Trump: 62,000 Children Saved While Biden Lost Track of Border Kids

Paul Riverbank, 12/8/2025Border battle heats up: Trump, Biden clash over fate of migrant children and U.S. immigration policy.

According to Homan, some of those 62,000 children had been caught up in harrowing circumstances—forced labor, sex trafficking, stories he admitted were almost unspeakable. “Some were being mistreated in ways I can barely discuss,” he said. The gravity of his claims resonates with many Americans who follow border politics closely, igniting fresh arguments about the federal government’s responsibilities to vulnerable minors. If you watched a recent Trump rally, you saw the former president picking up the thread. In front of a roaring crowd, he cited numbers even larger than Homan’s: “325,000 migrant children are missing, many of whom have been trafficked and raped.” There’s no mistaking the message: The border, and especially the fate of children who cross it, looms large on the political landscape.

The challenges facing Biden’s team didn’t arrive unannounced. In August of 2020, months before the election, his own advisers issued a memo warning that policy changes aimed at shifting the country toward a more “welcoming posture” could push the system to a breaking point. They cautioned: “A potential surge could create chaos and a humanitarian crisis, overwhelm processing capacities and imperil the agenda of the new administration.” Nonetheless, when Biden began undoing some of Trump’s tougher measures, his administration found itself wrestling with exactly that chaos.

Inside the White House, the policy debate was tense. Advisors split along familiar lines—should the administration risk political backlash by adopting stricter measures, or listen to progressive voices demanding a softer approach? Cecilia Muñoz, who helped design immigration policy during the Obama years and joined Biden’s transition team, reflected on it later: “They were a little too sensitive to criticisms from the left.” Caution proved costly. As summer wore on, the number of unaccompanied minors arriving at the border kept climbing.

By Homan’s tally, “Over half a million children were smuggled into this country under Joe Biden.” He asserts that the administration “lost track of 300,000.” These estimates have met with pushback from analysts and fact-checkers, but they remain a focal point in conservative circles. The Biden administration, for its part, responds by highlighting congressional gridlock. “When it became clear Congress wouldn’t act, Biden took decisive action on his own,” a spokesperson insisted—a refrain repeated as the numbers continued to climb.

If you talk to New York City officials or local leaders in Denver, they’ll tell you the surge isn’t just a border issue anymore. When busloads of recent arrivals overwhelmed shelters in these cities, the strain revealed just how far-reaching the problem had become. The White House eventually adopted a firmer stance, but by then, polls showed public confidence slipping.

Trump allies, meanwhile, seized the opportunity. Homan, ever the ardent surrogate, posted, “Zero released in the last seven months. President Trump’s leadership has resulted in more than 62,400 missing children being found that the Biden administration released to un-vetted sponsors and lost.” Whether or not those precise figures stand up to scrutiny, they’ve become powerful ammunition in the broader battle over the nation’s border and its values.

The Biden administration maintains that only new laws can fix a system this broken. In public statements and in background briefings, officials reiterate: “When it became clear Congress wouldn’t act, Biden took decisive action on his own.” Structural change, they argue, is long overdue.

At the heart of this debate sits a profoundly unsettling image: children—sometimes as young as toddlers—navigating the perils of migration, at the mercy of smugglers or bureaucratic systems not built to keep up. The stories, the numbers, the politics: all of these now shape the ways Americans frame the question of what kind of country the United States wants to be—one that protects the most vulnerable, one that enforces its laws more strictly, or, somehow, both.

In the final tally, the border crisis is as much about policy as it is about the country’s soul. And as the debate grows more heated, no one—least of all the children in question—can afford for the facts to be lost in the noise.

Few government officials speak as bluntly as Tom Homan, the former acting head of ICE. “I look at the numbers every day,” he told an interviewer recently, his tone unmistakable. “There’s over 62,000 children found by the Trump administration, children that weren’t even being looked for under the Biden administration. President Trump saved over 62,000 children’s lives.” Homan’s words, quoted on right-leaning news sites and echoed across social media, have lit a new fire under the national debate on border policy.According to Homan, some of those 62,000 children had been caught up in harrowing circumstances—forced labor, sex trafficking, stories he admitted were almost unspeakable. “Some were being mistreated in ways I can barely discuss,” he said. The gravity of his claims resonates with many Americans who follow border politics closely, igniting fresh arguments about the federal government’s responsibilities to vulnerable minors. If you watched a recent Trump rally, you saw the former president picking up the thread. In front of a roaring crowd, he cited numbers even larger than Homan’s: “325,000 migrant children are missing, many of whom have been trafficked and raped.” There’s no mistaking the message: The border, and especially the fate of children who cross it, looms large on the political landscape.The challenges facing Biden’s team didn’t arrive unannounced. In August of 2020, months before the election, his own advisers issued a memo warning that policy changes aimed at shifting the country toward a more “welcoming posture” could push the system to a breaking point. They cautioned: “A potential surge could create chaos and a humanitarian crisis, overwhelm processing capacities and imperil the agenda of the new administration.” Nonetheless, when Biden began undoing some of Trump’s tougher measures, his administration found itself wrestling with exactly that chaos.Inside the White House, the policy debate was tense. Advisors split along familiar lines—should the administration risk political backlash by adopting stricter measures, or listen to progressive voices demanding a softer approach? Cecilia Muñoz, who helped design immigration policy during the Obama years and joined Biden’s transition team, reflected on it later: “They were a little too sensitive to criticisms from the left.” Caution proved costly. As summer wore on, the number of unaccompanied minors arriving at the border kept climbing.By Homan’s tally, “Over half a million children were smuggled into this country under Joe Biden.” He asserts that the administration “lost track of 300,000.” These estimates have met with pushback from analysts and fact-checkers, but they remain a focal point in conservative circles. The Biden administration, for its part, responds by highlighting congressional gridlock. “When it became clear Congress wouldn’t act, Biden took decisive action on his own,” a spokesperson insisted—a refrain repeated as the numbers continued to climb.If you talk to New York City officials or local leaders in Denver, they’ll tell you the surge isn’t just a border issue anymore. When busloads of recent arrivals overwhelmed shelters in these cities, the strain revealed just how far-reaching the problem had become. The White House eventually adopted a firmer stance, but by then, polls showed public confidence slipping.Trump allies, meanwhile, seized the opportunity. Homan, ever the ardent surrogate, posted, “Zero released in the last seven months. President Trump’s leadership has resulted in more than 62,400 missing children being found that the Biden administration released to un-vetted sponsors and lost.” Whether or not those precise figures stand up to scrutiny, they’ve become powerful ammunition in the broader battle over the nation’s border and its values.The Biden administration maintains that only new laws can fix a system this broken. In public statements and in background briefings, officials reiterate: “When it became clear Congress wouldn’t act, Biden took decisive action on his own.” Structural change, they argue, is long overdue.At the heart of this debate sits a profoundly unsettling image: children—sometimes as young as toddlers—navigating the perils of migration, at the mercy of smugglers or bureaucratic systems not built to keep up. The stories, the numbers, the politics: all of these now shape the ways Americans frame the question of what kind of country the United States wants to be—one that protects the most vulnerable, one that enforces its laws more strictly, or, somehow, both.In the final tally, the border crisis is as much about policy as it is about the country’s soul. And as the debate grows more heated, no one—least of all the children in question—can afford for the facts to be lost in the noise.