"When President Trump called me to come back from retirement, he told me they wanted me to do three things—secure the border, run the largest deportation operation the country's seen, and third, find over 300,000 missing children. And that was priority one," Homan said in a Sept. 18 interview with Fox News.

"So, they've already located just under 25,000. Some of these children were fine, with parents just hiding because they didn't want to be deported."

"But many were in sex trafficking. Many we found in forced labor, slavery. I mean forced to work ungodly hours, not going to school," he said.

They were "not getting paid, being abused."

Homan said he and President Donald Trump are committed to looking for these missing children and "run down the leads" until every one of them is found.

"And unfortunately, 27 of these children have since died. So, we're not giving up. This is the main priority for the Trump administration. We'll keep going at it," he said.

In November 2024, after Trump's election, Homan said that his agency would prioritize locating or rescuing the 300,000 illegal immigrant children.

An August 2024 report from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Office of Inspector General (OIG) found that 323,000 illegal immigrant children were unaccounted for in the United States. These were children who illegally entered the United States and are considered at risk of exploitation.

As of May 2024, this included more than 32,000 children who were served notices to appear in court but failed to do so. In addition, the safety of another 291,000 children could not be verified, the report said.