Inter-American Commission on Human Rights Holds Public Hearing on Exploitation & Trafficking of Mexican Unaccompanied Children Deported to Southern Mexico

Washington D.C. — Yesterday, human rights organizations, Integral Human Rights in Action (DHIA), the Working Group on Migration Policy (GTPM), the Hope Border Institute (HOPE), and Human Rights First (HRF) participated in a public hearing held by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), as part of the IACHR’s 196th session held in Washington, D.C. focused on the dire human rights situation for unaccompanied Mexican children deported by the U.S. government to southern Mexico.

Our organizations highlighted how increased border restrictions and diminished access to the U.S. asylum system have benefited criminal networks in Mexico, exacerbating the exploitation of migrants and asylum seekers through violent and coercive means, including human trafficking and kidnapping. The hearing focused on how these restrictions and a new opaque migration agreement between the Mexican and U.S. governments have led to extreme risk for Mexican unaccompanied children returned to Mexico from the United States.

“Limited access to asylum at the U.S.- Mexico border places people directly in harm's way and creates an environment in which organized crime profits off people seeking safety. In this context, vulnerable Mexican children are systematically trafficked and exposed to danger,” said Savi Arvey, Director of Policy, Refugee & Immigrant Rights, at Human Rights First. “In yesterday’s hearing, Human Rights First joined our partners in decrying the harms caused by the Trump administration’s deportations of children to southern Mexico, and reminding both the Mexican and U.S. governments of their binding duties to protect the rights and safety of unaccompanied children.”

Criminal networks routinely forcibly recruit Mexican children, especially those from marginalized northern areas of Mexico near the U.S. border. This practice has been formally recognized by the Mexican government as a form of human trafficking.

In December 2025, the U.S. government began deporting unaccompanied Mexican children by air to southern Mexico, stranding them hundreds of miles from home without family support. Since then, more than 350 children from other areas of Mexico have been deported to southern Mexico, where they have been vulnerable to organized crime. Alarming reports have already emerged regarding the disappearance of deported children. Previously, when Mexican children were returned from the United States to Mexico, they were referred to Mexican Child Protection Services within their home jurisdictions to ensure their rights were reinstated.

Human Rights First calls on the U.S. government to immediately halt this practice and ensure that all children are protected, in line with the United States’ and Mexico’s binding legal obligations to unaccompanied children.