Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. accused the Biden administration of prioritizing rapid releases over proper vetting of adults who took custody of unaccompanied migrant children, saying Sunday that roughly 476,000 minors were "lost" during the administration's tenure.
Kennedy made the remarks on Fox & Friends Weekend, saying federal officials had neglected basic safeguards such as DNA testing, fingerprinting and identification checks when releasing children to adults who claimed to be their parents. "They wanted to show, above all things, that they were getting the kids out of the cages, so they were not doing security checks on the people who came to pick them up," he said.
Kennedy said his department has since increased verification measures and undertaken a door-to-door effort to locate children and confirm sponsors. He told the program that federal teams have knocked on roughly 82,000 doors and located about 22,000 children, and vowed to continue the effort over the next three-and-a-half years to "try to find every kid that was lost."
He also asserted that practices have been overhauled under the Trump administration, saying, "We're doing income verification, we're doing DNA testing, fingerprinting on everybody who comes in and says that they're a parent. We are knocking on doors, trying to find the kids who are lost."
Fox News Digital reported that it reached out to a representative for former President Joe Biden for comment.
The substance of Kennedy's comments echoed broader Republican criticism of the Biden administration's handling of unaccompanied minors. A Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General report from August 2024 found that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement transferred more than 448,000 unaccompanied migrant children to HHS between fiscal years 2019 and 2023, and that ICE was unable to fully monitor the whereabouts of many of those children after release. The OIG report cited lapses in tracking and follow-up, including failures to ensure required court appearances.
An Associated Press story published in October 2024 said the inspector general's findings did not necessarily mean the children had vanished or been trafficked, but reflected systemic breakdowns in record-keeping and follow-up processes. The AP report emphasized that incomplete or inconsistent records can make it difficult to establish definitive outcomes for all transferred children.
Kennedy framed the work as an accountability and recovery operation, asserting that more rigorous vetting and active searches are necessary to protect children released into sponsor care. The HHS secretary's public statements and the cited federal review underscore ongoing scrutiny of how agencies track and monitor unaccompanied minors following transfer from border custody to sponsor homes.
Federal agencies have long faced operational and logistical challenges in managing large numbers of unaccompanied children, particularly during surges at the U.S. southern border. The OIG review and Kennedy's comments highlight both the scale of transfers during recent years and the policy and procedural questions that have drawn political scrutiny from lawmakers and advocacy groups.
Kennedy's claims — including the figure of 476,000 children "lost" — have not been independently corroborated in the reporting and were presented as assertions by the HHS secretary. The DHS inspector general's report provides a federal accounting of transfers and tracking shortfalls, while other news reporting has cautioned that data limitations complicate efforts to draw definitive conclusions about the whereabouts or welfare of all transferred children.
HHS and DHS officials have previously said agency responsibilities and authorities differ once children are released to sponsors, and that coordination among agencies is critical to improve monitoring and ensure court compliance. The controversy is likely to draw continued attention from lawmakers and the public as officials pursue verification efforts and Congress considers oversight of migrant child care and tracking procedures.