Posts claim ICE is removing foster children for deportation. Here's what we know
A report published by the Miami Herald (archived) on June 11, 2025, said child welfare authorities in Florida turned over a 17-year-old Honduran foster child to ICE agents. However, the Herald's reporting relied on information from anonymous sources, so Snopes was unable to replicate it.
The Florida Department of Children and Families provided the following statement to Snopes via email: "The individual referenced in your inquiry has been in the care of the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement (U.S. ORR). The individual absconded and, due to his actions, was intercepted by Florida law enforcement. The Florida Department of Children and Families may provide temporary care but must work with all partners to return the individual to the appropriate legal custody, which in this case was U.S. ORR."
ICE had not responded to Snopes' request for comment at the time of this writing. A White House spokesperson provided a statement addressing its efforts to "conduct welfare checks" on migrant children "to ensure they are not being exploited and to reunite them with their families when possible." However, they did not directly address the claims about federal agents removing foster children for deportation.
Videos that circulated on social media in June 2025 claimed U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement was removing undocumented children from their foster homes for deportation.
One of the earliest iterations of the claim was shared on TikTok (archived) on June 10, 2025, with overlaid text that read, "Foster Children Removed for Deportation." In that video, which has garnered more than 800,000 likes and 100,000 shares as of this writing, a user said:
It's time to speak up. ICE is now removing undocumented foster children from their foster homes. Removing foster children from their foster homes for deportation.
Several Instagram (archived) users (archived) shared the video on their accounts, while other (archived) users (archived) on social media used the audio as voiceover in their posts. Snopes readers also emailed us and searched our site looking for information about the claim.
At the time of this writing, Snopes found a report published by the Miami Herald (archived) on June 11, 2025, that said child welfare authorities in Florida turned over a 17-year-old foster child to ICE agents.
The Herald's reporting relied on information from anonymous sources, so Snopes was unable to replicate it. The Herald's deputy investigations editor, who worked on the story, told Snopes via email, "As the story indicates, support for our reporting includes sources whom we are unable to name, and a document we are not at liberty to share."
ICE had not responded to Snopes' request for comment at the time of this writing.
A White House spokesperson provided a statement addressing the administration's efforts to "conduct welfare checks" on migrant children "to ensure they are not being exploited and to reunite them with their families when possible." However, they did not directly address the claims about federal agents removing foster children for deportation.
The statement read:
Under the Biden Administration, countless migrant children were illegally smuggled and sex trafficked across the wide-open Southern Border. Not only did the Biden Administration allow this to happen, but once the children arrived to the U.S., Biden's Administration lost track of tens of thousands of them. DHS is leading efforts to conduct welfare checks on these children to ensure they are not being exploited and to reunite them with their families when possible. Unlike the Biden Administration, the Trump Administration takes the safety of these children seriously.
In response to Snopes' questions about the teen referenced in the Herald report, the Florida Department of Children and Families provided the following statement via email:
The individual referenced in your inquiry has been in the care of the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement (U.S. ORR). The individual absconded and, due to his actions, was intercepted by Florida law enforcement. The Florida Department of Children and Families may provide temporary care but must work with all partners to return the individual to the appropriate legal custody, which in this case was U.S. ORR.
The Florida agency did not confirm whether the teen was in foster care at the time, as the Herald reported.
In its story, the Herald reported that a 17-year-old Honduran boy was removed from his foster home in Pensacola, Florida, "in handcuffs and shackles" and "transferred immediately into ICE custody." He and his mother "had crossed the southwest border into the U.S. without permission," sources told the newspaper.
According to the Herald, the teen traveled from Texas to Pensacola in search of work after being separated from his mother, who was later deported. The report said, in part:
He entered foster care after he was found living in a shed with no source of food, shelter or income, records show. The boy, whose first name is Henry, also may have been a victim of labor trafficking. The Herald is not fully naming him to protect his privacy.
The decision to alert immigration authorities to Henry's status as an undocumented migrant is at odds with decades of child welfare practice in Florida – and it appears to violate a 30-year-old state Department of Children and Families rule that prohibits workers from acting upon a child's status.
Republican Florida state Sen. Ileana Garcia, who co-founded the group Latinas for Trump but has openly criticized the president's immigration policies, declined to name the child but told the Herald she is "concerned his case may be part of a larger pattern in which children in the state's foster care system could be picked up at the homes of their foster parents by federal immigration authorities," the newspaper reported.
In a post on X (archived) on June 9, 2025, Garcia wrote:
Stephen Miller has made it a point to include undocumented minors in foster care, many of whom are victims of human trafficking, in his efforts to fulfill a desperate weekly quota of deportations. These individuals are being picked up at the homes of foster parents. This is unacceptable! Regardless of their citizenship status.
Miller serves as the White House's deputy chief of staff. The White House did not directly address any of Garcia's allegations.
Garcia told the Herald she could "only provide specifics about the Pensacola case," according to the newspaper. Snopes reached out to Garcia via phone and email to ask for additional information about such incidences and evidence corroborating her claim. We will update this story if we receive a response.
Lawyers told the Herald it had been years since they had heard about Florida child welfare agencies, such as the Department of Children and Families, notifying ICE about children in their custody, the newspaper reported.
The Herald report also documented Henry's journey to the United States and his time in Pensacola. Henry, whose father is dead, was 13 when he crossed the border with his mother. A source told the Herald that he was initially released into his uncle's custody, though details about his early time in the U.S. aren't entirely clear, according to the newspaper.
Henry moved in with his mother at some point before she was arrested in Texas and ultimately deported to Honduras. He made it to Pensacola, where his brother lived, and ended up working for $10 a day. Henry "ran away" when he "realized he was being overworked," and may also have been a victim of labor trafficking, records obtained by the Herald show.
In November 2024, a report made to the Department of Children and Families' child welfare hotline alleged Henry was homeless and "did not have a caregiver available," the Herald reported. He was briefly placed with a local family before leaving over disagreements about a visitor and sleeping arrangements, according to the newspaper.
The state agency filed a petition in April 2025 asking a judge to designate Henry as a dependent of the state and he was then placed in foster care, the newspaper reported.
According to sources who spoke to the Herald, a DCF administrator reported Henry to ICE on June 6. Three days later, ICE agents took him from his foster home "in handcuffs and leg irons," a source told the Herald.
Henry is now in the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement, as DCF mentioned in its statement to Snopes. He does not have a deportation order, according to a source who spoke to the Herald.
The Herald also reported that the Department of Children and Families' decision to report Henry to ICE appears to conflict with state policy.
DCF passed a governing procedure in 1995 called the Undocumented Child Rule, which "requires the agency to screen and respond to child abuse hotline calls 'without regard to the immigration status' of the child or family at the center of the report," the Herald reported.
According to the Herald, the rule reads, in part: "No such status check or other contact shall be made for the purpose of seeking the child's or the family's detention by [immigration authorities] or the initiation or resumption of deportation or exclusion proceedings against the child or the child's family, irrespective of the outcome of the dependency proceeding. No Department of Children and Family Services staff member may attempt to place any alien child in [immigration] custody."
A Florida legal expert told the Herald that "DCF appears to have violated that rule by reporting Henry to ICE."
The state agency did not address Snopes' question about allegations that it violated the Undocumented Child Rule.
ICE typically does not detain unaccompanied children. Instead, the "responsibilities related to the care and custody of unaccompanied undocumented children" falls under the Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Refugee Resettlement, according to ICE's website.
The person referenced in Snopes' inquiry "has been in the care of" ORR, the Florida Department of Children and Families said in its emailed statement.
Under federal law, the ORR is required to "feed, shelter and provide medical care for unaccompanied alien children until it is able to release them to safe settings with sponsors (usually family members), while they await immigration proceedings," according to the website for the federal Administration for Children and Families.
All sponsors must pass background checks and agree to ensure the child attends their immigration proceedings. They also have to agree to "ensure the minor reports to ICE for removal from the United States if an immigration judge issues a removal order or voluntary departure order," according to the ACF.
Miller, Carol Marbin, et al. "Florida Child Welfare Agency Calls ICE on Teen Migrant in Foster Care, Sparking Criticism." Miami Herald, 11 June 2025, www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/state-politics/article308254995.html. Accessed 19 June 2025.
Kochi, Sudiksha. "'Unacceptable and Inhumane': Latinas for Trump Founder Blasts Immigration Arrests." USA TODAY, 9 June 2025, www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/06/09/latinas-for-trump-immigration-arrests/84115411007/. Accessed 19 June 2025.
Syra Ortiz Blanes. "'Inhumane:' Latinas for Trump Founder Condemns White House Immigration Crackdown." Miami Herald, 7 June 2025, www.miamiherald.com/news/local/immigration/article308111995.html. Accessed 19 June 2025.
X (Formerly Twitter), 9 June 2025, x.com/IleanaGarciaUSA/status/1932112429460128048. Accessed 19 June 2025.
"Detention Management." Www.ice.gov, www.ice.gov/detain/detention-management. Accessed 19 June 2025.
"Unaccompanied Alien Children Released to Sponsors by State." Acf.gov, 10 Jan. 2025, acf.gov/orr/grant-funding/unaccompanied-children-released-sponsors-state. Accessed 19 June 2025.
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