Washington - Advocates were shocked when immigration agents recently began conducting welfare checks on young people whose parents were unaccompanied, fearing that the strategy was a cover for minors, adult sponsors, and strategies that could be deported.

The stories of these unannounced visits popped up across the country—agents trying to get into two elementary schools in Los Angeles; agents who appeared “five deep and armed” at the home of a 19-year-old client in Virginia; agents who interviewed a 16-year-old Honduran girl at her uncle’s home in Washington state.

Department of Homeland Security officials said welfare checks are part of an ongoing effort to ensure unaccompanied children are “safe and not exploited, abused and trafficked.”

Immigration advocates say some visits have resulted in children being forced to leave the country with their deported parents or being evacuated from their sponsors and being detained in federal custody.

Advocates pointed out that a 17-year-old Honduras case in Hawaii was detained by federal agents. The boy was transported to the facility of an unaccompanied young man in California.

“It’s just a course for governments that makes life so difficult that they think people will leave without coming to the United States,” said Jen Smyers, former chief of staff of the Biden administration, head of the Refugee Resettlement Office, responsible for the care of children from uninhabited groups.

Smyers said fear of welfare checks “divide people underground, increase exploitation and trafficking.” “And they say they care about children, and they are doing it with this ill-fair narrative. But what they do is destroy the lives of these children.”

The Trump administration has reviewed about 450,000 children who had no parents crossed the U.S.-Mexico border during Biden's presidency.

Children who are unaccompanied by parents are detained in the detention center of the Department of Health and Human Services’ Refugee Resettlement Office. The department must screen adult sponsors who volunteer to care for their children, usually their parents or other relatives.

Shortly after President Trump took office, his administration developed a multi-agency program to track unaccompanied children and investigate whether they are being trafficked by humans and expel those who are moving. The internal immigration and customs enforcement memorandum obtained by Times details the four-phase operation.

The memorandum shows that agents should prioritize young people who have not had immigration hearings, those who have not been able to contact the government since they were released to sponsors, those who are considered a threat to public safety and those who have deportation orders.

The agency also closely monitors young people released from federal custody, who recruited three unaccompanied children to non-kind sponsors, including the so-called supersponsors.

Sponsorship programs have been plagued by problems in recent years. According to the federal government's failure to properly review some sponsors Last year's federal oversight report. Thousands of children Quickly released from government shelter Later it was used by major companies.

Last month, a federal grand jury Prosecuting a man He was accused of seducing a 14-year-old girl from Guatemala to the United States and falsely claimed she was his sister in custody as her sponsor.

According to the Associated Press, about 100 children have been evacuated from their sponsors this year and returned to federal detention centers, and 450 cases of complaints have been reported to federal law enforcement.

The review of sponsorship under the Trump administration is led by two ICE branches: law enforcement and evacuation operations, ERO, Homeland Security Investigation or HSI.

In addition to combating human trafficking, efforts are aimed at identifying possible candidates for deportation. The memorandum calls unaccompanied children "UAC": "ERO officials should remember that they will enforce the final dismissal order where possible, and that the HSI will seek criminal options for the UAC that commits crime."

The Department of Homeland Security and Health and Public Services did not respond to a request for comment.

Immigration lawyers say agents have tried to intimidate minors over the past two months.

In one example in California, a minor client answered an agent in a casual suit asking their mother and whether they had a job. Another family reported to their lawyer that HSI agents arrived while the minors were in school, but the agents returned four times in a day to look for students.

Karina Ramos, a division attorney at the Los Angeles-based Immigration Defense Law Center, said the strategy poses a dangerous sponsor who lacks legal authorization in the country or resides in mixed-race families.

“If they know there will be immigration officials questioning their identities, it will certainly have a chilling impact on sponsors,” she said.

According to people familiar with the case, the teenager's case in Hawaii began on April 9, when his brother was arrested on suspicion of misdemeanor.

The teenager entered the country without accompaniment and was previously detained in federal custody in Texas. He was released to his brother's care in 2023.

After his brother was arrested, the 17-year-old was placed in a facility for an unaccompanied young man in California. Hawaii does not have offices with refugee resettlement facilities.

According to local advocates and Honolulu Civil Shooting. Documents carried by teachers show that if he is released to her, his aunt may detain him.

Advocates say there are intersecting actions in Hawaii - welfare checks for unaccompanied children and law enforcement actions against deportable immigrants. At least four immigrant children have been removed from office in two separate cases recently in two separate cases, whose parents have been deported.

“It is never the best interest to have a parallel instruction to remove a child from a child,” said Mary Miller Flowers, director of policy and legislative affairs at the Center for the Rights of Young Immigrants. “So it feels like an euphemism of law enforcement actions.”

In other parts of the country, young immigrants and their adult sponsors are struggling with what benefits checks may spell for them.

Galveston-Horston Immigration Representative Program attorney in Houston, Alexa Sendukas said 21 clients have experienced welfare checks in recent weeks. Those who had the agent at home told her that the agent had gone through the room, asked questions and took pictures.

HSI agents told Sendukas at a meeting last week that they rescued two children from trafficking situations in the Houston area and found sponsors who are producing child exploitation materials. But she was still skeptical.

“We have heard examples of the Hawaii case,” she said, adding that advocates were concerned that agents engaged in welfare checks were collecting information they could use in the future. She said in reference to the ICE memo: “The guide suggests a multi-phase plan – what does the next phase look like?”

In San Diego, federal agents recently conducted a health check at the residence of a girl represented by immigration attorney Ian Seruelo. He said she was accepting a special immigrant teenager status.

Seruelo said federal agents stopped the girl while driving to church and detaining for several hours when she visited her parents, while she was visiting her parents, who lived in different locations.

Cerroello said parents had no criminal record, but no records, and their identities may be known to officials because they have been in the deportation process. He said neither the girl nor her parents were detained.

Seruelo said he found out the timing of his parents being detained. “I think they are using health checks to get information about their parents,” he said.

Smyers, a former health and public service official, said the public safety and border security defense pointed out in the ICE memorandum about tracking unaccompanied children is the same as Stephen Miller, a planner for federal officials and masterminds who separated thousands of families during President Trump’s first semester.

“The American public should be galvanized as if they were separated at the border,” she said.

Castillo reported from Gomez in Washington and Los Angeles.