US Orders New Channel for Trafficking Reports on Migrant Children

The Trump administration has directed caregivers of migrant children to stop sending human trafficking concerns straight to the federal office set up to assist victims, instead requiring that such reports pass through the agency that holds the minors in custody.

The change, set out in a September 10 memo, applies to roughly 1,800 children in federal custody who arrived in the United States without parents or were arrested with parents not legally present, as well as others released but still under supervision.

Under the previous policy, caregivers screened unaccompanied children for possible labor or sex trafficking within five days of admission to a facility or shelter. Suspected cases had to be reported to the Office on Trafficking in Persons, created in 2015, within 24 hours.

A certification from that office made minors eligible for a program offering greater freedom — moving them out of short-term housing, placing them in foster care and allowing public school attendance. It did not shield them from deportation, but the determination could support trafficking victim visas or asylum claims, and opened access to nutrition, housing and other public benefits after release from federal custody.

Now, federal employees and care providers must send labor and sex trafficking claims involving the minors only to the Office of Refugee Resettlement, which oversees their housing. That office will investigate and decide which cases to forward to the trafficking office for further review, the memo said, warning providers to respond promptly to information requests.

The memo described the change as a way to streamline the reporting, tracking and referral of trafficking-related concerns. The Office of Refugee Resettlement said a review last year found that 95% of more than 9,000 reports were not viable trafficking leads for criminal investigators, with most describing alleged abuse or neglect rather than forced labor or commercial sex as defined in trafficking statutes. It added that 58% of reports from shelter employees and case managers still qualified for trafficking-related benefits, and said the new process would strengthen integrity, cut improper referrals and fraud, and ensure children who may have experienced trafficking receive immediate support.

Critics disputed that rationale. Jean Bruggeman, co-executive director of Freedom Network USA, which advocates for trafficking survivors, said the change would harm children and make it more likely they are deported before receiving needed services, returning them to danger. Democratic Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon said children and their advocates would effectively have to report trafficking to the same agency holding them in custody, and accused the administration of sidelining trafficking experts.

Jen Smyers, a former deputy director of the Office of Refugee Resettlement during the Biden administration, questioned whether the change would streamline anything. She said the resettlement office already receives trafficking reports but lacks the specialized expertise of the office created for that purpose, raising fears that legitimate claims will be delayed or missed and that career staff will face political pressure to refer fewer cases. She described the move as the opposite of streamlining and linked it to a series of policies that have made it harder for unaccompanied minors to gain legal status, including tighter custody release, arrests of sponsors during the release process and cuts to legal representation.