WASHINGTON – House Democrats grilled Joseph Cuffari, inspector general at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), on the treatment of migrant children during a House committee on oversight and government reform hearing on Wednesday, asking Cuffari whether DHS has a policy on DNA collection from minors and about the legal implications of masked ICE officers detaining people without identifying themselves.
Republican leaders held the hearing about unaccompanied children at a time when the Trump administration is using all of its levers of power to detain and deport people at an increased pace. There was a 268% increase in average daily arrests in June 2025 compared to June 2024 and 8,100 people have been deported to countries that are not their home countries, a Guardian analysis found. The megabill that became law earlier this month includes more funding for detention centers for single adults and families.
U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) said of the Trump administration’s immigration policy, “You traumatize children with the threat of disappearing their parents. You traumatize children by disappearing their parents.”
Pressley added that the use of the word “alien” in the hearing’s name was dehumanizing to unaccompanied kids.
“You are literally attacking children. I cannot take seriously anyone who is using othering language to bully babies and toddlers,” she said.
The Trump administration and Republicans in Congress have claimed that they are trying to find unaccompanied children and keep better information on their whereabouts to protect them from trafficking and other crimes.
But many immigration advocates say actions such as ICE and other law enforcement’s welfare checks on children are just another way to target undocumented immigrants for detainment and deportation. In a request for National Guard support, DHS said it needed assistance for the location and transportation of unaccompanied kids across states, but it did not get into further detail on those plans, NBC News reported in June.
Democrats spoke of reports on DNA collection for migrant children, the much higher deportation rate for kids under 11 (74.5% in May versus 45% in January), and a case where a 4-year-old girl with a serious medical condition had her humanitarian parole terminated and was threatened with deportation. After the public learned of her case, the girl and her mother were notified that they would be allowed to receive parole again for one year.
Pressley spoke to Cuffari about a Georgetown Law project that found DHS was expanding a program to take people’s DNA, which began under President Donald Trump, and that people of all ages have had their DNA taken, often as a result of intimidation. This DNA collection includes at least one 4-year-old.
She asked Cuffari if he “heard about the DHS policy of collecting the DNA of children,” to which he said he believed there was no policy to collect children’s DNA.
After Pressley continued to ask him about the collection of children’s DNA, he said, “We did a report on the matter you’re discussing,” to which Pressley replied, “I thought you weren’t aware of it?”
He said, “It isn’t a policy.”
Rep. Wesley Bell (D-MO) asked Cuffari if he was aware of people posing as ICE agents to falsely imprison immigrants or others, pull cars over and rob them in Philadelphia, Houston, and Martin County, Florida. He said he was familiar with some of the reports.
“When people are walking around with masks and identifying themselves as law enforcement agents and more specifically ICE agents, that’s problematic, isn’t it?” Bell asked.
Cuffari responded, “For whom?”
“The person who’s there, the victim, whomever,” Bell said. “So let me ask you this. You don’t think it’s a problem when someone who might be inclined to rob someone to kidnap them, steal someone, now they know that they can put a mask on and claim to be ICE and people won’t know?”
Cuffari dodged the question and asked, “Without proper identification?”
When Bell asked whether it’s his testimony that ICE agents need to properly identify themselves, he said, “That’s a decision by the Department of Homeland Security.”
Bell went on to describe the possible legal problems that a person detained by ICE would encounter if they attempted to resist arrest by someone they doubted was an ICE agent only to find out they were an actual ICE agent.
Cuffari refused to talk about what could happen in “hypothetical” situations.
Republicans at the hearing emphasized what they saw as a need for greater authority and resources for ICE to track children, as recommended by a March report released by Cuffari’s office. The Trump administration has already agreed to all of the report’s recommendations.
Although Republicans at the hearing blamed the Biden administration for not being able to locate migrant children — a common refrain from Republicans in Congress and from the Trump administration — the reality is a bit more complicated.
Many of these claims are connected to ICE not serving notices for children to appear in court and kids failing to show up for immigration court dates, which included years that Trump was president.
Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) continued to use the term “aliens” and “illegals” as she claimed the Biden administration’s immigration policies led to violence and sexual abuse, even though research does not support the idea that immigrants commit crimes at higher rates than native-born Americans.
Mace said of a South Carolina sheriff she accused of releasing detainees, “She was letting out illegals who were rapists, murderers, pedophiles, that sort of thing.”
Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO), who is on the committee but did not question Cuffari on Wednesday, has criticized mayors in cities she deems “sanctuary cities,” or cities that don’t work closely with immigration enforcement.
Boebert stated in March, “Our state cannot afford to continue supporting sanctuary city policies; changes must be made and if they won’t happen at the state and local level, I will work directly with the Trump Administration to elicit changes from the federal level.”
In May, the U.S. Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against the city of Denver and Colorado, claiming that “sanctuary” laws are in violation of the Constitution.
Despite some of the inflammatory rhetoric on immigration that came from Republicans during the hearing, there is some bipartisan support for the Dignity Act, introduced on July 15, which would allow undocumented immigrants who entered the U.S. before December 31, 2020, a path to temporary legal status without the threat of removal for seven years. The bill, which Rep. Gabe Evans (R-CO) supports, also includes improvements to border infrastructure, increased ICE accountability and bumps up pay for Border Patrol agents.
The Republican support for an immigration reform bill that provides a path to legal status comes as new public opinion polls show a shift in how Americans view immigration. The percentage of Americans who say they want immigration reduced dropped to 30% in a recent Gallup poll after reaching 55% in 2024.
