despite the dangers that run in them,” says Boyd.
The financing of legal services is only guaranteed until September and there are serious doubts to continue later. In addition, the requirements for sponsors have been hardened to cope with minors, making reunification with their parents or other relatives. That has made the average time the children spend in the shelters in custody of the orr was in April more than 200 days, when six months ago it was 64.
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