During President Joe Biden’s term in office, the United States witnessed the largest surge in immigration in the nation’s history. The Congressional Budget Office found that the number of immigrants without legal permanent status grew by at least 8 million between 2021 and 2024. At the peak of this influx, I labored as a social worker at a humanitarian NGO. My agency was one of many within a larger, privatized ecosystem of NGOs contracted by the government to resettle and provide basic services to refugees and asylum seekers.
My work focused on what are legally known as Unaccompanied Alien Children: minors who arrive at the southern border outside the care of legal guardians. Unaccompanied children found by Customs and Border Patrol are placed in the care of the Office of Refugee Resettlement, a minor agency oddly placed within the Department of Health and Human Services. The Office of Refugee Resettlement then finds and vets “sponsors” for unaccompanied children, typically family members already living in the United States.
“The overwhelming majority consisted of happy, loving, and hard-working families.”
While their cases are pending, unaccompanied children can spend anywhere from a few weeks to a year in one of 300 shelters across twenty-seven states. Once the children enter into the care of a sponsor, they are assigned a case manager on variable timelines depending on age and experiences of trauma. My role consisted of ensuring that they were enrolled in school, tracked and attended asylum hearings, and showed no signs of labor trafficking or abuse from sponsors. In equal measure, unaccompanied children and their sponsors sought asylum on the grounds that they faced persecution in their home countries. Over the course of 2022 and 2023, I worked with around 150 children ranging from newborns to teenagers just shy of eighteen in addition to their sponsors. Of these, the overwhelming majority consisted of happy, loving, and hard-working families.
Much like these children, I too came to the United States as a child—though I had the immense privilege of attaining citizenship through a Colombian-American parent. My general inclination towards immigrants, both legal and illegal, has always been one of sympathy. At the same time, I was generally agnostic about immigration as a political issue. Prior to my role as a case manager, it seemed logical to me that rates of legal and illegal immigration stood to increase following years of lockdowns and Covid-era travel restrictions.
It did not take long, however, before I began to question the foundations of the immigration regime under Biden.
By US law, unaccompanied minors can apply for asylum and seek other forms of immigration relief on the grounds that those who are both underage and unaccompanied are more vulnerable than adults. Prior to 2014 as well as during Donald Trump’s first term, most adult migrants neither solicited asylum at the border nor processed their claims inside the country. Beginning in 2021, however, the Biden administration rescinded the “Remain in Mexico” policy which saw asylum seekers wait out their claims in Mexico before being allowed to enter the country.
The administration also broadened its interpretation of asylum such that even the vaguest claims of persecution were grounds for entry. These moves were billed as a humanitarian corrective for the first Trump administration’s cruelty towards migrants, including children. But it quickly became apparent that large numbers of economically motivated migrants were abusing a system meant to serve those most deserving of legal attention, such as unaccompanied children.
Early on in my time as case manager, a sponsor originally from Honduras, Humberto, asked me what he should say at his immigration hearing. Dutifully, I explained that those persecuted due to their race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or specific social group were eligible for asylum with some courts including fear of reprisal from criminal groups. Minors who suffer sexual abuse or forced labor during their journeys or while in the United States may also qualify for a special visa. “Does any of that apply in your case?” I asked.
“No,” he told me. “I just want to help my family in Honduras.”
I had many conversations along these lines, though most of those I spoke to were less overt about the dubiousness of their asylum claims. In legal terms, policymakers have determined that those most deserving of asylum are afforded Temporary Protected Status (TPS), a determination made on the grounds that conditions in specific countries are so severe they warrant additional protections and benefits. Under Biden, protected status was granted to Cubans, Venezuelans, Nicaraguans, and Haitians. Recipients from Cuba and Haiti were also eligible for Medicaid and food stamps.
Considering that ongoing crises in Cuba, Venezuela and Haiti are largely or in part a result of US policy, TPS can be construed as a form of reparative justice. Of course, the logical if unrealistic counterpoint from anti-interventionists is that Washington should stop and should never have interfered in these countries’ affairs in the first place. In South Florida, nearly all the families I worked with consisted of TPS recipients as well as other Central and Americans. Of these families, by far the least in need of assistance were Cuban nationals who benefited from familial and in-group networks in South Florida.
“Cuban minors and sponsors were often surprisingly affluent.”
Cuban minors and sponsors were often surprisingly affluent or leaned on affluent family members and acquaintances for housing and employment; some nonetheless lived in RVs or efficiencies due to the high cost of living in Miami-Dade county. When I made my usual inquiries about sponsors’ plans for child care and hiring an immigration attorney, most preempted my questions. Similarly, virtually none of the Cuban children I assisted showed signs of active coercion from human trafficking or severe trauma. One sponsor living in a luxurious two-story home opined that all Cubans deserved Medicaid on account of having emigrated from communism. Under the 1966 Cuban Adjustment Act, Cubans are eligible for residency after a year of living in the United States.
To be sure, since 2021 and particularly since this January, Cuba has experienced arguably the worst humanitarian crisis in its history. At the same time, only a handful of my Cuban cases involved UCs or sponsors who faced credible persecution from the communist regime. Of these, some were former demonstrators who faced reprisals following Cuba’s July 2021 protests while others were seventeen-year-olds who fled the island to avoid conscription into the Cuban military. One Cuban minor, Osmani, confessed that coming to live the American Dream with his uncle was a no-brainer in light of the Cuban Adjustment Act.
Non-Cuban families often faced greater precarity and needed ample assistance. Unaccompanied children and sponsors from Nicaragua and Guatemala, for instance, often shared three-to-four room homes with multiple other families; some from the latter barely spoke Spanish and required a remote interpreter for various Maya dialects. All were profusely grateful for any assistance enrolling minors in school, finding pro-bono attorneys, and monitoring immigration hearings.
One Colombian minor, Jhon, fled his native Manizales to live with his uncle in Hollywood, Fla., after both he and his father received death threats from a local gang. After flying to Mexico, the pair were extorted by Mexican officials who subsequently deported Jhon’s father but granted the minor temporary entry. Another Colombian, Eugenia, had participated in mass protests in 2021 for which she suffered death threats from security forces in Bogotá. Both, particularly Eugenia, expressed a desire to return and build a life in Colombia.
Marlón, a pudgy tween, fled Nicaragua to join his mother in Kendall, Fla., following reprisals against his family from the Ortega dictatorship. Sadly, the child also spent around a year in an Office of Refugee Resettlement shelter during which time he was abused by staff. Once in Florida, his relationship with his mother, whom he resented for leaving Nicaragua, was strained and his adjustment to his new surroundings difficult.
By far the case that left the most marked impression on me was that of Xiomara, a seventeen-year-old from Honduras. She and her father fled gang violence, but her father abandoned her during the journey and subsequently perished in Mexico. She ultimately made her way to the southern border and was later released into the care of an uncle in Miami Gardens. When I met her, I was struck by the dignity with which she reflected on her experiences in addition to her dedication to her studies and learning English. Her uncle and sponsor, Nemesio, confided to me that his niece was one of the most resilient people he had ever met.
In the end, I was little help to Xiomara, whose case I was forced to close when she turned eighteen. She later informed me that she applied for a visa for minors who suffered abuse or abandonment by one or both parents though her claim was complicated by the fact that she had already turned eighteen.
In my role, I was obligated to report any degree of coercion observed or relayed to me from children or sponsors. Younger children would often be inclined to divulge information that sponsors wouldn’t, though just as often they didn’t understand much of what took place around them. Some minors and sponsors were fortunate or well informed enough to solicit asylum via legal points of entry at the southern border, but most inevitably relied on one or more coyotes in Central America and Mexico.
One notable trafficking case under my purview involved a Guatemalan minor, Miguel. Miguel lived with his distant aunt and sponsor, Amelia, her family, and over a dozen other Guatemalans on the outskirts of Fort Lauderdale. The residents subdivided the bedrooms and living room with hanging curtains. From the moment Miguel entered Amelia’s care, the pair entered into conflict over the thirteen-year-old Miguel’s refusal to attend school; in Florida, truancy applies to minors under the age of seventeen.
A native of the jungle borderlands of Petén, Guatemala, Miguel traveled north to send money back to his mother for a surgery following an accident that dislocated her jaw. Amelia’s husband worked in roofing for a local small business owner; Miguel assisted by gathering materials discarded by laborers. During my visits, I explained to Miguel that he could continue to work afternoons with his uncle during non-school hours, but could not skip class. This arrangement proved unsatisfactory for the shy and impetuous teen, who viewed school as a waste of time.
“There was a darker dimension to the family’s concerns.”
Yet there was also a darker dimension to the family’s concerns. In private, both Miguel and Amelia separately explained that they–along with Amelia’s children and husband–owed money to their employer who had sponsored their journeys stateside and now kept them in a form of indentured servitude. Amelia described a shadowy figure who garnished their wages. Miguel’s truancy could jeopardize their livelihoods. After some weeks, I received a call from Amelia, who informed me that Miguel had run away from home following an argument.
I reported the runaway as a missing persons case with Child Protective Services and the Fort Lauderdale Police Department (FLPD). The latter dispatched an investigator, Morgan, who uncovered the identity of Miguel and Amelia’s benefactor, a man by the name of Rodrigo who served as a broker for employers of manual labor. She also found a lead on Miguel’s whereabouts with the help of documents we examined from his time in the shelter.
In my last conversation with Morgan, she told me that Miguel was believed to be living with an uncle connected to Rodrigo in Tennessee. A year later, I called her to follow up on the status of the case and was greeted by a different investigator who said she knew nothing about Miguel.
By pure happenstance, a third FLPD investigator following up on cold cases contacted me during the writing of this article to secure details on Miguel.
Of the roughly 300,000 unaccompanied children who entered the country during the Biden presidency, it is hard to say exactly how many remain unaccounted for. The New York Times found that the Biden-era HHS lost contact with around 85,000 minors under its jurisdiction and often failed to adequately vet sponsors. Minors as young as Miguel were found to be working full time in grueling jobs like construction and day labor. Having also worked vetting sponsors, the vetting process I observed was quite rigorous, though this was no doubt a consequence of past shortcomings. Between myself and my colleagues, cases like Miguel’s of minors were thankfully exceptional.
The inconvenient truth for all sides of the debate is that our failed immigration regime mostly boils down to two interrelated factors: employer demand and state cooptation. Cases like Miguel’s offer the most flagrant examples of the sprawling underclass of unauthorized labor. To varying degrees, the reality is that most asylum seekers and illegal immigrants form part of disparate, sophisticated networks meant to supply cheap labor to small and large employers. Consecutive administrations from both political parties have long enabled this reality via the deliberate dereliction of enforcement against employers of unauthorized labor.
Many progressives have convinced themselves that the 3.5 million person backlog of asylum claimants consists almost entirely of refugees fleeing violence abroad. In truth, it is impossible to know the exact number of legitimate asylees due to the politicized nature of the issue. My experience, like that of others, however, suggests that the share of fraudulent claims has been significant. Indeed, the track record of the Biden administration is open to question on multiple fronts.
Though removals at the southern border surged to record highs during the Biden era migrant influx, removals beyond the border collapsed to just 50,000 a year compared to around 100,000 a year under Trump and 200,000 a year during Obama’s first term. At minimum, it is fair to say that Democrats post-Obama have a serious problem with interior enforcement. No amount of additional immigration judges, however welcome, would have changed this fact.
What progressives fail to comprehend is that allowing millions of economic migrants to fraudulently claim asylum hurts those with credible claims. If economic migrants believe that they are certain to be deported for asylum fraud, they will be less likely to claim asylum in the first place. Consequently, the overall backlog would necessarily fall, benefiting actual asylees by reducing processing times. Voters, moreover, correctly view progressive immigration policy as facilitating a legal back door for what they regard as illegal immigrants.
None of this justifies the Trump administration’s gratuitous abuse of legal and illegal immigrants, not least migrant children. The administration has revived family separation and has attempted to strip over 26,000 unaccompanied minors of legal representation. Nonviolent deportees, including minors, have similarly been subjected to year-long detentions; since 2025, around fifty people have died under ICE custody. Violent and nonviolent deportees have likewise been sent to maximum security prisons in third countries such as Eswatini and El Salvador.
Deportation should be neither pleasant nor a means for signaling performative sadism against migrants. Removals should be as swift as possible and prioritize violent criminals over children and daylaborers. Deterring the latter, moreover, would be far more efficient and cost effective by punishing employers of illegal labor. A now forgotten generation of labor leaders and conservative restrictionists such as former Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach argued in favor of a national regime of E-Verify, which would be both more humane and practical than an $85 billion Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Accordingly, corporate prosecutions of immigration-related crimes currently sit at record lows.
“A broader conversation must also be had about reforming asylum.”
A broader conversation must also be had about reforming asylum. At present asylum writ large has been more or less gutted, save for white South Africans. Trump 1.0 was correct that international law calls for refugees to apply for asylum in the first country they flee to. “Remain in Mexico”, asylum quotas, and Safe Third Country agreements in the Americas are more than reasonable as a means for controlling flows of irregular crossings.
Many restrictionists now advocate for revoking the right to asylum outright, including for unaccompanied minors. Something like that has already occurred in Poland; Florida gubernatorial candidate James Fishback has even called for banning minors without legal permanent status from attending public schools—a proposal which would necessarily increase human trafficking. Yet the fact of the matter is that a reformed asylum system could work under a status quo of managed flow through the border.
To that end, if Democrats are truly interested in protecting victims like Marlón and Xiomara, they must be willing to subject irregular immigration and asylum fraud to limits and penalties. As of this writing, little to no effort has been made left-of-center to reckon with past mistakes and offer an alternative palatable to the broader population. Instead, the prevailing view champions denialism and virtue signalling against ICE. Unsurprisingly, voters still prefer Republicans to Democrats on immigration and especially the border.
Progressives are correct when they point out that US policy has brought devastation to many countries migrants hail from, not least in countries like Cuba and Haiti. But they would do better to advocate for a more sensible foreign policy as opposed to a laxer immigration regime. Indeed, the irony is that migrants from countries like Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua lean overwhelmingly to the right and are likely to lobby for further interventions in their home countries if or when they receive citizenship.
Republicans should note that Democratic policy towards immigration comes not from a conspiratorial effort to “import voters” but a naive and deeply misguided understanding of irregular migration. In the same vein, Democrats must grapple with the fact that lax border policies inevitably alienate workers and lead to even greater cruelty against migrants.