President Donald Trump’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is launching an operation aimed at rescuing Unaccompanied Alien Children (UACs), placed with unvetted adult sponsors under the Biden administration, from sex trafficking and labor exploitation.

On Friday, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem announced the UAC Safety Verification Initiative, which will see Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents working with local and state law enforcement agencies to locate and conduct welfare checks of hundreds of thousands of UACs that the Biden administration resettled with adult sponsors from 2021 through 2024.

“Secretary Noem is leading efforts to rescue and stop the exploitation of the 450,000 unaccompanied children the Biden administration lost or placed with unvetted sponsors,” DHS’s Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement:

Many of the children who came across the border unaccompanied were allowed to be placed with sponsors who were smugglers and sex traffickers. The Trump administration has located more than 24,400 of these children in-person, in the United States, through visits and door knocks. [Emphasis added]

We’ve jump-started our efforts to rescue children who were victims of sex and labor trafficking by working with our state and local law enforcement partners to locate these children. President Trump and Secretary Noem are laser-focused on protecting children and will continue to work with federal, state, and local law enforcement to reunite children with their families. [Emphasis added]

Thus far, the operation has been rolled out in Florida and ICE agents have already arrested many dozen illegal alien sponsors of UACs who had criminal backgrounds, including:

In Arizona, ICE arrested a Guinean alien sponsor who had been arrested by Arizona law enforcement for felony aggravated assault.  In Florida: ICE arrested a Honduran alien sponsor who had been convicted by Florida authorities for assault. ICE arrested a Honduran alien sponsor who had been criminally arrested by Florida law enforcement for larceny, fraud, and counterfeiting. ICE arrested a Honduran alien sponsor who had been criminally arrested by Florida law enforcement for attempted robbery with a weapon.   ICE arrested a Guatemalan alien sponsor who had been arrested by Florida law enforcement for felony hit and run and driving without a license. In Georgia, ICE arrested a Guatemalan alien sponsor who had been convicted of domestic violence by Georgia authorities. In Maryland, ICE arrested a Guatemalan alien sponsor who had been arrested by Maryland law enforcement for rape of the unaccompanied child. In Massachusetts, ICE arrested an Ecuadorian alien sponsor who had been criminally arrested for enticement of a child under 16 and possession of child sexual abuse material.  In Michigan, ICE arrested an El Salvadoran alien sponsor who had been convicted for drug trafficking.   In Nevada, ICE arrested a Honduran alien sponsor who had been arrested by Nevada law enforcement for assault. In New Jersey, ICE arrested a Guatemalan alien sponsor wanted for attempted aggravated homicide. In New York, ICE arrested a Venezuelan alien sponsor who had been criminally arrested by New York law enforcement for prostitution, possession of marijuana, and failure to appear.  In North Carolina, ICE arrested a Guatemalan alien sponsor who had been criminally arrested by North Carolina law enforcement for attempted murder. In Ohio, ICE arrested a Honduran alien sponsor who had been convicted by Ohio authorities for a felony weapon offense. In Pennsylvania, a sponsor had already been removed to Honduras subsequent to an arrest for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. In Texas, ICE and local law enforcement arrested a Guatemalan alien sponsor unrelated to the unaccompanied child for human trafficking and statutory rape. The 14-year-old unaccompanied child was pregnant with the sponsor’s baby.

Earlier this year, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) unveiled a bombshell report that the Biden administration placed more than 11,000 UACs in homes with adult sponsors who were not their parents, relatives, or even vetted through fingerprints and background checks.

Health and Human Services  Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told Congress in May the Biden administration was the “biggest facilitator of child abuse” in American history because of how it handled UACs.

“My predecessor was deliberately employing a policy of speed over safety so they waived all of the identification requirements for sponsors,” Kennedy said at the time. “Sponsors were not required to show valid identification; they were never fingerprinted, so we don’t know if there’s a criminal record. There was no DNA testing, so the claims that they were taking a family member were … they were dubious.”

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter here.