WASHINGTON — Republicans have warned against the sex trafficking risks migrant children face when illegally crossing the southwest border. Democrats have countered that their concerns lie in hypocrisy.

“Democrats are standing with survivors, while Republicans are shielding abusers,” said U.S. House Rep. Summer Lee, D-Pa, referencing President Donald Trump’s efforts to block the full release of the Jeffrey Epstein files.

Lee, the Democratic ranking member of the Federal Law Enforcement Subcommittee, and fellow Democrats Wesley Bell (Missouri), Lateefah Simon (California), and Ayanna Pressley (Massachusetts) staged an unexpected walkout during an unrelated July 23 hearing.

The whereabouts of thousands of migrant children are unknown

The congressional hearing underscored how both parties have used migrant children as vessels in their border policy narratives.

The subcommittee was conducting an oversight review of the findings from a March 2025 report by the Department of Homeland Security Office of the Inspector General, which found that unaccompanied children illegally crossing the southwest border are often lost and forgotten upon their release from federal custody.

More than 448,000 unaccompanied children — those under 18 who arrived without a parent or guardian — were transferred to the Department of Health and Human Services between 2019 and 2023. By law, HHS has custody of and provides care for UACs, who are under 18 and have no parent or legal guardian in the U.S. to care for them.

“Our review found that DHS lacked the ability to monitor or reliably determine the location of unaccompanied children after transfer to HHS,” DHS Inspector General Joseph Cuffari testified. “As a result, children have been released into situations where they are unaccounted for or placed at risk.”

The report found that around 31,000 unaccompanied migrant children are still unaccounted for after being released from federal custody, with Immigration and Customs Enforcement unable to monitor their whereabouts. Some sponsor addresses were left blank or incomplete, and roughly 43,000 children missed their court hearings.

Department of Homeland Security Inspector General Joseph Cuffari testifies before a congressional subcommittee on Wednesday, July 23, 2025. The focus of the hearing was a March 2025 report his office conducted on unaccompanied minors crossing the border.

Partisan blame game

Republican members focused their criticism on officials in the Biden administration. One GOP lawmaker even asked whether DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas’ policies amounted to child endangerment or abuse. They cited children being placed with non-relatives in gang-controlled neighborhoods, run-down apartment complexes, and dilapidated motels.

Democrats, upon their return after the walkout, redirected the conversation to abuse inside U.S. detention centers.

Lee said Trump’s border policies “leave children at greater risk of trafficking and exploitation.”

“I expect my Republican colleagues to care about this because their constituents certainly care about child sex trafficking, whether it’s through the immigration system like this hearing alleges, or by a U.S. citizen facilitating other powerful U.S. citizens,” Lee said, again alluding to Epstein.

Although the hearing had nothing to do with Epstein, it coincided with a federal judge’s decision in Florida denying a Trump administration request to release related grand jury transcripts.

She filed a motion to subpoena the Department of Justice to release the Epstein files.

“Speaker (Mike) Johnson is helping Donald Trump block the release of all the files relating to child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. If you want to take a stand against child trafficking, let’s do it together,” Lee said.

U.S. Rep. Summer Lee, D-Pa., speaks with reporters in the halls of the Capitol after she walked out of a congressional hearing on Wednesday, July 23, 2025. She and fellow Democrats have called on Republicans to release the full Jeffrey Epstein files.

‘Political pawns’

“People might think this is about political gamesmanship. It’s not,” Pressley said to a gaggle of reporters in the halls of the Capitol.

Migrant children have been leveraged in partisan fights for years, while the core issues remain unaddressed, various organizations and policy experts have said.

“Across the country, children are the latest victims of inhumane deportation practices that are ripping them out of their schools and communities. We will not just stand by while children are locked up and used as political pawns, and we will do everything in our power to defend children’s freedom, dignity, and rights,” said Leecia Welch, Deputy Litigation Director at Children’s Rights, in a statement in May.

Non-governmental entities have called on politicians for years to take action instead of verbal sparring.

“Pediatricians and other advocates for child health should demand a new direction in immigration policy that stops the use of children as pawns,” a group of medical professionals wrote in a 2018 study titled “Children as Pawns of US Immigration Policy.”

About 27,000 unaccompanied children have attempted to cross so far this year, compared to around 90,000 at the same time last year, according to Customs and Border Protection data.