The Trump administration has identified more than 500 unaccompanied migrant children in US government custody to be potentially removed from the country, according to Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden.
The move marks the latest escalation of the Trump administration’s effort to focus on migrant children who arrived at the US southern border alone and are in custody awaiting to be placed with a sponsor, typically a parent or relative, in the United States.
The administration previously tried to repatriate Guatemalan children in government custody who arrived in the United States alone and didn’t have a parent in the country, but that was stopped by a federal judge.
A similar effort appears to be underway now – this time, focusing on children who have been in custody for at least six months and don’t have a relative or guardian in the United States.
“This is a severe institutional failure that places hundreds of vulnerable children in immediate jeopardy, effectively erasing them from the protection of U.S. oversight and thrusting them back into danger,” Wyden said in a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
