Trump administration plans to deport children, create a registry for illegal immigrants – report
The Trump administration plans to create a registry for immigrants who are in the United States illegally, The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday, citing documents including a draft regulation.
The registry will be for immigrants to submit their personal information or face fines and prison time, the newspaper added.
US media reported that immigration officials under the Trump administration are planning a nationwide operation to find children who came into the United States without a parent or legal guardian, with the potential to deport them pending a judge’s call for whether or not they have a legal basis to remain in the country.
Sources close to the matter told NBC News that the timeline is not final but can start as soon as this week.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents will search for children who entered the United States without parents and who do not have dates to immigration appear in court, NBC’s report said.
Many unaccompanied migrant children are currently sheltering with the Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement Department upon crossing the southern border between Mexico and the states. A handful of these children are then connected to those sponsoring their stay in the country, according to the agency. The agency then works with contractors responsible for following up on the child’s welfare with monthly check-ins via telephone.
According to US media reports, the operation will be focused on targeting the children with sponsors who did not answer their calls, as well as those with no court dates. According to NBC News, the Biden and first Trump administrations sometimes released children before they were given court dates to relieve overcrowding in HHS refugee resettlement facilities.
“Zero tolerance” immigration policy
Many Republicans refer to these unaccompanied minors as “missing children.” The first Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” immigration policy separated over 5,000 children from their parents, with no tracking process or records that would allow them to be reunited.
Nearly 1,000 migrant children separated at the US-Mexico border under the first Trump administration have yet to be reunited with their parents despite a two-year effort by former President Joe Biden. In February 2023, US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said on Thursday of the 998 children still separated, 148 were in the process of reunification.
Biden, a Democrat, issued an executive order shortly after taking office in January 2021 that established a task force to reunite children separated from their families under Trump, a Republican and immigration hardliner, calling such separations a “human tragedy.”
According to an August 2024 report from the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general, more than 291,000 children who crossed the border since fiscal year 2019, which included the first Trump administration, were not given notices to appear in court.
Large populations of unaccompanied minors who were sent to sponsors were sent to areas nationwide, according to Homeland Security data. Some of the locations of sponsors, and areas of potential raids include Maricopa County, Arizona; Los Angeles County, California; Miami-Dade County, Florida; and Prince George’s County, Maryland.
Reuters contributed to this report.
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