Sponsors (12)
The bill strengthens identification, data‑sharing, reporting, and federal enforcement tools to detect and prosecute child trafficking and improve placement decisions for unaccompanied children, but it also expands biometric collection and enforcement authority in ways that create significant privacy, civil‑liberty, criminalization, and cost risks for vulnerable children, families, and migrants.
Children who are unaccompanied or suspected trafficking victims will be fingerprinted so authorities can identify victims, link them to protective services, and improve evidence for trafficking investigations and prosecutions.
The bill clarifies DHS/CBP responsibility and establishes federal standards (including a new statute) that standardize enforcement and interagency procedures across jurisdictions, improving coordination in cross-border child-exploitation cases.
HHS having access to biometric records for transferred unaccompanied children enables background checks, prevents duplicate records, and can improve placement and medical decisions to reduce placement with unsuitable sponsors.
Children and their families may have biometric data collected, shared, and reported without consent, creating substantial privacy and civil‑liberties risks and chilling trust and cooperation with care providers.
Expanded mandatory fingerprinting and increased DHS/CBP authority over minors raise risks of misuse or mission creep, including using biometric data for immigration enforcement against children or families.
Collecting and retaining biometric records creates long‑term data‑security and administrative risks (breaches, improper access, retention), and increases operational costs for DHS/HHS that fall to taxpayers.
Based on analysis of 5 sections of legislative text.
Requires CBP to fingerprint children under 14 suspected of trafficking, shares those fingerprints with HHS for unaccompanied children, creates a new federal crime for adults using nonrelative minors to enter, and mandates reporting.
Requires U.S. Customs and Border Protection to collect fingerprints from any child under age 14 who enters the United States when an officer suspects the child is a victim of human trafficking, and to follow federal trafficking-victim standards when doing so. Creates a new federal crime carrying up to 10 years in prison and/or fines for any adult (18+) who knowingly uses a minor who is not a close relative or guardian to gain entry into the United States. Also requires DHS to share those fingerprints with HHS for unaccompanied children transferred to HHS custody, to report annually to Congress on the number of minors fingerprinted, and to publish monthly counts of apprehensions involving adults who falsely claimed a child was a close relative.
Introduced January 9, 2025 by Marsha Blackburn · Last progress January 9, 2025