(José Niño, Headline USA) More than 65,000 reports of concern, including over 7,300 allegations of migrant child sex-trafficking, were ignored or dismissed under the Biden-Harris administration, according to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-IA.
Grassley released a criminal referral he sent to the FBI and DHS late last month, revealing that these complaints were left unresolved for years. Grassley’s referral summarized the abuse of HHS’s Unaccompanied Alien Children (UC) program, which is responsible for the care and placement of migrant minors who arrive at the U.S. border without a parent or legal guardian.
Some of the cases highlighted in the Grassley’s criminal referral are shocking. For instance, whistleblowers told Grassley that a whopping 19 unaccompanied minor children were sent to the same apartment address. When the same address is used for numerous children, that’s an indicator of fraud.
More records released by Grassley's office further show the shocking abuses to migrant children that occurred under the Biden regime.
In one case, a woman was caught using a fake birth certificate to sponsor Guatemalan children. When investigators looked into her, they found an… https://t.co/pFOWXidixR pic.twitter.com/sCGswPli2T
— Headline USA (@HeadlineUSA) June 5, 2025
In another case, a woman used a fraudulent birth certificate to sponsor Guatemalan children. When investigators researched the women, they found an image of “a female laying in a pool of blood with slash marks in various places on her scantily dressed body,” Grassley’s referral states, adding that officials also found evidence of child pornography when investigating the case.
Grassley’s referral also alleged that unaccompanied migrant children in the U.S. were sometimes used as sponsors for other migrant children in an apparent sex-trafficking scheme.
“Former UCs sometimes sponsor other children in a scheme to draw them to the United States for either labor or sex trafficking, and to pay off their own former sponsors or coyotes, who helped bring them to the U.S.,” his referral states.
Now, the Trump administration has begun tackling the backlog, processing more than 28 percent of the cases in just over 100 days. This renewed effort has already generated 528 investigative leads, 36 cases accepted for prosecution, seven indictments, 25 arrest warrants, 11 arrests, and three convictions.
In one prosecution, the DOJ announced charges last month against a Guatemalan illegal immigrant who lied about being the father of two unaccompanied children. That case highlighted the absurdity of what took place under the Biden regime, as it shows that the man used an incredibly poorly photoshopped image as part of his fraud scheme.
So Biden's HHS released a child to the custody of a man claiming to be his father who used documents with photoshop *this bad?* 😳
Today, criminal charges. https://t.co/MZqRoKCjCQ pic.twitter.com/dLDg3pw3Bi
— Eric Garland (@ericgarland) May 12, 2025
Grassley commended the Trump administration for its swift action and pledged to work with HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to ensure justice.
This controversy is not new for Grassley, who has spent over a decade advocating for the protection of migrant children. Headline USA has previously reported on Grassley’s release of documents showing that HHS sent at least two unaccompanied children to homes with connections to the El Salvadoran gang, La Mara Salvatrucha, more popularly known as MS-13.
Ken Silva contributed to this report.
José Niño is the deputy editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/JoseAlNino
