“CNN NewsNight” host Abby Phillip accused border czar Tom Homan of lying about whether the Biden administration lost track of tens of thousands of children during Thursday’s episode.
During a Thursday press conference in which he announced an end to Operation Metro Surge, a crackdown on illegal immigration, Homan told reporters that federal officials had located 3,364 migrant children that the Biden administration had been unable to account for. After New York Post Financial Correspondent Lydia Moynihan mentioned Homan’s comments, Phillip jumped in.
“I know Tom Homan has been big on this lost children thing, but the idea that these children were lost or missing has never been true. Some of them were released into the custody of relatives or other caretakers, which is part of the process over many years,” the CNN host claimed.
“They often were released to adults who weren’t verified,” Moynihan responded.
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“Listen, all I’m saying is that his [Homan’s] characterization of them as being lost has never been accurate, and it wasn’t accurate when he started saying it a year ago, it’s still not accurate today,” Phillip responded. “There are a lot of different reasons why those children were released into the custody of adults in the interior of the United States. That is not the same thing as those children being lost.”
At least 85,000 children placed into the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) are unaccounted for, according to a February 2023 report by The New York Times. An August 2024 report by the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general indicated 32,000 unaccompanied children did not show up for court hearings, while another 291,000 never received court summons.
President Donald Trump made accounting for the missing migrant children a major component of his immigration agenda during the 2024 campaign during an interview in June of that year.
“Will you commit, will the Trump administration commit to finding these children, to finding them and returning them to their families? To their countries? Because many of them have been lost into sex trafficking. It’s heartbreaking. Will you commit to that?” Fox News host Rachel Campos-Duffy asked at the time.
“Yeah, I would do that. Sure,” Trump had responded. “I haven’t been asked that question, but the answer is yes. It’s a simple answer. Many of them are dead. They have done such a bad job.”
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) executed a search warrant July 10 at two California marijuana farms, rescuing at least ten minors, eight of whom were reportedly unaccompanied. During the raid, one person allegedly fired a pistol at the ICE agents.
In a September 2025 appearance on “Fox and Friends Weekend,” Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said the Trump administration had accounted for 22,000 of the children. ORR is part of HHS.
The White House, Homan and the Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to requests for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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