When President Donald Trump's border czar Tom Homan held a press conference on Feb. 12 to announce a drawdown in federal enforcement in Minnesota, he reported that during their surge, ICE agents "located 3,364 missing unaccompanied alien children -- children that the last administration lost and weren't even looking for."
Speaking separately on Fox, Homan said they have located 145,000 of the over 300,000 missing children from a 2024 Homeland Security report.
It sounds like a success story. But try to find the network anchors and reporters focusing on missing children -- you won't find it. It's a zero. The broadcast networks focused only on Homan's drawdown announcement, and his note that they'd arrested about 4,000 people. They recounted two citizens being shot, and then they turned to Democrats to lament all the "trauma" of the surge.
The only way the children come up is in the "fact check" patrols trying to deny Homan his talking point.
USA Today put four reporters on the subject: "President Donald Trump and his administration have in the past made similar claims that the Biden administration 'lost' unaccompanied minors who crossed the border before, or said children were placed with 'unvetted' sponsors. Immigration advocate groups say such claims are inaccurate."
Joe Biden cannot be painted as failing the children, apparently. They turned to the Soros-funded leftists at the National Immigration Forum, which claimed: "While the current process of limited follow up is a valid basis for concern, the reports of large numbers of 'missing' UACs (unaccompanied alien children) are inaccurate and overblown."
Jeff Wagner at CBS Minnesota also launched at Homan's claims: "Vice President JD Vance said in late 2024 that Homeland Security effectively lost 320,000 unaccompanied migrant children. That claim was fact-checked by the Associated Press and USA Today -- both said the claim misrepresents or distorts data."
Wagner took issue with the word "lost." A federal report found more than 320,000 children either failed to appear for their immigration hearings or didn't receive a notice to appear in court. "It does not say the children were lost -- essentially, they're unaccounted for." If you think that's splitting hairs to defend the Democrats, you would be right.
Meanwhile, Daily Wire reporter Jennie Taer told NewsNation host Katie Pavlich about how unaccompanied migrant children were often put into a pipeline leading to exploitative conditions, into meat factories or sex trafficking rings. Children would arrive "with a piece of paper taped to them with a phone number and address," and the government would send them there, despite agents fearing they were going to be exploited. Whistleblowers came forward under Biden "and said we are knowingly sending these kids to gang members, to traffickers, to criminals," and were silenced for it.
In Trump's first term, the media adored the narrative of migrant children getting separated from their parents -- pretending this never happened under Obama. In recent weeks, the narrative-shapers all hyped 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos, seized by agents in his sky-blue bunny-ears hat -- often without the data point that his father abandoned him to escape arrest, and his mother refused to take him.
The elitist media supported Biden's mass importation of immigrants and staunchly oppose mass deportations, which represent a repeal of Biden's strategy. They are not interested in sharing any "MAGA talking points." Team Trump's data claims can only come up if they're being dismissed as phony baloney.
These are the same partisans who let Kamala Harris or Alejandro Mayorkas deny there was any "border crisis" unfolding under Biden. Don't let them tell you they are the "fact-based" watchdogs.
Tim Graham is director of media analysis at the Media Research Center and executive editor of the blog NewsBusters.org.
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