Border Czar Says 62,000 Illegally Smuggled Children Rescued So Far

Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times,

White House border czar Tom Homan on Dec. 7 said more than 60,000 children who were illegally smuggled into the United States have been located by the Trump administration and that some were rescued from dire situations, including sex trafficking and forced labor.

In an interview with the Fox News show “Fox & Friends” on Dec. 7, Homan said that the previous administration “lost track of 300,000” children who were “smuggled into” the United States, saying some of those children were released to ”unvetted sponsors.”

Since President Donald Trump took office in January, 62,000 children who were taken into the United States had been found as of Dec. 5, he said.

Homan said that “many of them are in sex trafficking,” “are in forced labor,” or are being abused.

He also said, “[I] can’t discuss some of the mistreatment we found out about.”

Homan said that Trump committed to doing everything possible “to find every one of these children.” He did not provide more details about the rescued children but said that the administration “saved over 62,000 children’s lives.”

A statement released by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) on Dec. 5 stated that the number of border encounters is continuing to decline; 30,367 total encounters were reported to the agency nationwide in November. That’s down slightly from the 30,573 encounters nationwide in October, it said.

Border Patrol also said that it has released “zero illegal aliens” into the country for seven consecutive months.

In December 2024, the final month of President Joe Biden’s administration, there were more than 301,981 encounters at the southwest border sector by Border Patrol agents, according to data from the agency. There were about 11,600 such encounters in September 2025, the most recent month for which data are available.

“Our focus is unwavering: secure the border, enforce the law, and protect this nation,” CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott said in the Dec. 5 statement. “These numbers reflect the tireless efforts of our agents and officers who are delivering results that redefine border security. We’re not slowing down. We’re setting the pace for the future.”

The Border Patrol efforts and the mass deportation of illegal immigrants are in line with campaign promises made by Trump during his 2024 presidential campaign. And since taking office, he has signed multiple executive orders and memorandums, including declaring an emergency at the U.S.–Mexico border, designating several criminal gangs as terrorist organizations, and launching federal operations targeting illegal immigrants in Chicago, Los Angeles, and other cities.

The Supreme Court agreed on Dec. 5 to hear a case challenging the legality of an executive order issued by Trump that sought to end birthright citizenship. Multiple lower courts have ruled against the January order, which would bar children born in the United States to parents who are in the country illegally from automatically becoming citizens.

Democrats have been broadly critical of the Trump administration’s immigration policies. A House lawmaker introduced a bill in May that would prohibit the use of federal funds to enforce any order barring birthright citizenship. At the state level, multiple governors and mayors have also been opposed the federal deportation operations.

Meanwhile, in the past week, the Trump administration paused all immigration applications, including applications for green cards, for people from 19 countries that are also subject to a travel ban imposed earlier this year, as part of sweeping immigration changes in the wake of the shooting of two National Guard troops.

A policy memo issued on the website of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the agency tasked with processing and approving all requests for immigration benefits, said the policy applies to citizens of Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, the Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan, and Venezuela.

The Epoch Times contacted the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees border- and immigration-related matters, for additional comment but did not hear back by publication time.