Homan: Every American’s Mission Is Finding the Missing Children

By Colonel Rob Maness
March 14, 2025

Over 300,000 migrant children have vanished into the shadows of our own country under the Biden-Harris administration, according to an August DHS report. That number’s likely closer to half a million when you count those who slipped through untracked. This isn’t just a statistic; it’s a crisis of human souls—children lost to trafficking, forced labor, and predators. It’s a failure of our government that demands every American’s attention.

On a recent episode of The Rob Maness Show, I sat down with John Thaler, an Arizona attorney who knows this issue inside and out—both professionally and personally, as a parent whose own son was abducted. Together, we peeled back the layers of this national disgrace. What we uncovered is a system so broken, so corrupted by politics and apathy, that it’s left kids defenseless against cartels, traffickers, and a sophisticated underground network profiting off their misery.

A Border Crisis Turned Human Tragedy

Let’s be clear: this didn’t happen by accident. The Biden-Harris administration’s open-border policies didn’t just invite chaos—they rolled out the red carpet for it. Over 500,000 children have been trafficked into the U.S., many released to unvetted “sponsors” without so much as a DNA check to confirm they’re family. John Thaler put it bluntly: they stopped the DNA program and slashed vetting to dodge the optics of overcrowding. If there’s no overcrowding, there’s no crisis—at least in their minds. But the reality? Hundreds of thousands of kids are now missing, many in sex trafficking rings, forced labor, or living with predators. President Trump has vowed to find them, and he’s right to make it a priority. But as Tom Holman, former acting DHS secretary, told me, it’s a Herculean task—kids don’t leave digital footprints like adults do.

John shed light on another chilling angle: this isn’t just a southern border problem. Sure, the cartels exploit our porous boundary with Mexico, renting kids to adults to game the system—some crossing multiple times, as border guards have witnessed. But the northern border with Canada is a pipeline too, funneling Asian children through British Columbia ports like Vancouver, then down into the U.S. And don’t forget the West Coast—container ships sneak kids into San Francisco and Oakland, bribing corrupt port officials to look the other way. These kids, often lured by promises of work from desperate poverty, end up as slaves—domestic or sexual—in a trafficking industry raking in $150 billion annually in the U.S. alone.

The Underground Railroad of Modern Slavery

What struck me most in our conversation was how organized this is. John described a network of stash houses—suburban homes in places like Phoenix, bought with cartel cash through front couples who never live there. These aren’t gangbangers flashing colors; they’re quiet, calculated operators hiding in plain sight. Deporting gang members like Tren de Aragua won’t dismantle this—it’s bigger than that. It’s a business, and it’s everywhere. Las Vegas, John noted, is the human trafficking capital of America, where troubled teens vanish from hotel pools and arcades, lured online or snatched outright.

The scale is astronomical, and our resources? Pathetic. John was frank: we don’t have the manpower, money, or logistics to find these kids, let alone recover them or heal them once we do. Groups like Saving Innocence in L.A. are doing heroic work to counsel survivors, but they’re a drop in the bucket. Law enforcement, especially at the state and local level, is woefully undertrained. One audience member, a former cop, asked what can be done. John’s answer: better databases, task forces that talk to each other across state lines, and education on the signs—like kids who don’t play outside or speak the same language as their “parents.”

America’s Mission: Deputize Every Citizen

Tom Holman’s been pounding this drum, and I’m with him 100%: this is America’s mission. We can’t rely on bureaucrats or underfunded agencies alone. We need to deputize every citizen—every parent, neighbor, teacher—to be our eyes and ears. Dr. Phil, of all people, hit the nail on the head recently: teach people what to look for—a forlorn child, constant traffic at a house, a kid hauling laundry in a hotel who’s too young for the job. If it doesn’t look right, it probably isn’t. Make a call to the ICE tip line or your local PD. The left will scream about false reports, but if one call in a thousand saves a child, it’s worth it.

We’ve got to start at the source too—teaching kids in Central and South America, even Asia, how to signal for help before they’re trafficked. Once they’re in the system, the damage—physical, psychological—can scar them for life. I’ve seen it in POW training: the initial capture is your best shot at escape. Same principle here. Catch these kids before the pros lock them into the underground railroad.

A Call to Crush This Evil

This is slavery—plain and simple. Those “rape trees” Senator Cruz exposed, strung with girls’ underwear and abortion pill wrappers, are a testament to the brutality these kids endure just to reach our border. Then we lose them to a system that shrugs and moves on. It’s infuriating that we know demand spikes at events like the Scottsdale PGA tournament, yet we still can’t end it. Every American—especially Black Americans whose ancestors fought chains—should be beside themselves to crush this.

President Trump’s team, with Holman at the helm, is gearing up for a massive deportation operation and a hunt for these kids. I’m hopeful it’ll build permanent infrastructure—national and state task forces, real-time databases, and a border security system that doesn’t just catch traffickers but stops them cold. But it’ll take all of us. Check out John Thaler’s work at themckinleyproject.org—he’s fighting for these kids every day. This isn’t a partisan issue; it’s a moral one. Our country’s future hangs on whether we save these children. Let’s get to work.