Fact Check: Border Myths on Sex Trafficking, Guns, Drugs, and MS-13
“13, 000 kids are sex trafficked across the border every single year or millions of guns or that 90% of our of heroin and fentanyl in this country come across the southern border or that MS-13 in America is growing which is predominantly illegal immigrants?”
Summary
There is no credible evidence that 13,000 children are sex‑trafficked across the U.S. southern border each year; official estimates cite about 20,000 women and children trafficked overall, without specifying that figure or confirming it as sex trafficking. No reliable data confirm that millions of guns or 90 % of the nation’s heroin and fentanyl enter through the southern border. Likewise, there is no substantiated evidence that MS‑13 is expanding in the United States and is primarily composed of illegal immigrants. All of these claims are unsubstantiated.
Sources 60 searched
- DHS initiative uncovers widespread abuse, exploitation of unaccompanied kids placed with previously improperly vetted sponsors | ICE
Special agents discovered sponsors in possession of child sexual abuse material, those who had forced minors into labor, and those who subjected them to living conditions that constituted neglect. They also discovered numerous sponsors who committed serious crimes, including offenses of hit-and-run, aggravated assault, larceny, counterfeiting, drug trafficking, prostitution and even attempted murder.
- Under Biden, Child Trafficking Soared. The One Big Beautiful Bill Helps Prevent Another Humanitarian Crisis.
President Biden had a responsibility to place migrant children with vetted sponsors. Yet his administration reportedly lost track of 320,000 migrant children who faced the threat of abuse, sexual exploitation, and forced labor.
- 2023 Trafficking in Persons Report - United States Department of State
In the case of child sex trafficking, ... to commercial sex. Neither U.S. law nor international law requires that a trafficker or victim move across a border for a human trafficking offense to take place....
- 2025 Trafficking in Persons Report - United States Department of State
In the case of child sex trafficking, ... commercial sex acts. Neither U.S. law nor international law requires that a trafficker or victim move across a border for a human trafficking offense to take place....
- 2024 Trafficking in Persons Report - United States Department of State
Reports from several countries demonstrated drastic increases in online commercial sexual exploitation and sex trafficking, including online sexual exploitation of children (OSEC), and demand for and distribution of child sexual abuse material (CSAM). Traffickers have continued to advance schemes to exploit individuals using digital tools to groom, deceive, control, and exploit victims. Some of these schemes lure individuals hundreds of miles away, including across borders, while others do not require them to leave their homes.
- How a Question About Migrant Children Morphed Into a Trump Talking Point - The New York Times
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.
- Human trafficking in Mexico - Wikipedia
Child sex tourism continues to ... like Tijuana and Ciudad Juárez. Between 2000 and 2002, approximately 135,000 children in Mexico were kidnapped, presumably for exploitation in prostitution, pornography, or illegal adoption trafficking....
- Human trafficking in the United States - Wikipedia
David Finkelhor, a University of ... According to the United States Department of State an estimated 20,000 women and children are trafficked into the United States each year by crossing the Mexico–United States border......
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