The Trump administration has issued a new crackdown after it identified more than 15,500 individuals who each had sponsored at least three unaccompanied migrant children, raising concerns about potential trafficking.
Roughly 475,000 illegal immigrant children crossed the border alone during the Biden administration as officials lost contact with more than 300,000 of those who came without parents. The Trump administration has located roughly 146,000 of the missing children, some of whom were with criminals in labor or sex trafficking rings.
When children cross the border alone, Border Patrol agents send them to the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) to help them connect with their sponsors in the United States.
Under the Biden administration, children “were released to adults who were rarely seen in person” and “were sent to addresses that were not visited or verified,” Acting ORR Director Angie Salazar said during a Thursday press conference alongside administration officials.
Salazar said the Trump administration identified 81,000 addresses that were used multiple times to take in migrant children, over 76,000 instances where mandatory safety checks were missing, and more than 97,000 cases that lacked background checks.
Now, in an effort to reform the system, ORR is requiring stronger checks, including fingerprint background checks, DNA testing when sponsors claim to be relatives of the children, income verification, and in-person home visits and meetings with sponsor applicants, Salazar said.
“I will move heaven and hell to go find these kids,” Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said.
As part of the crackdown, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche announced charges against three alleged illegal immigrant “super sponsors” accused of trafficking more than a dozen unaccompanied minors by exploiting vulnerabilities in the sponsorship system under the Biden administration.
“This is one example, one indictment, but it is not unique,” Blanche said during Thursday’s presser.
NEW: @DAGToddBlanche says the Trump admin has identified more than 15,500 individuals who each sponsored at least three unaccompanied migrant children, raising concerns about potential trafficking.
Blanche also announced charges against three alleged illegal immigrant “super… pic.twitter.com/XUN6KoEmie
— Jennie Taer (@JennieSTaer) June 11, 2026
Guatemalan illegal immigrants Maritza Cahuec Coc, her brother Carlos Cahuec Coc, and Gladys Marina Caal Chen allegedly engaged in a “wide-ranging conspiracy to smuggle more than a dozen children into the United States by scamming the system and exploiting the loopholes created by the last administration,” Blanche said.
Between December 2020 and October 2023, Maritza Cahuec Coc submitted sponsorship applications using others’ identities to take custody of children she claimed were children of close relatives. Upon searching her Cleveland, Ohio, home two weeks ago, federal agents found eight other adults, nearly all of whom were in the United States illegally, and four minor children living there.
Some of the adults in the home were brought into the country as unaccompanied minors, authorities said.
“She used other people’s birth certificates, Guatemalan consular ID cards to deceive ORR, even submitting photographs of herself holding someone else’s ID. Several of those applications were successful, causing the ORR to release children to her care. This was a business, payments were deposited into her and her coconspirators’ bank accounts,” Assistant Attorney General Tysen Duva said.
“This case highlights the fraud and abuse perpetrated by illegal aliens and exposes how this government program was manipulated to bring children to the United States and deliver them to unvetted people,” he said.
Another “super sponsor,” Juan Tiul Xi, received a ten-year prison sentence Wednesday after he lied to take custody of a 14-year-old girl before he sexually assaulted her. The trafficker “arranged for a coyote” in September 2023 “to have a Guatemalan family’s 14-year-old girl illegally enter the United States, he submitted a sponsorship application and lied that the girl was his sister” in order to take custody of her, Duva said.
“He was entrusted with her care and sexually assaulted her multiple times. He told her the sex was repayment for bringing her to the United States,” Duva said.
“These cases tell a story. First, about the crimes that people commit to come to the United States illegally, the dangers and risks associated with that often long journey, including tragic consequences of vulnerable children being subjected to smugglers who exploit them often sexually and physically. And second, how criminals use a child protection program to commit fraud,” Duva added.
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