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How a Fox News host’s misleading question about migrant children morphed into a Trump talking point

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Former President Donald J. Trump and his surrogates have repeatedly accused the Biden administration of losing tens of thousands of migrant children, distorting, conflating and inflating government statistics.

The misleading claim, now a staple of Mr. Trump’s stump speeches, appears to have originated from Fox News and snowballed. Its evolution shows Mr. Trump’s penchant for exaggeration as well as his symbiotic relationship with the network.

June 2, 2024

Mr. Trump is interviewed on Fox News.

When the Fox News host Rachel Campos-Duffy told Mr. Trump that the Biden administration had “lost” 80,000 children, Mr. Trump expressed surprise at her ensuing question.

“Will you commit to finding those children?” she asked.

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“I haven’t been asked that question, but the answer is yes. It’s a simple answer,” Mr. Trump responded, adding: “Many of them are dead. They have done such a bad job.”

Ms. Campos-Duffy’s claim referred to migrant children who arrive at the border unaccompanied by adults. Under government protocols, the children, once apprehended by border officials, are placed in the care of the Health and Human Services Department’s refugee resettlement office. The office then releases the children to sponsors, sometimes family members, who undergo a background check. The New York Times reported last year that the office, which checks on the children via phone calls, was unable to reach 85,000 children, or about a third of cases, in 2021 and 2022. The Times did not report that the children were “lost,” but that they were more susceptible to exploitative and illegal working conditions.

June 6, 2024

Days later, Mr. Trump invokes the figure at a town hall in Phoenix.

Railing against President Biden’s border policies, Mr. Trump added once again that many children were now “dead” and “if it were me, it would be the biggest story.”

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In fact, when Mr. Trump was in office, his administration also tried to contact — and was also unable to reach — thousands of migrant children who had left the refugee office’s care. And there is no evidence that thousands of the children died under either Mr. Biden or Mr. Trump.

Under Mr. Trump, the Health and Human Services Department could not reach 19 percent of migrant children (about 1,500) who were placed with sponsors from October to December 2017, or 11.6 percent of children or their sponsors (about 9,200 calls) from August 2018 to December 2020. In comparison, a Biden administration official testified to Congress that 19 percent of the refugee office’s calls to the children or their sponsors went unanswered.

When Democrats accused the Trump administration of “losing” unaccompanied children, the health department said in 2018 that those claims were “completely false” and that sponsors “simply did not respond or could not be reached when this voluntary call was made.”

At the time, a Trump administration official said that there were various reasons sponsors or children might not pick up the phone. They may be hesitant to answer calls from unknown government agents, especially if they have unauthorized status or a fear of traffickers. Sponsors may also simply have different telephone numbers.

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June 7, 2024

Mr. Trump repeats the figure in an interview with Dr. Phil.

“We have 88,000 missing children. Now, can you imagine if that were Trump that had 88,000 missing children? 88,000. That’s a holocaust.”

July 9, 2024

Mr. Trump doubles the number
at a rally in Doral, Fla.

“The Biden-Harris administration has lost track of an estimated 150,000 children, many of whom have undoubtedly been raped, trafficked, killed or horribly abused.”

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Mr. Trump appeared to extrapolate this figure from government data showing that nearly 400,000 children had been placed with sponsors over the past four years. Assuming that the office was still unable to reach a third of them, that is equivalent to about 133,000 children.

Aug. 22, 2024

A month later, Mr. Trump distorts a new government report to inflate the number to 300,000 migrant children.

A report from the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general provided Mr. Trump with new fodder. The report, released in mid-August, noted that out of some 448,000 unaccompanied migrant children placed into the custody of the refugee office from the 2019 to the 2023 fiscal years, about 32,000 children had failed to appear for their immigration hearings. Another 291,000 did not receive “notices to appear” in immigration court at all.

Again, these children were not “lost,” though the report chided immigration officials by noting that without an ability to monitor the location of the children, they were more susceptible to “trafficking, exploitation or forced labor.” Moreover, about half of that period — the 2019 and 2020 fiscal years, and part of the 2021 fiscal year — was during the Trump administration.

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Aug. 23, 2024

Mr. Trump campaigns in
Glendale, Ariz.

“According to a new D.H.S. report, Kamala Harris also lost, and this is impossible to believe, listen to this, 325,000 migrant children are gone. They’re missing. She allowed them to be trafficked into our country.”

Aug. 30, 2024

Mr. Trump speaks in
Johnstown, Pa.

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By now, the claim, updated with the inflated figure, has become a common refrain for Mr. Trump.

Sept. 13, 2024

Mr. Trump addresses a news conference in Ranchos Palos Verdes, Calif.

“Under this administration, 325,000 migrant children are missing, 325,000. In other words, take your biggest stadium in California and you could fill it up five or six times. Those are all missing children.”

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Sept. 29, 2024

Mr. Trump appears at
a rally in Erie, Pa.

“This is not even possible to believe. 325,000 migrant children are missing, many of whom have been trafficked and raped. As California attorney general, she lost them all.”

Oct. 1, 2024

Senator JD Vance repeats the number at the vice-presidential debate, but adds caveats.

Mr. Vance, Mr. Trump’s vice-presidential pick, advances the talking point on the national stage, though he uses more tempered language in claiming that the children have been “effectively lost.” He does not repeat Mr. Trump’s contention that “many” have died.

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Oct. 6, 2024

Mr. Trump, addressing supporters at a rally in Juneau, Wis., reverts to shorthand to refer to the number.

“She doesn’t mention how bad inflation was, how bad the 325,000 children that we just mention.”

Mr. Trump abbreviates the misleading claim into a simple two-word phrase: “325,000 children.” Like other phrases — “laptop from hell” or “$85 billion in equipment” — the shorthand suggests that his audience is now familiar with his distortions after months of repetition.

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