Trafficked, Exploited & Abandoned Migrant Children Missing Under Biden’s Watch

Summary

---

The 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson

Episode: Trafficked, Exploited & Abandoned Migrant Children Missing Under Biden’s Watch
Date: September 8, 2025
Host: Ben Ferguson (Premiere Networks)

---

Episode Overview

In this hard-hitting episode, Ben Ferguson delves into two pressing issues:

1. The crisis of missing migrant children under the Biden administration, many of whom have ended up trafficked, exploited, or dead.
2. The political battle over crime and immigration enforcement in Chicago, with a focus on pushback against President Trump’s recent efforts.

Ben brings exclusive commentary, direct quotes from officials like Tom Homan, official statistics, and memorable stories to spotlight the alleged failures of the previous administration and the contrasting responses under Trump.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Scandal of Missing Migrant Children (03:15–11:10)

The Scale of the Crisis

• Ben reports that under the Biden administration, the government “lost” track of hundreds of thousands of migrant children who entered the U.S. unaccompanied.
• Official numbers referenced:
  • “Of the 300,000 children… we've located over 23,000 of them.” (Tom Homan, 04:05)
  • An estimated 233,000 children crossed the US–Mexico border alone during Biden’s tenure and then went missing.
  • “470,000 children without parents or guardians crossed into the US illegally between 2021 and 2024, according to new government statistics.” (Ben Ferguson, 08:14)

Horrific Outcomes for Missing Children

• Children have been found dead or forced to work as sex slaves.
• “We found children who have been raped… We're talking about debt bondage… trafficking, debt. We're talking about children that were brought into situations and then threatened and treated like sexual slaves. At least 27 of those children lost their lives.” (Ben Ferguson summarizing HHS/Fox News, 06:15)
• Reports of a two-year-old found alone in Texas and a two-month-old baby abandoned at the border illustrate the dangers and exploitation faced.

Critique of Biden Administration Policies

• Oversight and vetting failures:
  • The administration failed to properly vet “sponsors,” sometimes not even DNA testing adults claiming to be relatives.
  • Poor record-keeping: “What the Biden administration was taking in and putting into our computer systems was not the right information… that may be on purpose.” (Ben Ferguson, 09:30)
• Motive attributed:
  • “They wanted to get rid of the kids as quickly as they could so they could allow for the borders to stay open. They could not handle a backlog…” (Ben Ferguson, 10:05)
• “They didn't care and they knew that there was a problem. The reports clearly show the Biden administration was checking up on the kids and they weren't finding the children or the sponsors or at the address that they were declared to be going to. And what do they do? Nothing to stop it from continuing.” (Ben Ferguson, 10:42)

Contrast with Trump-era Solutions

• Under Trump, enhanced measures: DNA testing, background checks, address verification, and follow-up for every child.
• “President Trump's committed: we're not going to stop until we find every one of them or at least, you know, run every lead down on those 300,000 children.” (Tom Homan, 04:13)

---

2. The Battle Over Chicago and Immigration Enforcement (11:10–14:44)

Chicago’s Stance and Political Tensions

• Chicago Mayor Johnson and Illinois Governor Pritzker have threatened lawsuits over the Trump administration’s stated plans to ramp up immigration enforcement.
• “Illinois's Governor J.D. Pritzker and the Chicago mayor Johnson have teamed up and are not backing down… angered by the idea of preparations for what they describe as an illegal immigrant roundup…” (Ben Ferguson, 11:36)

Federal Coordination for Enforcement

• Homeland Security requested Defense Department assistance for staging operations at a Chicago-area military base (Naval Station Great Lakes) for anticipated increases in apprehensions.

Trump’s Response

• President Trump, when questioned by a reporter, said:
  • “We're not going to war. We're going to clean up our city. We're going to clean them up so they don't kill five people every weekend. That's not war. That's common sense.” (Donald Trump, quoted by Ben Ferguson, 12:56)
• Ben highlights the media’s framing versus Trump’s messaging:
  • “Isn't it amazing how the media decides to spin this story that somehow Donald Trump is going to war with a American city? No, we're going to war with the criminal legal aliens every day, no matter where they are. And that is the Trump doctrine.” (Ben Ferguson, 14:44)

Tom Homan on Chicago Enforcement

• “We're going to war with illegal aliens. Public safety threats that raped children, that raped citizens, that committed armed robberies, that distribute narcotics that kill Americans. We're at war with the criminal cartels.” (Tom Homan, 00:06 and 13:50)
• Homan claims early operations in Chicago arrested multiple sexual predators and violent offenders:
  • “The first day, we arrested nine sexual predators, most of them child rapists. We arrested nine members of the TDA… two illegal aliens that had a homicide conviction. That was the first day in Chicago.” (Tom Homan, 13:50)
• He directly rebuts the characterization of a “war” on a city, framing it as a war on criminals.

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Tom Homan on the missing children crisis:

  • “We've located over 23,000 of them… President Trump's committed: we're not going to stop until we find every one of them or at least, you know, run every lead down on those 300,000 children.” (04:05)

• Ben Ferguson on lack of accountability:

  • “They wanted to get rid of the kids as quickly as they could so they could allow for the borders to stay open… they were willing to give these children to virtually anyone, even knowing that many of them were going to die, knowing that many of them were going to be sold into essence, what is sex slavery or bondage or into child labor to work off a debt.” (10:05)

• President Trump (via Ben Ferguson):

  • “We're going to clean it up so they don't kill five people every weekend. That's not war. That's common sense.” (12:56)

• Tom Homan on Chicago enforcement:

  • “We're at war with illegal aliens. Public safety threats that raped children, that raped citizens... we're at war with the criminal cartels.” (13:50)

---

Key Timestamps

• 00:06 – Tom Homan: “We're going to war with illegal aliens…”
• 03:15 – Story 1: Missing Migrant Children
• 04:05 – Tom Homan: “We've located over 23,000 of them…”
• 06:15–10:42 – Discussion of trafficking, exploitation, vetting failures, and alleged motives
• 11:10 – Story 2: Chicago, immigration, and political blowback
• 12:56 – Trump quote: “That's not war. That's common sense.”
• 13:50 – Tom Homan on Chicago arrests
• 14:44 – Ben Ferguson responds to media narrative

---

Episode Tone & Language

Direct, unfiltered, and politically pointed—with frequent use of charged language (“deliberately lost,” “trafficked,” “sex slaves,” “war with cartels”), the episode combines data with emotionally impactful stories and a strong contrast between the Biden and Trump approaches. Ben Ferguson not only narrates but editorializes, attributing clear motives and drawing distinctions between administrations.

---

This summary highlights the episode’s urgent messaging around migrant children and focuses on the framing of political accountability in immigration enforcement, incorporating critical quotes, timestamps, and structured insights for clarity and context.

Transcript

[Ben Ferguson]

This is an iHeart podcast.

[Tom Homan]

We're going to war with illegal aliens. Public safety threats that raped children, that raped citizens, that committed armed robberies, that distribute narcotics that kill Americans. We're at war with the criminal cartels.

[Ben Ferguson]

You're listening to the 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson.

Good Monday morning. It is nice to have you with us on the 47 Morning Update. And we've got two big stories for you. First up, it is tragic, it is sad. Migrant children lost under the Biden administration on purpose, now being found dead or even working as sex slaves. We're going to expose it all for you. And it's a story I hope you'll share everywhere on social media. Also, the President of the United States of America made it clear if he was elected, he was going to help all Americans that are in crime ridden cities, including places like Chicago. Well, now the people of Chicago are asking for the president to step in and help. So why are the Democrats fighting him? We'll explain that as well. But first, I want to talk to you about my friends over at Patriot Mobile. You've got a lot of choices for cell phone service with new ones popping up all the time. But if you want to make a difference and you want to stop giving your money to liberal companies, well, one way you can do that is by getting rid of Liberal Mobile. You probably have right now. That is where hundreds of thousands of Americans are now together and have made Patriot Mobile what they are today. They've been in Service now for 13 years and right now is the best time ever to switch because it's never been easier. Now, before I tell you about that, I want you to know why switching is so important. Because every time you make a call, every time you send a text, and every time that you pay your bill, you're actually standing up for the values you believe in. Your first and your second amendment rights, the rights of unborn children. And you stand with our military, our veterans, our wounded warriors and our fallen soldier families. Because Patriot mobile takes about 5% of your bill every month at no extra cost to you. And they give it back to these organizations that fight for our values. Now let's talk about switching. It has never been easier. You can keep your same number, keep your same phone or upgrade. Patriot mobile's got a 100 US based customer service team and literally they can now with technology, get you activated in minutes from the comfort of your home or your office. If you're stuck in a contractor, owe money on your phones. No worries. Patriot Mobile has a contract buyout program. And this is how we win, folks, by aligning our spending with our values. Every dollar we spend matters. Now, let me also give you a free month of Service. Go to patriotmobile.com ferguson that's patriot mobile.com ferguson or you can call them 972 Patriot. Use the promo code Ferguson, and you're going to get one month free service by switching today. So again, patriotmobile.com Ferguson use the promo code Ferguson. You'll get a free month of service today. Patriotmobile.com ferguson or 972-patreon. It's the 47 Morning Update, and it starts right now.

Story number one.

It is a story that has just not gotten enough press. There's a story of the Biden administration knowing that they were losing children that they were entrusted to protect in the US Giving them to people that were not related to them, and then knowing when they went to go find them that they had disappeared. The reality is they knew exactly what was happening to those children. They were being trafficked. They were put into sex slavery, and many of them were going to turn up dead. But the Biden administration turned the other way, and for one simple reason, because if they admitted the disaster, they'd have to shut down the wide open southern border. Tom Homan came out last week and said, we have, thank goodness, located about 23,000 of the hundreds of thousands that were lost under the Biden administration out.

[Tom Homan]

Of the 300,000 children. I looked at the numbers just yesterday. We've located over 23,000 of them. So 23,000 locations of the 300,000 President Trump's committed. We're not going to stop until we find every one of them or at least, you know, run every lead down on those 300,000 children. That's a, that's a big, that's a big plus for the administration because the last administration wasn't even looking for him. So, but as far as with Chicago, Chicago is coming along with every other sanctuary city. President Trump is committed that we're going to focus and prioritize sanctuary cities because that is where the problem is. We know for a fact they're releasing public safety threats to the streets every day rather than handing them over to ICE so we can deport them.

[Ben Ferguson]

You listen to that part of the story and then you combine it with what we've just gotten into reporting. The Daily Mail is now reporting that migrant children lost under the Biden administration have been found dead or working as sex slaves after an estimated 233,000 children that you heard Tom Homan mention a moment ago cross the US Mexico border alone during President Joe Biden's tenure and then were lost. Law enforcement has started to locate them, only to learn of the horrors that they are facing. Since March, the Trump administration has tracked down about 23,000 of those kids, finding some of them in deplorable conditions, some of them dead, and others being used as sex slaves. We found children who have been raped is what the HHS Office of Refugee Resettlement Senior Advisors said to Fox News Channel. We're talking about debt bondage, where children are being made to work off debt, trafficking, debt. We're talking about children that were brought into situations and then threatened and treated like sexual slaves. At least 27 of those children lost their lives. They are now confirmed dead, with cause of deaths ranging from murder, suicide, car accidents or drug overdoses. Children are in horrific environments, just environments that they should not be in, where the sponsor is a heroin dealer and that child winds up dying of a heroin overdose. These children are classified by the government as unaccompanied minors. Underage migrants who cross the US Border without a parent or legal guardian. An uncle, older sibling or other relative might be traveling with the child. However, the minor would be considered unaccompanied because they are not with a legal parent. Oftentimes the parents were already in the US and have saved up money to pay smugglers to bring their children in. In a heartbreaking video, for example, a two year old girl from El Salvador told the Texas Department of Safety troopers who found her in November that she was on her way to reunite with her mom and dad. While kids have sometimes crossed the border alone during President Joe Biden's time in office, the number exploded alongside overall illegal immigration. Often children were arriving at the border completely alone, pushed over the border wall by smugglers who then abandoned them. In another shocking case, a two month old baby was found in the Rio Grande city of Texas by Border Patrol agents. This was a chilling reminder of how children are being exploited by human smugglers and criminal organizations every day, the agency said after that report became public. In another instance, two brothers were found at the Texas Mexico border with handwriting on their T shirts with the child's name or the contact information of a said relative. In the United States, someone had written the contact information on family members in the US on their clothing in a marker, hoping for the best. This is how the traffickers treat these children now. 470,000 children without parents or guardians crossed into the US illegally between 2021 and and 2024, according to New government statistics. After an unaccompanied minor enters the U.S. the government policy is to let the miners stay in the country. The government holds them in special shelters for children until they can be reunited with relatives in the U.S. however, these children are not deported back to where they came from. And that's where the problems really, really began. Biden officials were supposed to be vetting the the adults that they were claiming were their children to make sure that they were actually related. Did they do it? No. That is when the children were lost into the system deliberately by the Biden administration. With the officials unable to verify the kids whereabouts at all. There wasn t very good record keeping either. And we now know that may be on purpose. Under the Biden administration, it is drawing the data back in, being able to identify addresses where these children went, who these sponsors actually were, and in many cases, well, the data is horrible, and that may be on purpose. What the Biden administration was taking in and putting into our computer systems was not the right information, quote, unquote. So now we have to draw that all the way back in and then deeply investigate into where some of these children went. In some cases, the adults the kids were released to, called sponsors, were not even DNA tested, tested by the Biden administration to ensure that they were actually even related. They gave these kids away to, in essence, strangers, and then the strangers could do whatever they wanted to do with these children. In other cases, the addresses where the kids were being taken to were also not vetted by the Biden administration to make sure the children were actually living there. Under the current administration, under Donald Trump's leadership, DNA testing is a requirement, as is proof of income. Criminal background checks are being done on everyone. Fingerprinting and identification verification are also mandates. So why did the Biden administration do this to literally hundreds of thousands of children? One simple reason. They wanted to get rid of the kids as quickly as they could so they could allow for the borders to stay open. They could not handle a backlog of caring for 300,000 children. They didn't have the apparatus to do it. But to keep the southern border open and the flood coming in, they were willing to give these children to virtually anyone, even knowing that many of them were going to die, knowing that many of them were going to be sold into essence, what is sex slavery or bondage or into child labor to work off a debt. They didn't care and they knew that there was a problem. The reports clearly show the Biden administration was checking up on the kids and they weren't finding the children or the sponsors or at the address that they were declared to be going to. And what do they do? Nothing to stop it from continuing. And that is exactly why Donald Trump is working so hard now to find these children and hopefully find them alive.

Now, story number two, wouldn't it be.

Amazing if Democrats actually were willing to fight criminals in Chicago with these, the same type of anger and vigor they're using towards Donald Trump and law enforcement? Well, the only tough talk you're getting right now out of Chicago officials is threats of lawsuits against Donald Trump. That's right. Illinois's Governor J.D. pritzker and the Chicago mayor Johnson have teamed up and are not backing down, as they say they are angered by the idea of preparations for what they describe as an illegal immigrant roundup that is illegal by the Trump administration in the Windy City. Now, according to an internal federal memo obtained by CBS News, the Department of Homeland Security has asked the Department of Defense to house roughly 250 federal agents and 140 vehicles at an Illinois military base in anticipation of an expected increase in illegal alien arrests within the Chicago area. CBS News exploding on this saying in a request for the assistance to the Department of Defense, atop Homeland Security official indicated that the Naval Station Great Lakes, the largest military base in Illinois and the Navy's largest training station, would be used as a staging area to oversee the removal operations in the metropolitan Chicago area targeting immigrants suspected of being in the US Illegally. Now, the president of the United States of America, Donald Trump, was asked about this. And I want you to hear what he had to say to a reporter that was trying to badger him as he was leaving for Marine One. Say that, darling. That's fake news. Department of Defense. Listen. Be quiet.

[Tom Homan]

Listen.

[Ben Ferguson]

You don't listen. You never listen. That's why you're second rate. We're not going to war. We're going to clean up our city. We're going to clean them up so they don't kill five people every weekend. That's not war. That's common sense. I love the last statement there by President Trump. We're going to clean it up so they don't kill five people every weekend. That's not war. That's common sense. Tom Homan also asked about this on cnn. Say the union. And here's what he had to say about it as well.

[Interviewer]

Joining us now to discuss is the president's border czar, Tom Homan. Mr. Homan, always good to have you. So the governor of Illinois responded to President Trump's post. He wrote, quote, The President of the United States is threatening to go to war with an American city. This is not a joke. This is not normal. Donald Trump isn't a strong man. He's a scared man. Illinois won't be intimidated by a wannabe dictator, unquote. Is President Trump planning to go to war in Chicago?

[Tom Homan]

We're going to war with illegal aliens. Public safety threats that raped children, that raped citizens, that committed armed robberies, that distribute narcotics that kill Americans. We're at war with the criminal cartels. And the government of Pritzker protects criminal, illegal alien public safety threats every day in that state. Along with Mayor Johnson, we proved that. The first week of the administration, I went to Chicago. I started an operation there. The first day, we arrested nine sexual predators, most of them child rapists. We arrested nine members of the tda. Several of those TDA members had an illegal pistol with a switch on it, which makes that pistol fully automatic. We arrested two illegal aliens that had a homicide conviction. That was the first day in Chicago. So, you know President Trump and his administration. Yeah, we're at war with the criminal cartels and those who want to murder and rape American citizens. You damn right.

[Ben Ferguson]

Isn't it amazing how the media decides to spin this story that somehow Donald Trump is going to go to war with a American city? No, we're going to war with the criminal legal aliens every day, no matter where they are. And that is the Trump doctrine.

Thank you for listening to the 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson. Please make sure you hit subscribe wherever you're listening to this podcast right now. And for more in depth news, also subscribe to the Ben Ferguson Podcast and we will see you back here tomorrow.

This is an iHeart podcast.