Are 300,000 undocumented immigrant children missing in the US?

According to immigration experts and attorneys, the claims largely stem from an August report, external from the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general’s office, which found that 32,000 unaccompanied minors failed to show up for court dates at immigration courts.

The report noted that 291,000 migrant children had failed to be given court notices at all.

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, policy director at the American Immigration Council, a non-partisan organisation that conducts research and advocates for an overhaul of the US immigration system, told the BBC that the figures are indicative of a bureaucratic “paperwork issue” rather than “anything nefarious”.

“When you hear the phrase ‘missing’, you think that there is a child that someone is trying to find and can’t,” he said.

“That’s not the case here. The government has not made any effort to find these children.”

Many of the children, experts say, may well be at the addresses that are on file with the government, but were simply unable to make their court dates.

“That doesn’t mean something bad happened to them,” Mr Reichlin-Melnick said. “It means you missed a court hearing.”

Mr Reichlin-Melnick added that there are “valid concerns” about exploitation.

“We cannot, however, suggest that all 320,000 of those children are being labour trafficked,” he said.

Eric Ruark, an immigration researcher with NumbersUSA – which calls for tighter border controls – said that the children are difficult to track “because of some combination of apathy, incompetence and bureaucratic inefficiency”.

“Many, hopefully even most, are safe with caring sponsors,” he added. “But the Biden administration can’t actually say one way or the other, and apparently doesn’t care enough to find out.”