Fact Check: Has the US government found 145,000 ‘lost’ migrant children?

Kristi Noem accused former President Joe Biden of losing nearly half a million immigrant children

PUBLISHED 1 HOUR AGO

Kristi Noem testifies during a House Judiciary Committee hearing in the Rayburn House Office Building on March 04, 2026, in Washington, DC (Heather Diehl/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON, DC: Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, during one of the congressional hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee, accused former President Joe Biden of losing nearly half a million immigrant children and claimed her department found more than a quarter of them.

She claimed that under President Donald Trump, the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Health and Human Services located over 145,000 of the lost, migrant children. But is there any truth to this? Let us find out below.

Claim: The US government found 145,000 ‘lost’ migrant children

Kristi Noem said at the Tuesday, March 3 hearing, "Under President Biden, more than 450,000 unaccompanied alien children went missing or were lost due to the dangerous open border policies that were embraced. Under President Trump, the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Health and Human Services have already located over 145,000 of these children."

Moreover, she repeated the statement on a Thursday, March 5 post on social media platform X, thanking the POTUS while listing her accomplishments.

"We have made historic accomplishments at the Department of Homeland Security to make America safe again: we delivered the MOST secure border in American history, 3 million illegal aliens have left the US, we have located 145,000 children, FEMA delivered disaster relief at a 100% faster rate, we ushered in the golden age of travel, saved the American taxpayer $13 billion and revitalized the U.S. Coast Guard," the X post read.

Fact Check: Claim is misleading and distorts prior facts

The claim made by Kristi Noem that the US government has found 145,000 'lost' migrant children is not completely true. The claim is misleading and distorts prior facts about unaccompanied migrant children (UACs) under the Biden administration.

The framing of 145,000 as 'found lost children' inflates a bureaucratic tracking issue into a dramatic rescue narrative. The original 'lost' numbers were overstated because most UACs were placed with sponsors, and failures occurred during post-release monitoring/court processes.

U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem testifies before the House Judiciary Committee in the Rayburn House Office Building on March 04, 2026 in Washington, DC. The Department of Homeland Security has faced criticism over it's handling of immigration enforcement leaving the department unfunded. (Photo by Heather Diehl/Getty Images) — Kristi Noem testifies before the House Judiciary Committee in the Rayburn House Office Building on March 04, 2026, in Washington, DC (Heather Diehl/Getty Images)

Moreover, no major independent verification, beyond DHS statements, confirms the exact 145,000 figure or that it represents newly found endangered kids. The claims by Noem echo 2024 campaign rhetoric but lack wider evidence of scale or outcomes.

Meanwhile, looking at data spanning both the Trump and Biden administrations, the report showed ICE could not monitor all unaccompanied minors released from the agency’s custody, and the report didn’t say the children were 'missing' or 'lost'.