Has DHS located 13000 unaccompanied minors?
Executive summary
The claim that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has “located 13,000 unaccompanied minors” is supported by multiple official and news accounts describing early results from a 2025 DHS/ICE initiative, but the broader record shows conflicting tallies and varying timeframes that make the single figure incomplete without context [1][2][3]. Independent verification and a consistent public accounting remain limited in the sources provided, so the statement is best understood as a specific claim tied to particular agency briefings and political announcements rather than a settled, independently audited total [4][5].
1. What the 13,000 number reflects in DHS and allied reporting
Several DHS and allied sources report that an agency effort—launched in early 2025 to do welfare checks on unaccompanied alien children (UACs) placed with sponsors—resulted in roughly 12,000–13,000 children being located through in-person visits; for example, the DHS release and ICE statements cite locating 13,000 children and Inspector General testimony noted about 12,000 located during initial operations [1][6][2]. Congressional and committee materials referenced the creation of a special ICE team in February 2025 tasked to identify, locate, and welfare-check UACs transferred to HHS custody, which is the operation underpinning those figures [4][6].
2. Why totals diverge across reports and outlets
Different statements come from different moments in the operation and from actors with distinct agendas: one Oversight Committee hearing and DHS/ICE press releases cite the early locate figures while other outlets and later DHS briefings claim higher tallies—tens of thousands in some accounts—or even near-six-figure totals in some partisan summaries, producing a muddled public picture [4][7][8]. The Inspector General’s audit found systemic tracking gaps—missing addresses, unserved notices, and inability to consistently monitor UACs after transfer to HHS—which helps explain why counts vary depending on method (door knocks, database matches, or sponsor arrests) and timeframe [4][9].
3. Political framing and implicit agendas in the reporting
Many of the cited accounts appear in sources with explicit oversight or political motives: House Oversight and Judiciary Committee releases, DHS and ICE press releases under a newly led administration, and sympathetic outlets emphasizing rescue and accountability all frame the locate numbers as vindication of new policy priorities, while conservative platforms amplify larger or retroactive tallies [4][6][7][3]. Opposing or neutral viewpoints and independent audits are less prominent in the supplied material, so readers should treat single-number claims—13,000 or otherwise—as political milestones rather than definitive, independently verified totals [5].
4. What is verifiable in the reporting and what is not
It is verifiable from the supplied documents that DHS/ICE launched a national initiative in February 2025 to perform welfare checks and that agency spokespeople and committee witnesses reported locating roughly 12,000–13,000 children in the early phase of that effort [4][2][6]. What is not verifiable from these sources alone is a final, audited cumulative number for all “missing” UACs, the precise methodology for counting “located” children across agencies, or independent confirmation that every located child was properly documented and safely placed after contact [4][2][6].
5. Bottom line answer
Yes — multiple DHS/ICE statements and congressional testimony support the specific claim that about 12,000–13,000 unaccompanied minors were located during an early phase of the 2025 locate-and-welfare-check operation, but that figure is a partial, timebound product of an ongoing effort and sits alongside other, larger and sometimes contradictory tallies reported by partisan outlets and later agency statements; the sources provided do not offer a single, independently audited final total to close the matter [1][2][3].