Widespread fraud uncovered in vetting migrant children’s sponsors

The Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) said Oct. 1 that it has identified six types of fraud pervading the sponsor-vetting process for unaccompanied migrant children admitted to the U.S. under the Biden administration, after a review found intentional document fraud in the large majority of reported cases.

The ORR is responsible for taking custody of unaccompanied migrant children encountered by the Department of Homeland Security at the border and placing those children with sponsors, typically family members already in the U.S.

“The Biden Administration failed in its most basic responsibility: protecting vulnerable children in federal care,” HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said. “It weakened safeguards and prioritized speed over scrutiny, leaving children exposed to fraud, exploitation, and abuse.”

Roughly 479,000 unaccompanied children were referred to ORR between 2021 and 2024, the department said. A memo on the findings says a separate Department of Homeland Security inspector general review found that, as of May 2024, more than 291,000 of those children, 60% of those released to adults, had never been served a Notice to Appear in immigration court, and that 32,000 of the children who were served notices never showed up for their court dates. 

The memo also says that in March 2025, ORR uncovered a backlog of 65,000 unanswered fraud and child-welfare reports, calling the lapse “a shocking disregard for child protection.”

Of the 1,669 fraud reports the agency logged between October 2023 and October 2024, HHS’s Office of General Counsel reviewed a subset of associated cases and found intentional document fraud in about 85% of those cases; across all reported incidents during that period, the rate held at roughly 77%. The agency said it denied fewer than 1% of sponsorship applications in fiscal year 2024.

HHS identified six categories of fraud: false or fraudulent identity documents, manipulated photographs, misrepresented or unverifiable addresses, fingerprint-related fraud, sponsors’ failure to disclose other household members, and children misrepresenting their own age. ORR’s own fraud-trend data attributes about 37% of reported fraud events to sponsors, and roughly 40% to the children themselves or to someone in their country of origin, commonly an adult posing as a minor or a relative abroad supplying false documentation.

The memo lists several “representative cases” illustrating the failures. In one, a 15-year-old girl was released after 14 days in ORR custody to a man who claimed to be her biological brother. ORR requested neither fingerprints nor DNA to verify the relationship. The memo says he had already fraudulently sponsored three other children under two different aliases, including a boy authorities have never been able to locate.

Two months after the girl’s release, officials determined the man was unrelated to her and found she was living with multiple unidentified adult men. She had allegedly been raped by the sponsor and was pregnant. The sponsor was charged by the state and is under investigation by Homeland Security Investigations, the FBI, and the Department of Justice.

In a second case, a 17-year-old boy was released after 36 days in custody to a woman who claimed to be his stepsister and presented Venezuelan documents the government had no way to verify. ORR didn’t request fingerprints or DNA from the woman. He was found dead three months later in a state of undress alongside an unconscious 30-year-old man.

“Under President Trump, HHS is restoring rigorous oversight, verifying who takes custody of these children, and putting their safety first,” Kennedy said. “We will hold this system accountable and never sacrifice a child’s safety for bureaucratic convenience.” 

Zeale News reported in June that federal officials had located more than 146,000 of an estimated 450,000 unaccompanied migrant children who went missing after entering the country during the same period, including cases tied to “super sponsors” who exploited sponsorship loopholes to gain custody of multiple children.