DHS: program for children migrants mistreated mainly granted to adults over 18 years old

First on Fox: An immigration program intended to provide permanent legal status to undocumented migrant children who suffer abuses or negligence Biden administrationOffered mainly to illegal immigrants over the age of 18, many of whom had a criminal record, according to a new report from the Department of Internal Security (DHS) obtained by Fox News Digital.

An examination of the Trump administration of the special minor petitions program for immigrants revealed that between the year 2020 and the year 2024, 198,414 special petitions for juvenile immigrants were approved. And during the year 2024, 52% of special petitioners for immigrants had over 18 years of an escape which allowed the classification to be offered up to 21 years.

Among these petitioners, 60% were men. Massachusetts, New York, Maryland and California are hot spots, states where courts regularly approve of predicate predica orders for legal adults, often based solely on affidavits.

Affidavits alone, often written by the petitioner or the lawyer for a petitioner, are used to claim abandonment or negligence. Judges can sign without audiences.

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An examination of the Trump administration of the special minor petitions program for immigrants revealed that between the year 2020 and the financial year 2024, 198,414 special visas for immigrant minors were approved. (Benjamin Lowy for Fox News Digital)

The abusive use of the program did not occur under Biden. Since 2013, more than 600 MS-13 gang members have requested special immigrant minors visa, according to the DHS report, and more than 500 of them have been approved.

The report also identified 853 members of known or suspected gangs who have deposited special minor petitions, most of which were approved.

At least 120 of these petitions for juvenile special immigrant visas Since 2013 were arrested for murder, and more than 200 of those who had their approved visa were found guilty of sexual offenses and required to register on the national register of sex offenders.

Many petitioners have deposited when they were over 18 and qualified because they were raised with a natural parent and said that the other parent was not involved in their lives, “abandonment” or did not support them financially, “negligence”, according to the report.

More than 100 known or presumed members of the 18th street gang, a criminal group with origins in California and Mexico, have had special petitions for immigrant minors since 2013, and dozens of other suspected involvement in the visions of Tren of Aragua, according to the report.

The countries of the northern Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras triangle represented approximately 73.6% of all deposits in the special immigrant minors from 2014 to 2024.

In 2024, citizenship and immigration services from the United States received a 19-year-old petition suspected of having plotted a terrorist attack from the Islamic State in the United States after asking another adult to be appointed his legal guardian.

But the new report noted that the American citizenship and immigration services decided not to interview or require biometrics for people under the age of 18. Even for 18 and over, only 36% were invited to submit biometrics.

An Ecuadorian migrant child crossed the river on November 20, 2022 in Darién Gap, Colombia. (Jan Sochor / Getty Images)

Since the 2013 financial year, nearly 20,000 special petitioners for immigrant minors have submitted contradictory birth dates, 18,407 appearing on the age of 21 on the basis of previous files – the age of the program.

Fraud can be widespread in countries with weak documentation systems, such as Bangladesh, Somalia and Yemen, where birth certificates are easily falsified, depending on the report.

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“Criminal foreigners infiltrating the United States through a program intended to protect foreign children abused, neglected or abandoned,” said the spokesman for the services of American citizenship and immigration services Matthew J. Trageser. “This report exposes how the open border lobby and militant judges exploit gaps in the name of helping helpless children.”

More than 600 MS-13 gang members asked for the SIJ visa, according to the DHS report, and more than 500 of them were approved. (Coalition John Alle / Santa Monica)

In June, the office of citizenship and immigration services ceased to offer the application of deferred immigration for special minors for immigrants. The office said it is considering new ways of “ensuring that the SIJ classification remains available for minors that it was intended to protect”.

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The Congress established the program for the first time in 1990 to allow young illegal immigrants that a court has determined cannot meet with parents due to the abuse or negligence to request a special classification of immigrant minors, status of legal permanent resident and to have a possible path towards American citizenship. But, by law, there are no criminal bars or good moral requirements for the special approval of the petition for minors of immigrants.