Speaker Johnson slams Biden admin for ‘stunning’ IG report on 300K missing migrant kids: ‘Modern-day slavery operation’

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) slammed the Biden administration after a “stunning” inspector general’s report released Tuesday found that nearly 300,000 migrant children are presumed to be missing in the US.

“This administration’s failure to secure our border is facilitating what is the equivalent of a modern-day slavery operation,” Johnson told reporters on a press call Tuesday evening.

“The southern border is a national security disaster and a humanitarian catastrophe and Kamala Harris cannot be trusted to fix it,” he thundered.

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“And this is one of the biggest scandals in American history; it’s one of the most tragic; and we have to hold emergency hearings.”

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) “as of May 2024” failed to provide court dates to 291,000 unaccompanied children that had been released to domestic sponsors, according to the Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General.

Another 32,000 were released by ICE with notices to appear for immigration removal proceedings — but never showed up for their court dates, the 14-page report reveals.

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Just one of the eight ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations offices audited had even “attempted to locate” the missing immigrant kids — and the rate of serving them with notices to appear in immigration court at one location stood at only 16%.

A total of 448,820 unaccompanied children were shuttled from ICE to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and then to sponsors nationwide between fiscal years 2019 and 2023.

HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra, amid a surge of illegal entries in 2022, pushed his staff to release the children to sponsors so quickly that he wanted the turnover to resemble an “assembly line,” according to the New York Times.

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Some were put in “unsafe conditions” with sponsors, but ICE officers said the agency had “limited authority to respond” — even in cases with an unaccompanied child “whose sponsor claimed the UC was in an inappropriate relationship with her husband.”

One HHS whistleblower also revealed that an agency attorney had confessed the rapid release was due to fears of being “sued for keeping them too long,” whereas there was no threat of a lawsuit “by traffickers.” 

“Without an ability to monitor the location and status of UCs, ICE has no assurance UCs are safe from trafficking, exploitation, or forced labor,” the DHS inspector general’s report notes.

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“They ended Title 42, and they made the policy choice to resettle these children with unvetted sponsors as rapidly as possible because they wanted to avoid optics about their policy,” Johnson said of the findings.

“We have no degree of certainty and no confidence at all — these innocent children who have been trafficked by cartels and all these other things — that the most unspeakable evils have not befallen them,” he added. “And that is what kept us up at night.”

The report comes after an internal DHS report earlier this month on a program flying migrants into the US found potentially massive fraud occurring among thousands of sponsors for the migrants.

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The Biden administration subsequently halted the flights program to review the applicants.

President Biden crowed to delegates and attendees at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on Monday night that immigration was under control, with crossings at their lowest level since he took office in January 2021.

“Border encounters have dropped over 50%,” Biden said in his speech. “In fact, there are fewer border crossings today than when Donald Trump left office.”

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Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mark Green (R-Tenn.), who was also on the Tuesday press call, said that figure excluded since January 2023 more than a million admissions into the US via the CBP One app and the flights program bringing in 30,000 migrants per month from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela.

“It’s a shell game,” Green said. “This idea that somehow the flood of people from all over the world is diminished because of some policy from Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. It’s absolutely absurd.”

The House voted to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas in February for failing to enforce immigration law — but Senate Democrats voted against putting Biden’s top border official on trial.

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Johnson said Biden’s remarks were part of “the largest gas lighting operation in the history of American politics.”

“ICE is committed to the protection and well-being of children and works closely with U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) and other federal partners to fulfill its obligations under law,” a spokesperson said in a statement. “While we concur with the Inspector General’s recommendations to improve information sharing within Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and externally with HHS, we are concerned that the report’s findings are misleading and may be misconstrued because they fail to acknowledge key facts.”

“In general, ICE does not issue Notices to Appear (NTAs) to unaccompanied children until after they have been placed with sponsors who have been vetted by HHS,” the spokesperson added. “This gives them time to get settled in their new surroundings and provides them with an opportunity to consult with legal counsel. Unaccompanied children are entitled to certain procedural protections under our laws and, in many cases, may be eligible for immigration relief with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), instead of in the immigration court system. If they are ineligible for relief, USCIS will issue an NTA.”

“Since last year, ICE has taken steps to automate information sharing related to unaccompanied children’s attendance at immigration court proceedings. We will continue to improve these procedures and implement the OIG’s recommendations,” the spokesperson also said.

The Harris campaign declined to comment.